The academic adaptation of children of immigrants in new and traditional settlement communities: The role of family, schools, neighborhoods, and state level-policies

This dissertation evaluates how the different contexts of reception in new and traditional immigrant settlement states shape the educational achievement of immigrants' children. The first essay examines how individual, family, school, and neighborhood academic resources differ between new and traditional settlement states and whether these differences contribute to diverging achievement patterns. The second essay examines how the relationship between settlement location and student achievement changed over time as more immigrants arrived and dispersed throughout the 1990s. This essay examines how socio-demographic, family, school, and neighborhood characteristics contributed to differing cohort achievement patterns for each settlement location. The third essay assesses how variation in immigration policies across these states contributes to the unequal academic achievement of immigrant youth. Specifically, the essay investigates whether traditional and new settlement states can reduce the dropout rate for their undocumented immigrant population by adopting in-state resident tuition policies that provide in-state tuition to undocumented students. In combination, this three essay dissertation provides policymakers and educators with critical information on how state-level policies and the characteristics of settlement communities influence the academic achievement of a growing and geographically dispersed immigrant population

Depression and Anxiety Among First-Generation Immigrant Latino Youth: Key Correlates and Implications for Future Research

We examined how the migration and acculturation experiences of first-generation Latino youth contributed to their psychological well-being. Data came from the Latino Adolescent Migration, Health, and Adaptation (LAMHA) study, which surveyed 281 first-generation Latino immigrant youth, ages 12–19. Using logistic regression, we evaluated how migration stressors (i.e. traumatic events, choice of migration, discrimination, and documentation status) and migration supports (i.e. family and teacher support, acculturation, and personal-motivation) were associated with depressive symptoms and anxiety. We found that migration stressors increased the risk of both depressive symptoms and anxiety. Time in the US and support from family and teachers reduced the risk of depressive symptoms and anxiety. Compared to documented adolescents, undocumented adolescents were at greater risk of anxiety, and children in mixed-status families were at greater risk of anxiety and marginally greater risk of depressive symptoms