article critique

Running Head: ARTICLE ANALYSIS & CRITIQUE 1

PAD 5233 Article Analysis & Critique

Mary E. Yearwood

The University of Texas at San Antonio

ARTICLE ANALYSIS & CRITIQUE 2

Introduction

The article “Do Immigrant Minority Parents Have More Consistent College Aspirations

for Their Children” attempts to analyze the importance immigrant parents of various races place

on a four-year college degree for their children. Collegiate aspirations are related to the families’

levels of acculturation as well as the consistency of parents’ educational optimism (Raleigh &

Kao, 2010). The goal of the study is to research the differences in educational aspiration among

minority immigrants versus native-born minorities and how immigrant parents’ levels of

educational aspiration vary by levels of acculturation (Raleigh & Kao, 2010).

Research Question

The research question the authors propose is, “Do immigrant minority parents have more

consistent college aspirations for their children?” (Raleigh & Kao, 2010). This research question

explains the main question being analyzed in the study. Additional questions the study analyzes

include: “Do immigrant parents with higher levels of acculturation have less consistent college

aspirations for their children than their newly-immigrated peers;” “Do immigrant minority

parents’ levels of educational aspiration for their children decrease over time;” “Do immigrant

minority parents’ college aspirations for their children decrease as their levels of acculturation

increase.”

Study Motivation

The authors offer several reasons as motivation for pursuing this research. They state

that, “Children of immigrants are the fastest growing group of school children,” and that

“educational aspirations are an important predictor of eventual attainment” (Raleigh & Kao,

2010). Raleigh and Kao assert that parents’ hopes for their children are a form of

“intergenerational social capital” that drives children toward academic goals (2010). Children


become vicarious embodiments for their parents own educational desires and the ability to

“make it” in the land of opportunity. The authors also cite the few previous studies reviewing

educational aspirations among minority parents, but no long-term studies previously existed

comparing minority immigrant parents to native-born minority parents. Previous research also

focused largely on older students, whereas Raleigh and Koa’s study dealt with elementary age

children (2010).

Raleigh and Kao’s focus on younger children and minority immigrant populations gives

the research greater focus. Their study is relevant as it intends to learn more about children’s

academic motivations before they begin to prepare to enter college. Since such preparations tend

to begin in secondary school, it is important to study motivations regarding collegiate aspirations

while the students are in elementary school. The separation of minority immigrants from native-

born minorities also helps to more closely analyze whether higher education is taken for granted

by native-born Americans.

Hypotheses

Raleigh and Kao do not enumerate their hypotheses for this study. They simply list their

methods, variables, data, and conclusions.

Variables and Measures

Raleigh and Kao used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten

Cohort, which tracked children in three series of interview and included children of minority and

immigrant parents. To measure educational aspirations, they asked, “How far in school do you

expect your child to go?” and this is the dependent variable (Raleigh & Kao, 2010). The

researches categorized based on immigrant status if either parent was born out of the United

States. They then categorized by the race of the child, although 95% of the time, the child’s race


matched that of the mother (Raleigh & Kao, 2010). They controlled for socioeconomic status

(income), the mothers’ levels of education, child disability, number of siblings, and family

structure, which could be spurious reasons for the parents not having aspirations for their

children to attend college (Raleigh & Kao, 2010). The researchers also did not use data that was

missing information on the parents’ immigration status or educational aspirations for their

children (Raleigh & Kao, 2010).

Model and Analysis

Raleigh and Kao used existing data for their research and simply analyzed it based on the

questions they were researching. They used the question of how far the parents expected their

children to go academically as the dependent variables, and this question was repeated in

interviews with the same parents when the children were in kindergarten, third grade, and fifth

grade to test for consistency (Raleigh & Kao, 2010). The researchers characterized the data

according to race (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian), and from there by immigration status (native,

immigrant).

Results

Few parents held consistently high collegiate aspirations for their children across all

grade levels, according to Raleigh and Kao (2010). Although parents all had high academic

hopes for their children initially, those hopes were difficult to maintain (Raleigh & Kao, 2010).

Raleigh and Kao did report that the academic aspirations among immigrant parents (versus

native-born parents) were higher overall and remained consistently higher (Raleigh & Kao,

2010). The researchers found that among immigrants, levels of aspiration did not decrease over

time, though among native-born parents, they did tend to decrease over time (Raleigh & Kao,

2010). Raleigh and Kao also explored the differing levels of academic aspiration among the


different ethnicities (2010). “Immigrant parents,” Raleigh and Kao state, “ regardless of race or

ethnicity, have higher odds than native white parents of having stable college aspirations for their

children across the three time periods” (2010, p. 1097). The researchers also found that parents

who regularly spoke a language besides English in the home had, “more than twice the odds of

maintaining high college aspirations for their children compared with parents who speak English

in the home” (2010, p. 1098). Other than the language factor, Raleigh and Kao found

acculturation levels to be insignificant (2010).

Discussion and Assessment

I found this research study to be very interesting and relevant to our educational system.

The main problem I had with this study was that there was no clear hypothesis at all. I also felt

that, although the introductory information indicated that there was going to be an analysis of

whether new immigrants had differing educational aspirations from their peers, this was not

developed fully. There was exploration into the levels of acculturation and how this affected

levels of aspiration, but it was not related to how long immigrants had been in the country, or if it

was, this was not explained. Also, how were levels of acculturation measured? It was clear that

Raleigh and Kao deemed English speaking in the home to be a measure of acculturation, but

there must be other measureable factors if that is an area to be studied. This is probably an area

for further study, and I think the data Raleigh and Kao were using was probably not sufficient to

answer questions regarding levels of acculturation in addition to all the other questions in the

study. This was something I found lacking in the study.


References

Raleigh, E., & Kao, G. (2010). Do immigrant minority parents have more consistent college

aspirations for their children? Social Science Quaterly, 91(4) , pp. 1083-1102.

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