Education Outcomes of Immigrant Youth: The Role of Parental Engagement

Using the 2009 to 2012 waves of the High School Longitudinal Survey, this article examines the role of parental engagement in academic achievement in the United States. Specifically, we examine the influence of parental engagement while also investigating the academic trajectories of racial/ethnic and immigrant groups, controlling for other standard factors. Results suggest that the progression of students’ academic performance varies substantially by race/ethnicity and by immigrant generational status. After controlling for ninth-grade test scores and family and other school-level characteristics, we find that first-generation immigrant youth generally have higher eleventh-grade test scores and lower probability of dropping out compared to native-born students who are second or third generation. Greater levels of parental engagement predict superior test scores and lower rates of dropout for youth of various racial and immigrant generation backgrounds, even in the presence of a variety of controls.