RESEARCH ARTICLE


Family Matters: Exploring the Complexities of Families of Immigrant Adolescents and Achievement in Four G8 Countries



Martha J. Strickland1, Lee Shumow*, 2
1 Behavioral Sciences and Education, The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, USA
2 Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology & Foundations, Northern Illinois University, USA

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2008
Volume: 1
First Page: 39
Last Page: 48
Publisher Id: TOFAMSJ-1-39
DOI: 10.2174/1874922400801010039

Article History:

Received Date: 31/3/2008
Revision Received Date: 16/6/2008
Acceptance Date: 21/6/2008
Electronic publication date: 30/7/2008
Collection year: 2008

© 2008 Strickland and Shumow;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology & Foundations, Northern Illinois University, USA; E-mail: lshumow@niu.edu


Abstract

This study analyzes the PISA 2003 data to describe the family demographic and educational process characteristics of immigrant adolescents in Canada, France, Germany and the United States of America (USA) and investigates the relationship between family circumstances and the adolescents’ educational success. The four countries are among those that receive the most immigrants, have the highest percentage of foreign born among the total population, and where the discrepancy between the immigrant and native students varies dramatically between countries. Adolescent immigrant students within each country were diverse but different patterns were seen in the family characteristics between Canada, the USA and the European countries. Family demographic and educational process characteristics were related to educational achievement of adolescent immigrant students but the associations varied somewhat between countries. Results are discussed in terms of relevance for educational policy, practice, and future research.