Generational Differences in Academic Achievement Among Immigrant Youths

Abstract

Research on generational differences in immigrant youths’ academic achievement has yielded conflicting findings. This meta-analysis reconciles discrepant findings by testing meta-analytic moderators. Fifty-three studies provided 74 comparisons on academic outcomes. First- and second-generation youths did not significantly differ on academic achievement (Hedges’s g = .01), and second-generation students performed slightly better than third-or-later–generation peers (g = .12). Moderation tests indicated that second-generation immigrants outperformed first-generation students on standardized tests (g = .20) and earned better grades than third-or-later–generation peers (g = .20). Immigrant advantage was stronger for Asian, low-socioeconomic, and community samples. Immigrant advantage may be overestimated in studies that use self-reported rather than school-reported achievement. Together, our results suggest a small, heterogeneous second-generation immigrant advantage that varies by immigrant population and study characteristics.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 112 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.