Ethnic Communities and School Performance among the New Second Generation in the United States: Testing the Theory of Segmented Assimilation

Abstract

This article examines the theory of segmented assimilation, which traces the divergent adaptation of immigrant children in the post-1969 wave to the nature of reception by U.S. society, access to social capital through ethnic communities, and exposure to oppositional cultures of marginalized domestic minorities. The article provides a test of those arguments in the area of school performance. Based on data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, indicators of community-based social capital are shown to account for considerable interethnic differences in school performance. The results challenge notions that ethnic communities are generally supportive of the second generation's school performance, while contact with oppositional cultures of domestic minorities is the main cause of lower than average achievement. They support a conditional view of ethnic communities: the extent to which immigrant families' insertion into ethnic communities can support the school performance of their children depends on the communities' socioeconomic profile and level of aspirations.