The Decade of Immigrant Dispersion and Growth: A Cohort Analysis of Children of Immigrants' Educational Experiences 1990-2002.

The 1990s marked the beginning of a new era of immigration in terms of volume and settlement patterns and also witnessed significant changes in the social contexts confronting immigrants. These changes could have significant repercussions for immigrant youth. While previous research on high school dropout behavior suggests immigrant youth are faring better in US schools, our research provides a less optimistic outlook. Using the National Educational Longitudinal Study (1988) and Educational Longitudinal Study (2002), we use multivariate analysis, regression decomposition and fixed effect models to examine how reading and math test scores of children of immigrants changed during the 1990s.

Neither colorblind nor oppositional: perceived minority status and trajectories of academic adjustment among Latinos in elite higher education.

As more Latinos experience upward social mobility, it is increasingly necessary to challenge oppositional cultural assumptions to explain how perceived minority status barriers may influence their academic achievement. The present study builds on previous work that identified 3 distinct minority status orientations among Latino college students entering elite colleges-which the authors call assimilation, accommodation, and resistance. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, the authors examined how these orientations influence Latino students' academic and social adjustment from their freshman to junior years of college. Latino students who most strongly questioned the openness of the opportunity structure to ethnic minorities-resisters-reported similar grades and time spent studying as their counterparts who perceived less ethnic and racial inequities. In addition, resisters did not disengage from their social environment but rather became increasingly involved in campus activities outside the classroom during their college career. Implications for understanding ethnic minority individuals' interpretations of social stratification in well-resourced, high-achieving contexts are discussed.

Profiles of Latino adaptation at elite colleges and universities.

Drawing on frameworks of blocked opportunity, social identity, and immigrant adaptation processes, we tested competing hypotheses about Latino achievement, focusing on variation in the ways in which Latino students at elite colleges perceive and navigate minority status. Using data from 916 participants in the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, cluster analyses identify three profiles of perceived opportunity and social exclusion. Students in the assimilation profile do not believe minority status impacts opportunity. Those in the accommodation profile believe unequal opportunity can be overcome by individual effort. Finally, students in the resistance profile are most skeptical about opportunity for minorities, and these students also report more on-campus ethnic prejudice than their peers. As freshmen, perceived prejudice predicted lower grades only for students in the accommodation profile; however, accommodators later report higher academic achievement than resisters as sophomores. We discuss the conceptual utility of examining multiple beliefs about opportunity in concert.