Social Research
Literature Review Assignment Instructions
For this assignment, students will draft a literature review on a topic of their choosing. Each student will write two drafts of the literature review prior to submission of the final paper.
1.
First Draft Literature Review
: For the first draft, students will write one section (i.e., a subtopic or theme) of a literature review utilizing a minimum of three peer-reviewed empirical research articles. This assignment is worth 30 points (see rubric below).
2.
Second Draft of Literature Review
: The second draft will have a minimum of two sections section (i.e., a subtopics or themes) utilizing a minimum of six peer-reviewed empirical research articles. The second draft will undergo an in-class review by a peer during the Fall semester.
3.
Final Literature Review
: The final draft of the paper will be due during Week 12 of the Fall semester. At least six journal articles related to your research question or topic are to be used. This assignment is worth TBD points (see rubric below).
Articles are to be research articles published in 2009 or later and come from scholarly academic journals. Articles that are not empirical research articles from peer-reviewed journals will not receive any points.
Paper Format:
The paper must be typed with double-spaced pages, 1-inch margins, and 12-point Times New Roman font:
· The draft literature review should be approximately 1-2 double spaced pages.
· The final literature review should be a minimum of 3-5 pages, double spaced.
The paper should include headings and be thoroughly edited before submission. Nonprofessional internet references should ordinarily be avoided in preparing academic papers. All citations should utilize the guidelines set forth in the 7th edition of the APA Manual.
· See
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html
for information about formatting your paper based on the APA style.
Writing the Literature Review
The literature review provides the rationale for conducting a research study. It details what is currently known about the research problem/issue that is the focus of your study, and then describes the gaps in our knowledge about this problem/issue (e.g. lack of research in a specific area or conflicting findings). Your review of research and theory is not an annotated bibliography—it is a critical review that analyzes and synthesizes what we know, how we know it (e.g. research methods used in empirical studies, practice wisdom, theoretical writings, etc), and identifies gaps in our knowledge base. This review provides the evidence to support the need for your study (e.g. to address the specific gaps in our knowledge base that are identified through a thorough and critical review of all relevant literature).
The literature review is written according to the themes the group finds in the literature. This section provides background information and lays the groundwork for the proposed research project. Themes may include information about the issue, population, nature and scope of the issue, main theories that may help us to understand the issue, explanations, and background knowledge that was found in the literature. There may be a section that includes promising approaches or programs that address the issue or problem. If there is conflicting information or debates in the literature this is included in this section.
The literature review generally contains three to five central themes or areas. Subheadings can really help organize your thoughts to make smooth transitions between the various themes. The literature review should flow from theme to theme in a logical way. It also condenses what other authors have found, highlights information specific to the proposed research, and lays the groundwork for the project. The writer MUST avoid summarizing individual articles; the literature review is about outlining the themes, not outlining individual articles. The review should be in your words as much as possible, with APA citations used appropriately.
After the literature review has been written a final section or conclusion should be added that pulls as many of your themes together as possible, that summarizes the trends found in a concise manner. Highlight contradictions, debates or uncertainties that were found in the literature. The reader should feel that the literature review has added up to something – that a justification for the current research has been made and that the groundwork has been laid for the study.
Your literature review can follow this general outline:
Title Page
Your title should give the reader a quick and accurate picture of the topic you propose. Center and bold your title at the top of the first page of your proposal. Put your name on the second line and the date on the third (all single-spaced and centered).
Introduction
The introduction is a brief summary description of the topic of the literature review. State your thesis and describe your topic. Explain why it is relevant. Should be approximately 1-2 paragraphs.
Body of the literature review
This section describes the issue/problem/topic and provides a rationale for the literature review. Use only peer-reviewed empirical research sources.
· Sub-topic 1
· What do we know about the problem/issue/topic?
· What do we need to know (what gaps are in the research? What is lacking?)?
· Why is it important that we know it (fill the research gap)? Why now?
· Sub-topic 2
· What do we know about the problem/issue/topic?
· What do we need to know (what gaps are in the research? What is lacking?)?
· Why is it important that we know it (fill the research gap)? Why now?
The Draft Literature review will only have 1-2 sub-topics. The Final Literature Review will be comprised of 3-4 sub-topics.
Conclusion
This section summarizes the key-points of the review. Briefly re-state any agreements and/or disagreements from the literature. Provide your general conclusions.
Here are some general tips for writing your literature review:
1. Have you (re)stated the purpose of your study? Have you established the importance of your topic? Have you discussed the relevance to the agency, program, clients served, etc.?
2. Discussion of the themes from at least
a. Three journal articles on your topic plus additional resources for the draft.
b. Ten journal articles on your topic plus additional resources for the final assignment.
3. Organization of the literature into themes. What are the 3-5 central ideas you are discussing?
4. Clear transitions between paragraphs; or, use of subheadings for each section.
5. Introductory paragraph at the beginning of the review.
6. Concluding and/or summary paragraph at the end of the review.
7. Are there debates in this area of research? What are they?
8. Are there contradictions, uncertainties in the literature? Have you discussed these?
9. Has the literature review added up to something? Has it laid the groundwork for your research project? Have you been thorough in educating the reader about the topic?
10. Is the format appropriate?
11. Is the paper well organized?
12. Have you written in the 3rd person, in a scholarly manner?
13. Has the paper been carefully proofread with care taken with punctuation, spelling, grammar and clarity?
14. Have you clearly expressed your thoughts in writing?
15. Have you used 12-point font, Times New Roman, and double spaced?
16. Has the literature been properly cited both in text and at the end of text using APA format?
Bullying in Schools
Bullying is a serious form of violence in schools across the nation. Since school shootings and bomb threats to schools people have contemplated the serious effects of bullying on children and adolescents. 30 percent of students in grades 6 through 10 have been the victims of bullying or have bullied a peer (Whitted & Dupper 2005). Children of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures are affected by bullying. Bullying causes harmful effects to individuals and the school climate. Parent, teacher, and school involvement are equally important towards ending the harmful effects of bullying. Interventions are a step towards reducing bullying and creating a safe school environment for all children.
Literature Review
Definition of bullying
Defining bullying is an important step in working towards understanding the concept and working on intervention and prevention programs. Bullying is a term that is used that can have various different meanings to different people. Smokowski and Kopasz (2005) point to defining bullying as a type of aggression towards another child or group of children. A power imbalance typically exists between the bully and the victim. Bullying can be viewed as a form of dominance over another person to gain personal power and status (Smokowski and Kopasz 2005). On the other hand, a qualitative study of children in fourth and fifth grades, parents, teachers, and school administrators found that it to be difficult and complex to describe bullying (Mishna 2004). Children and adults stated that a power imbalance and force over someone weaker can define bullying. Intent to harm the other person with name calling, threatening, hitting and being mean defines bullying (Mishna 2004). Lastly, bullying can create a long term pattern of abuse and harassment (Whitted and Dupper, 2005). Harmful behaviors and a power imbalance that are ongoing behaviors are important qualities to defining bullying. Each person will word the definition differently, but with similar concepts bullying can be understood by a large amount of people.
Parent involvement
Parents have impacts on their children in countless ways, and can be a factor in their children being bullies or bullied. In association with school intervention programs, it is important to keep parents involved. Schools can offer training about bullying to parents, keep them informed of rules that their children are learning, and support parents to join the school if they feel their child is being bullied or is a bully (Whitted and Dupper, 2005). Parents should learn what bullying is and the effects on children. Parents should be encouraged to become aware of their views surrounding bullying and their own definition. They should be aware that childrens’ experience surrounding an incident may be different that the parent’s reaction and feelings (Mishna, 2004). Parents can be a supportive figure to a child or they can be unsupportive and uninterested, but parents are a key part to creating anti-bullying environments.
School intervention
Schools have become a place for violence and aggression in the form of bullying. Schools, however, should be a safe environment that fosters healthy development for every student. Various intervention programs focus on different program ideas and components for effective bullying prevention programs. Whitted and Dupper (2005) point out conflict resolution, peer mediation, and increasing self-esteem techniques do not work with bullies. They are working for power and status. In addition to working on an individual case by case basis, working to change the culture of the school is the most effective way to create a bully free environment (Whitted and Dupper 2005). School intervention programs should set firm rules that prohibit bullying where staff and administrators model the rules and behave in a caring and respectful manner (Whitted and Dupper, 2005). A comprehensive program that targets all levels of the school is seen as most effective (Smokowski and Kopasz, 2005). The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, implemented in Norway, set firm nonnegotiable rules not tolerating of bullying behaviors, consistency, appropriate consequences, and adults acting as role models for behavior (Smokowski and Kopasz, 2005). Consistency and firmness in the rules and consequences in schools help to create successful intervention programs. Accountability in following the rules is effective to creating an anti-bullying environment. Students need to know what is expected and held to those standards (Smokowski and Kopasz, 2005). People have personal bias and interpretation of various situations and this can complicate the clear intervention strategy (Mishna, 2004). Creating an anti-bullying school climate includes consistency, role modeling of respectful behaviors, and openness to discussing issues and differences.
Summary
Bullying is a complex definition that requires attention. Anti-bullying programs require schools to for consistency and firmness with the rules and to create an environment where bullying is not tolerated. Children, teachers, administrators, and parents are all key contributors to creating anti-bullying environments.
References
Mishna, F. (2004). A qualitative study of bullying from multiple perspectives. Children &
Schools, 26( 4), 234-247.
Smokowski, P.R. & Kopasz, K. H. (2005). Bullying in school: An overview of the types, effects,
family characteristics, and intervention strategies. Children & Schools, 27(2), 101-110.
Whitted, K.S., & Dupper, D.R. (2005). Best practices for preventing or reducing bullying in
schools. Children &Schools, 27(3), 167-175.
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Search this database…immigrant parents and first generation children
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like this
Chinese
Immigrant Parents’ Reasoning About School Readiness Skills
Sawyer, Brook E
;
Dever, Bridget V
;
Kong, Peggy
;
Sonnenschein, Susan
;
Simons, Cassandra
; et al.
Child & Youth Care Forum
; New York
Vol. 51, Iss. 1,
(Feb 2022): 137-159.
DOI:10.1007/s10566-021-09623-3
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Background
The importance of parental beliefs and practices related to children’s school readiness skills is widely documented, but few studies explicitly focus on immigrant families. Further, no known studies have examined immigrant parents’ beliefs about what skills children need to be successful in kindergarten.
Objectives
The overarching aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the school readiness beliefs of parents who are identified as immigrants in the United States. We examined the skills they prioritized as well as parents’ reasoning about their prioritization.
Methods
Sixty-three immigrant parents from three different countries of origin—China, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador—completed a Q-sort and subsequent interview about their school readiness beliefs as well as a measure of acculturation.
Results
Results indicated two school readiness belief profiles. Parents in the first profile primarily emphasized academic skills; parents in the second profile primarily emphasized learning-related skills. Parents’ country of origin predicted their profile membership. Six themes emerged to explain parents’ school readiness beliefs. Although parents in the two profiles prioritized different skills, parents’ reasoning about the importance of select skills showed many similarities.
Conclusions
Study findings provide a nuanced view of immigrant parents’ school readiness beliefs, which is particularly useful for early childhood educators to consider as they develop culturally responsive family-school partnerships.
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Details
Parents & parenting
;
Skills;
Parenting style
;
Childhood
;
Immigrants
;
Teachers
;
Kindergarten
;
School readiness
;
Learning
;
Asian cultural groups
;
Children
;
;
Acculturation
;
Academic readiness
;
;
Partnerships
;
Country of origin
;
Beliefs
Identifier / keyword
Early childhood
; School readiness; Immigrants;
Latino
; Chinese
Title
Dominican, Salvadoran, and Chinese Immigrant Parents’ Reasoning About School Readiness Skills
Author
Sawyer, Brook E 1
; Dever, Bridget V 1
; Kong, Peggy 2
; Sonnenschein, Susan 3
; Simons, Cassandra 4
;
Yu, Xiaoran
1
;
Zhang, Xinwei
1
;
Cai Yin
1
1 Lehigh University, College of Education, Bethlehem, USA (GRID:grid.259029.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 746X)
2 Lehigh University, College of Education, Bethlehem, USA (GRID:grid.259029.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 746X); Drexel University, School of Education, Philadelphia, USA (GRID:grid.166341.7) (ISNI:0000 0001 2181 3113)
3 University of Maryland-Baltimore County,
Psychology
Department, Baltimore, USA (GRID:grid.266673.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2177 1144)
4 University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Psychology Department, Baltimore, USA (GRID:grid.266673.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2177 1144); University of Maryland, College ParkCollege Park, USA (GRID:grid.266673.0)
Publication title
Child & Youth Care Forum; New York
Volume
51
Issue
1
Pages
137-159
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Feb 2022
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
Place of publication
New York
Country of publication
Netherlands, New York
Publication subject
Children And Youth – About
, Psychology
ISSN
1053-1890
e-ISSN
1573-3319
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article
Publication history
Online publication date
2021-05-16
Milestone dates
2021-05-08 (Registration); 2021-05-08 (Accepted)
Publication history
First posting date
16 May 2021
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-021-09623-3
ProQuest document ID
2626494856
Document URL
http://mtrproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/dominican-salvadoran-chinese-immigrant-parents/docview/2626494856/se-2?accountid=12415
Copyright
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.
Last updated
2022-07-18
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Social Services Abstracts
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Dominican, Salvadoran, and Chinese Immigrant Parents’ Reasoning about School Readiness Skills
Sawyer, Brook E; Dever, Bridget V; Kong, Peggy; Sonnenschein, Susan; Simons, Cassandra; et al.
Child & Youth Care Forum Vol. 51, Iss. 1, (Feb 2022): 137-159.
Emerging Practices in ESL Guided Self-Placement
White, Michelle; Newell, Mallory; RP Group; California Community Colleges, Chancellor’s Office.
RP Group : RP Group. (2022)
Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9. Educator’s Practice Guide. WWC 2022007
Vaughn, Sharon; Kieffer, Michael J; McKeown, Margaret; Reed, Deborah K; Sanchez, Michele; et al.
What Works Clearinghouse : What Works Clearinghouse. (2022)
A Dictionary and Thesaurus of Contemporary Figurative Language and Metaphor 2022
Stockdale, Joseph Gagen, III.
Online Submission (2022)
Promoting Social and Behavioral Success for Learning in Elementary Schools: Systematic Review Protocol. Version 3.0. Revised
2M Research.
2M Research : 2M Research. (2022)
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Parents & parenting
Skills
Parenting style
Childhood
Immigrants
Teachers
Kindergarten
School readiness
Learning
Asian cultural groups
Children
Cultural sensitivity
Acculturation
Academic readiness
Head Start project
Partnerships
Country of origin
Beliefs
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like this
Salami, Bukola
;
Alaazi, Dominic A
;
Yohani, Sophie
;
Vallianatos, Helen
;
Okeke-Ihejirika, Philomina
; et al.
Family Relations
; Minneapolis
Vol. 69, Iss. 4,
(Oct 2020): 743-755.
DOI:10.1111/fare.12454
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Objective: To examine the factors that influence parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta, Canada.
Background: African immigrants are increasingly migrating to high-income countries, including Canada, in search of a better life. These immigrants often face several challenges, including parenting their children in new sociocultural contexts. We present findings from a critical ethnographic study of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada.
Method: Informed by transnational feminist theory, we conducted interviews with 14 African immigrant community leaders, 31 African immigrant parents, and 12 service providers and policymakers.
Results
: We found that conflicting cultural practices and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and gender relations exert both beneficial and strenuous influences on parent-child relations.
Conclusion
: The determinants of parenting practices and parent-child relationships include the intersecting influences of gender, social class, culture, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.
Implications: Our findings suggest several policy and practice implications. In particular, we suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income, gender relations, culturally sensitive service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.
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Key Words: African immigrants, Canada, children, parenting, parent-child relationships.
Objective: To examine the factors that influence parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta, Canada.
Background: African immigrants are increasingly migrating to high-income countries, including Canada, in search of a better life. These immigrants often face several challenges, including parenting their children in new sociocultural contexts. We present findings from a critical ethnographic study of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada.
Method: Informed by transnational feminist theory, we conducted interviews with 14 African immigrant community leaders, 31 African immigrant parents, and 12 service providers and policymakers.
Results: We found that conflicting cultural practices and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and gender relations exert both beneficial and strenuous influences on parent-child relations.
Conclusion: The determinants of parenting practices and parent-child relationships include the intersecting influences of gender, social class, culture, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.
Implications: Our findings suggest several policy and practice implications. In particular, we suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income, gender relations, culturally sensitive service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.
The number of Africans migrating to Canada is increasing (Statistics Canada, 2017). Recent census data shows that Africa is the second-highest source region for immigrants to Canada, representing 13.4% of the 7.5 million foreign-born population in the country (Canadian Press, 2017). Yet importantly, African immigrants experience poorer mental health outcomes in Canada than other immigrant groups (Anderson, Cheng, Susser, McKenzie, & Kurdyak, 2015; Beiser, Goodwill, Albanese, McShane, & Nowakowski, 2014; Fenta, Hyman, & Noh, 2004; van der Ven, Bourque, Joober, Selten, & Malla, 2012). Several sources have also documented comparatively higher rates of school dropout, gun violence, drug trafficking, terrorist activities, and other criminal activities among African immigrant youths in Canada (Kon, Lou, MacDonald, Riak, & Smarsh, 2012; Maimann, 2014; Public Safety Canada, 2007; Wingrove & Mackrael, 2012).
Generally, African immigrants experience several challenges, including under- and unemployment, low socioeconomic status, and changing patterns of gender relations, which affect their integration into their new environment (Creese & Wiebe, 2012; Okeke-Ihejirika, Salami, & Ahmad, 2016). In a recent review, parenting and renegotiating parent-child relationships were found to be a major challenge for African immigrants in Western high-income countries (Salami, Hirani, Meherali, Amodu, & Chambers, 2017). However, the authors found only one study on tensions in parent-child relations among African immigrant families in Britain (J. Cook & Waite, 2016), and none in Canada, despite the surge in the African immigrant population in the country. To address this gap, we conducted a critical ethnographic study of African immigrant parenting practices in Alberta, Canada. More specifically, we explored parent-child relations among African immigrants in the province and sought to identify factors that influence these relationships. Our goal was to generate insights toward improving the health and social outcomes of African immigrant children in the province.
LlTERATURE REVIEW
Across cultural groups, the quality of parent-child relationships has consequences for children’s mental and physical health, as well as their social outcomes. For example, among children of immigrants, ineffective parenting practices have been associated with a higher risk of emotional problems and poor mental health status (Beiser et al., 2014; Beiser, Hou, Hyman, & Tousignant, 2002; Rousseau et al., 2009).
Income and poverty can have both direct and indirect effects on child health through the moderating influence of material deprivation, parental stress, and poor parent-child relations. Low income can affect children’s access to adequate living environment, nutrition, and health care (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002), conditions that are necessary for their proper physical, social, and mental development. In a study investigating the role of material deprivation in children’s self-reported health status, children from low-income households were found to be more likely to report poor health than those from wealthier homes (Torsheim et al., 2004). Income-related stressed and depressed parents are also more likely than others to abuse or neglect their children and have poor parent-child relations (Berger, Paxson, & Waldfogel, 2009).
(Un)intentional parental absenteeism has been identified as a major cause of child neglect. “Familial economic deprivation,” parents’ own childhood socialization, and the nature of mother-father relationships are common risk factors for child neglect and parental absenteeism (Guterman & Lee, 2005, p. 138). Regardless of reasons, the absence of a parent can have serious social consequences for children. A recent study involving 342 female undergraduate students found that girls from “father-absent homes” were more likely to report early consensual intercourse than those from “father-present homes” (Guardia, Nelson, & Lertora, 2014, p. 339). In another study, adolescents from one-parent households were found to exhibit higher tendencies for bulling behaviors in school than those from two-parent households (Flouri & Buchanan, 2003). These studies suggest that measures that support parental involvement and family cohesion can have beneficial social and behavioral outcomes for children.
African immigrant families face many of these challenges and more. They are known to experience poverty, material deprivation, and parental absenteeism. Not surprisingly, then, tensions in parent-child relations among African immigrant families contribute to negative social and health outcomes (Stevens, Vollebergh, Pels, & Grijnen, 2005; Uwakweh, Rotich, & Okpala, 2014). Cordial relationships, on the other hand, contribute to positive child outcomes. In a recent review, high-quality parent-child relations in African immigrant families were found to be a positive contributor to child health and social outcomes (Salami etal., 2017). In particular, parent-child relationships that engender sufficient support, good communication, and family cohesion are said to be a protective factor against psychological difficulties in refugee children in high-income countries (Fazel, Reed, Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012). In a bid to achieve optimal child outcomes, African immigrants in destination countries also strive to integrate their cultural values into parenting practices, including placing high value on religious adherence and respect for older persons (Salami etal., 2017).
Parenting practices of African immigrants are highly gendered, with the sex of both the child and the parent being a key determinant of parenting practices (J. Cook & Waite, 2016; Phillips-Mundy, 2011). Although African parents often adapt their disciplinary practices to different societal norms following migration, they tend to retain some cultural practices, including the use of corporal discipline (e.g., spanking), that can trigger acrimonious parent-child relationships. In addition, tensions in parent-child relations in destination countries may arise as a result of changes in gender and parental roles (including parent-child role reversal), cultural conflicts in parenting, and public policies that are more empowering to children, including the availability of child welfare services to protect children’s rights (J. Cook & Waite, 2016; Rasmussen, Akinsulure-Smith, Chu, & Keatley, 2012). Given these parenting challenges, many African immigrant parents cope by sending their children to live with extended family in their country of origin (Bledsoe & Sow, 2011).
Our data suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income status, gender relations, cultural sensitivity of service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces. Conceptually, we need to clarify that the term African immigrants is used in the article broadly to refer to Africans who emigrated to Canada through various immigration pathways (refugee, economic class, family class, international student, etc.) and who have now transitioned to permanent residence or Canadian citizenship status.
Theoretical Framework
We used a transnational feminist theoretical perspective with a critical ethnographic methodology. Transnationalism holds that immigrant life experiences are not contained within one geographic space; rather, emphasis is placed on the strong linkages immigrants maintain with their homelands, as well as how those linkages interact with present experiences (Horevitz, 2009; Rosemberg, Boutain, & Mohammed, 2016). The influences of temporal and spatial boundaries on social relations are also a key aspect of transnationalism. Transnational feminism centralizes gender in understanding experiences that are embedded in diverse locales but shaped by particular boundaries and spaces, while also recognizing that gender is just one aspect of identity; gendered social locations are also shaped by social class, age, and racial and ethnic identity (Pessar & Mahler, 2003). Within the context of migration, the intersection of these components affects who can migrate and where to migrate, as well as postmigration experiences, including parenting practices. Thus, a transnational feminist theoretical perspective was useful for this study in light of ties between African immigrants in Canada and their home countries that often result in “hyphenated” identities (Mensah & William, 2014).
Methods
Our data collection process involved the use of a critical ethnographic methodology, which has an explicit emancipatory agenda, combining both the taken-for-granted aspects of culture in conventional ethnography and tenants of a critical social paradigm, including transnational feminism (K. E. Cook, 2005; Thomas, 1993). This methodological approach articulates the often-unheard plight of vulnerable populations for recognition, support, and empowerment in ways that confront such vexed issues as racism, sexism, classism, and other prejudices inherent in the ruling structure of society. Accordingly, our research questions invited participants to articulate the structural factors affecting their family relations in a manner that traditional ethnography would not have done. This included questions that invited research participants to go beyond simple description of the state of parent-child relations to why and how these relationships have come to be what they are. To capture the taken-for-granted conceptions about the world, critical ethnographers rely on multiple data sources.
Participants
Consistent with a research protocol approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, we used a combination of criterion and snowball sampling procedures to recruit study participants until data saturation was achieved. Specifically, our data were collected via interviews with 14 African community leaders, 12 service providers and policymakers who worked locally with African immigrants, and 31 African immigrant parents of minor children between the ages 0 and 17 years.
We contacted leaders of African community organizations found in newspaper advertisements, as well as those already known to the researchers. Of the 43 community leaders with whom contact was attempted, 11 male and 3 female leaders agreed to be interviewed for the study. They had emigrated from Nigeria (n = 4), Kenya (n = 3), Eritrea (n = 2), Cameroon (n = 2), Ghana (n = 1), Uganda (n = 1), and Sierra Leone (n = 1).
We had prior knowledge of service providers and policymakers engaged with the African immigrant community because the investigators (excepting one) are African immigrants who were engaged in many community causes. We contacted 17 service providers and policymakers to request their participation. This, resulted in interviews with two policymakers, three health service providers, and seven immigrant settlement workers.
Inclusion criteria for parents required that they were born in Africa and had a child under 18 years of age living with them in Alberta. In line with Ogilvie, Burgess-Pinto, and Caufield’s (2008) suggestion for participant recruitment from immigrant populations, we recruited African immigrant parents from an African grocery store (n = 8); a social service provider (n = 8); two community liaisons (n = 7); a community leader (n = 4); an immigrant service provider (n = 2); and the network of the first author (n = 2), who is an African immigrant and a community leader. In total, 25 female and 6 male African immigrant parents participated in the interviews; their countries of origin included Somalia (n = 11), Nigeria (n = 4), Ghana (n = 4), Ivory Coast (n = 3), Sudan (n = 2), Cameroon (n = 2), Ethiopia (n = 2), Sierra Leone (n = 1), Zimbabwe (n = 1), and Senegal (n = 1). Most of the parents (n = 26) fell within the age range of 31 to 50 years, and their length of stay in Canada ranged from 2 to 26 years (M = 13.5, SD = 8.0) at the time of the interviews. The families had an average of two children 18 years of age or younger (33 males and 30 females), the majority (82.5%) of whom were born in Canada and were between 6 weeks and 18 years of age (M = 8.6, SD = 5.2). Complete details of parents’ demographic characteristics are provided in Table 1.
Interview Procedures
Upon completing the informed consent process, one-on-one interviews were conducted by the first or second author at a time and location chosen by the participants. The audio-recorded interviews were aided by a semistructured interview guide and lasted between 45 minutes and 2.5 hours. The community leaders and service providers served as key informants by providing additional insights on the nature and quality of parent-child relations. African immigrant parents responded to interview questions about their relationship with their children at various developmental stages. They also responded to written items designed to capture their own and their children’s demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, and countries of origin. At the end of each interview, participants received a $20 gift card as a token of appreciation for their time. In addition, our deep immersion in the African immigrant community allowed for collection of additional ethnographic data, which we recorded as reflexive field notes.
Analytic Procedures
All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed inductively, with data collection and analysis occurring iteratively. The data were analyzed with the aid of NVivo 11, qualitative data management software. Our analytic procedures were guided by Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis approach. First, we familiarized ourselves with the data by reading the transcripts multiple times. Second, we inductively developed preliminary codes, with which we sorted the data into categories. The coding categories were then expanded, condensed, and refined in Step 3, after which themes were named. The final step of the analysis included writing a report that identified important ideas, points of connections, and contradictions based on the emergent themes from the data. The use of a transnational feminist theoretical framework enabled us to consider the influence of transnational experiences on relationships and the intersecting influence of gender, race, class, and nationality on parent-child relations.
We followed Thomas’ (1993) suggestions for ensuring rigor in critical ethnographic studies, which includes exercising reflexivity and keeping field notes, maintaining prolonged engagement with participants, triangulating data sources, and member checking. In our use of member checking, we provided the preliminary results of our analysis to participants for verification-a practice that also meets transnational feminist imperatives to ensure that marginalized voices are heard. Along similar lines, the research team exercised reflexivity by keeping reflexive memos throughout data collection to record our emerging awareness in the field, which we discussed in reflective team meetings. For example, all except one member of the research team are African immigrants, and we were cognizant of the potential influence of our identity on the data collection process. Specifically, we reflected on how our social locations influenced the data collection process. We also acknowledged the influence of our class and educational status, as all investigators held graduate degrees, which was not the case for the majority of our participants. Finally, the study was also guided by an advisory committee of African immigrant parents, community leaders, and service providers, who met frequently to reflect and debrief about emerging findings and to propose directions for future work.
Results
Our thematic analysis using a transnational feminist theoretical lens resulted in the identification of four broad themes that reflect the nature and quality of parent-child relations among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada. These include conflicting cultures and value systems; shifting power relations; low socioeconomic status and parental absenteeism; and gender, age, and family relations. These themes demonstrate the extent to which the intersecting influence of culture, gender, and class affect parent-child relations among African immigrants in the resettlement context. We summarize these themes as follows.
Conflicting Cultures and Value Systems
Born mostly in Canada and socialized differently from their parents, African immigrant children reportedly held Western rather African values and belief systems, of which parents disapproved. Consequently, they exhibited attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that were radically different from the belief systems and cultural expectations of parents, most of whom remained rooted in their African traditions. The differences in worldviews between children and parents were said to widen with age as children gain greater independence and spend more time socializing outside the home. As such, our participants faulted peers and the school system for the Eurocentric socialization of African immigrant children and the widening cultural distance between them and their parents. These differences were reported to be the primary cause of tension and poor parent-child relations in African immigrant families in the province.
Several of our participants (23 parents and 13 community leaders) expressed despair witnessing their children adopt behaviors that they considered inappropriate and non-African. Ideas about and expression of autonomy appeared to be the most challenging areas of difference underlying many of the cultural tensions experienced in African immigrant families. In particular, 16 parents identified disrespect for elders, disobedience of parental authority, religious indifference, and school absenteeism as the major sources of disagreement with their children. Conversely, children, as reported by community leaders, tended to frame parental disapproval of their lifestyle preferences as suppression of their rights and freedoms. A female parent from the Somali community noted how the notion of parental authority inherent in African parenting cultures conflicts with Western norms about child freedoms:
The kids are already Canadian; they know the culture. They know like any other Canadian students. And the parents, they have this back-home mentality whereby, “Okay, I’m the authority.” And also there’s this kind of cultural clash between the parents and the children, so there’s misunderstanding. (Parent 028)
For parents who remain rooted in their African parenting traditions, the tendency for adolescent children to resist parental control is culturally alien and a travesty of their right to discipline their children in a manner consistent with African values and cultural expectations.
We also encountered narratives vilifying culturally imposed hierarchical relationships for their role in exacerbating family tensions in the community. Although hierarchies were reported to have some significance in traditional African families, including ensuring effectiveness of child disciplinary measures, they were seen also as creating social distance and poor relationships between parents and their Westernizing children, whose socialization tended to lead them to expect a degree of social equality and participation within the family structure. Children’s opposition to hierarchies, which typically places the father at the apex of the family structure, was reported as another cause of poor parent-child relations in the African immigrant community. While children may undermine hierarchies and patriarchal relationships and assert their right to participate in decision-making affecting their lives, some parents tended to perceive resistance against parental authority as Western cultural expressions that have no place in the African family. In response to a question about parent-child relationships, a community leader lamented:
Unfortunately, that is one aspect [of parenting] that [African men are] not good at. I try to bridge the gap as best as I can in my own case, but because of this kind of attitude that we have, that the father is the head … that is the kind of chauvinism that eats deep into our understanding [of roles] and [African fathers therefore] tend to stay away from our kids. (Community leader 008)
Although the primary reason for hierarchy in the African immigrant family is to ensure effective child discipline, this cultural practice is fast becoming ineffective in the Canadian context. Some of our participants expressed concerns about the impact of the social distance associated with hierarchically structured families. Community leaders particularly lamented how lack of emotional attachment to parents, along with poverty and material deprivation, has increased the susceptibility of African immigrant children to problem behaviors, including gang and drugs involvement.
Shifting Power Relations
In families with African-born children, the migration transition process may result in a power shift from parents to children in a manner that negatively affects family cohesion. For instance, parents who were not proficient in English tended to rely on their language-proficient children for translation when accessing critical services and resources. This dependence was perceived as tilting the basis of power and control in favour of children in a manner that caused some children to disregard or challenge the authority of their parents. These emerging power dynamics also were reported as creating disharmony in families that migrated with a known hierarchy in which power rested with the parents. A female service provider from one of the immigrant service agencies explained how the redistribution of power following immigration can produce “power struggle” between parents and children:
A couple of months later in Canada, the ones who are speaking English are the children, and they are the ones who are able to communicate, and they’re able to translate for their parents and stuff like that. That becomes a little bit of a game of power, so, “I am the one who is doing this for you. I am the one who can actually do the interpretation, and you need me.” (Service provider 008)
Power struggle between African immigrant parents and children, according to participants, has been emboldened by Canadian child protection regulations that limit parents’ ability to assert parental authority using corporal discipline. Participants further revealed that the struggle for and loss of power to children have served to frustrate parents. Parent-child relations were further jeopardized in families where children disengaged from their less educated and less language-competent parents and looked elsewhere for relationships they considered more socially and intellectually stimulating. We found this type of strenuous parent-child relations to be more rampant among refugee families and families from non-English-speaking backgrounds. A female service provider from the Somali community stated:
The only thing that you have with you is your faith and your culture. These children speak English more than you. You’re trying to read a book with them, and they will correct your accent. They will say, “That’s not how you say [that], Mom.” So, there is not much that you can teach from this society. (Service provider 007)
A male parent from South Sudan corroborated this experience: “Here, even your own child, if you say, ‘Hey, this is not right’… they’re thinking that they know more better than you” (Parent 10).
Even more frustrating to parents in this shifting power dynamic was their apparent lack of freedom to physically discipline children and assert parental authority. The parents and community leaders we interviewed believed that Canada’s child protection regulations are too restrictive and far more empowering to children than they are to parents.
Low Socioeconomic Status and Parental Absenteeism
The development of supportive parent-child relationships depends largely on the availability of parents to support the social and emotional needs of their children. However, low-income African immigrant parents have had to prioritize earning money over the social and emotional needs of their children; many of these parents, we noted, had to juggle multiple low-wage part-time jobs to financially support their families. As a result, low-income parents were more likely than other parents in our sample to report tenuous relationships with their adolescent children, a problem they attributed to working long hours away from their families. Corroborating the revelations of parents, a male community leader explained:
The majority [of parents] seems to be working in the service industry,… which are minimum-wage [jobs]. So people are spending more and more hours outside of the house [in paid employment] rather than spending time as a family together. (Community leader 003)
As a female parent from the Ghanaian community also noted, “We all chase for Mother Dollar; our lifestyle is just work, work, and we don’t even care [about the children]. We babysit our kids with TV and gadgets” (Parent 15). Community leaders (n = 6) attributed the concentration of African immigrants in low-income segments of the Canadian job market to multiple structural factors, including employers’ reluctance to accept non-Canadian educational and professional credentials, immigrants’ lack of adequate language skills, and a racialized job market that discriminates against African immigrants and Blacks in general.
A key concern of community leaders and service providers, however, was that parental absenteeism has not necessarily translated into income security and material satisfaction for children of African immigrants. In fact, several of our informants pointed out that despite sustained parental absenteeism for work-related reasons, the prevalence of poverty and material deprivation among African immigrant families is still the highest in the province. In addition to earning meagre income from doing menial, low-wage jobs, this income is also often shared with extended family in Africa as part of a culturally sanctioned obligation to provide financial assistance to all family members. One of our service providers explained how his need to simultaneously support both immediate and extended family affected the financial and material circumstances of his family:
I have four sisters. Each of them have five children. None of those four sisters finished high school. The husbands they married, none of them finished high school. So they’re in a circle of poverty that’s just circulating around them. And in Liberia, the education system is a mess. After 15 years of civil war, there’s nothing. So I have to now sponsor my nieces and nephews into school; took them from Liberia and brought them to Ghana. Then I got to feed my own family. (Service provider 001)
The emphasis on work and on financial and material obligation to extended family in home country affects parent-child relations in African immigrant families in at least two major ways. First, it contributes to a cycle of parental absenteeism that renders children emotionally unfilled. Second, the distribution of limited resources among family members across transnational lines contributes to children’s experience of poverty and material deprivation, which can be a harbinger for family disputes and disintegration. In this regard, socioeconomic challenges have both direct and indirect impact on parent-child relations in African immigrant families.
Gender, Age, and Family Relations
Parent-child relations among African immigrant families also have culturally situated gender and age dimensions. Our examination of the influence of gender and age on parent-child relations showed that relationships between mothers and young children (infants and preteens) were quite intimate, but as children grew older, these relationships tended to be less intimate, and in some instances acrimonious, requiring more paternal involvement in mentorship, discipline, and decision-making. Some parents (n = 8) were clear in their narratives about the changes that occur in parent-child relations across different developmental stages. A mother summed up these milestones as follows: “When they’re young, they depend on you; you have to take [them] wherever they go. When they grow up, they have so many plans” (Parent 004).
A settlement service provider added that it is in adolescence when most parent-child relations become strained, at which point children would begin to resist parental authority and demand more freedom from parents. “The relationship between the parents and kids who are 15 years old and above is not good. That is because… they get engaged with the wrong crowd,” said one service provider (006).
The weakening of the parent-child bond also coincides with a shift in emphasis from children’s functional needs to an emphasis on supporting their transition to adulthood, a developmental stage described by several African immigrant parents to be particularly challenging in the Canadian context. Although most African immigrant parents expected their relationship with their children to change with age, the degree of independence sought by children was often sudden and overwhelming to parents. A male community leader revealed how children in his community sought independence prematurely, to the chagrin of parents:
As soon as they are 16-there is a young girl who says, “I can’t wait until I’m 16.” I say, “Why?” “Because I want to get my own place.” It is ridiculous. A 16-year-old girl who wants her own place? And I say, “I’ve got to talk to your mom.” (Community leader 007)
To many African immigrant parents, their children’s eagerness to embrace personal autonomy remained a Western normative value they struggled to accept. The degree of independence afforded children through legal recognition of age of majority invoked for many parents a sense of loss and cultural annihilation. This recognition of rights to personal liberties contravened parents’ expectations that the developmental progression of their children toward independence would be defined not by biological age but by such attributes as educational achievement, socioeconomic standing, and marital status. Community leaders linked African immigrant youth’s apparent preference for premature independence to negative social and health consequences, including economic hardships, isolation, depression, and problem behaviors. A community leader passionately explained his perception of and cultural position on children’s premature independence:
The tendency of a kid becoming wayward, becoming depressed, isolated, becoming hardened in their heart in Africa is low. Because you already grew with your parents. You sleep with them. You breathe into each other. You grow up with your other siblings. All of you blend together. You love each other. You eat from the same pot. (Community leader 008)
Parent-child relationships in African immigrant families have gendered dimensions. According to some community leaders and parents, African immigrant children are typically socialized to perceive fathers as tough enforcers of discipline and mothers as the proverbial buffer zone, with whom refuge can be sought. For this reason, the parent-child bond was reported to be more intimate with mothers than with fathers at every stage of a child’s development. Parents expected this blend of compassion and toughness to expose children to a variety of experiences that would prepare them for their transition to adulthood. A community leader explained the gendered nature of parenting in African immigrant families:
The heart of discipline is [on] the father’s side … [Children’s] relationship with the mother is stronger when they are young, and after a while, you know, when they need more discipline or when they become resistant to a woman’s love … then the father interferes there. (Community leader 001).
The socialization of children in later developmental stages was gendered also in a manner that compartmentalized parent-child relationships within the home. For instance, adolescent female children were said to receive most of their mentorship from their mothers-and by so doing developed mother-daughter relationships that were reportedly more intimate than father-daughter relationships. A similar mentorship relationship, although not equally intimate, was also reported between fathers and adolescent male children. A mother reflected on how parenting roles and intimacy played out in her family:
[My husband] was involved in everything, almost. But he was way [more] involved with the boys. … So he would take them to whatever sports, and he was way involved with them. I was involved in female things. (Parent 001)
To summarize, the narratives of our participants demonstrate that parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta are both cordial and challenging, the peculiarities of which tended to be influenced by culture, socioeconomic status, gender, age, and changing power relations.
Discussion and Implications
Our findings reveal several influences on parent-child relationships in African immigrant families, including conflicting cultures and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and culturally driven gender and age considerations. We suggest that the nature and quality of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta are affected by systemic and individual-level factors that are embedded within the intersecting influences of culture, gender, and social class. Although these complex influences represent an enormous challenge for African immigrant parents, they also present an opportunity to reexamine parenting practices in light of the sociocultural contexts in which they live.
The life trajectories of African immigrants cannot be analyzed without reference to the transnational forces that are shaping their immigration and resettlement experiences. For instance, African immigrants tend to maintain transnational ties with their home countries by sending remittances, participating in cultural activities, and engaging with ethnic communities (Owusu, 2003). Premigration relationships between African immigrant parents and children constitute an influence on parent-child relations in destination countries, although changes are also evident following migration. Several authors have already noted the role of patriarchy and changing gender and power relations in the lives of immigrants in destination countries (Akinsulure-Smith, Chu, Keatley, & Rasmuseen, 2013; Okeke-Ihejirika et al., 20l6). In addition to these observations, we found the determinants of parent-child relations in the African immigrant community to include differences in child discipline and child welfare policies between destination and home countries, parents’ deficient language skills, and marked disharmony between parents and children in cultural orientation and value systems, as well as parental absenteeism due to low socioeconomic status and need to juggle multiple low-wage, part-time jobs away from the emotional needs of children. Thoughtfully attending to these factors in policy and service provision may therefore help enhance the quality of parent-child relations among African immigrant families.
Along with premigration experiences, changing gender roles in destination countries have been reported to contribute to shifts in relationships within the home (Akinsulure-Smith etal., 2013; Okeke-Ihejirika etal., 2016). Our findings suggest the presence of gender dynamics in parent-child relations that change across the developmental stages. African immigrants often reconfigure gender roles in their new sociocultural context, although J. Cook and Waite (2016) have noted that this reconfiguration process can prove more challenging to father-child relationships than to those between mothers and children. As our data suggest, this difficulty may be partly due to changes in the role and position of fathers, from being patriarchal heads of households premigration to being ordinary mature male figures whose decisions and preferences can be contested and even undermined by their own families in the Canadian cultural context. Also of concern is the level of intimacy fathers have with their offspring in the early years of development, how this intimacy is influenced by gender, and how it changes over time. Notably, social and cultural contexts play an important role in when and how a practice becomes problematic. For example, in countries of origin, African children tend to have many extended family members who live nearby and serve as adult caregivers (Renzaho, Green, Mellor, & Swinburn, 2011). Lack of intimacy or close social relations with a father is thus compensated through these cultural systems of care. However, without extended family in the Canadian context, African parents must parent differently to meet the socioemotional needs of their children. We advocate for policy and services that consider these factors and the changing power relations across gender lines. More specifically, interventions should focus on engaging fathers in parenting at all stages of children’s development, including the early years of life. Our findings also point to the need for further research that could more clearly explain the role of gender in parent-child relationships among African immigrant families. This focus is especially important in light of findings that point to increased challenges in parenting boys versus girls in some African immigrant communities (Degni, Pontinen, & Molsa, 2006).
Practices related to child discipline are relevant also to African immigrant parenting across transnational spaces. African immigrant parents struggle with unfamiliar value systems and the lack of collectivist child monitoring networks in destination countries, which they perceive to be a threat to optimal child development (Rasmussen etal., 2012). Our data suggest an attempt to compensate for these perceived deficiencies through corporal disciplinary practices, presumably to ensure that children conform to African value systems and identity. There is thus a need for widespread education about legally appropriate means of child discipline. Policies, institutional practices, and culturally-sensitive training for service providers that recognize and build on the functions of hierarchies and value systems will address power struggles and improve parent-child relations and child well-being in African immigrant families. Passed down by generations, these values can enhance the resiliency of African immigrant youth, improve their social and educational outcomes, and serve as important protective factors against adversity (Wong & Yohani, 2016). Moreover, African immigrant children and youth, especially second-generation youth, struggle with pressure to conform to the African identity imposed on them by their parents and the identity of the host society (Clark, 2008). Although identity formation is a normal developmental challenge and transition for all youth (Kiang & Fuligni, 2010), African immigrant youth have to contend with the process of forming a bicultural identity, which can pose unique challenges to parent-child relationships as children struggle with meeting both Canadian and African cultural expectations. Building the capacity of African immigrant families to respond to the bicultural identity development of African immigrant children and youth may therefore be a fruitful intervention.
African immigrants experience deskilling and downward occupational mobility upon arrival in destination countries, including Canada (Okeke-Ihejirika etal., 2016; Creese & Wiebe, 2012). Labor market segmentation and discrimination experienced by African immigrants influence their socioeconomic integration (Fokkema & de Haas, 2015). Our findings go beyond this idea to implicate low-income status in both material and social deprivation for African immigrant children. In some Canadian cities, African immigrants experience the poorest socioeconomic outcomes among all ethnic groups (Edmonton Social Planning Council, 2015). Consequently, African immigrant children and youth often experience poor mental and social outcomes (Anderson etal., 2015; Fenta et al., 2004), including high school dropout rates and involvement in gun violence (Kon et al., 2012; Maimann, 2014; Wingrove & Mackrael, 2012). Thus, attending to the role of income and class status as a vital social determinant of health through programs and services focused on economic integration, including language and credential assessment programs, may help to improve the health and social outcomes of African immigrant children and youth in Canada.
Strengths and Limitations
Our study has several strengths, including our use of a transnational feminist theoretical framework, data source triangulation, and member checking. We were able to achieve data saturation with a purposive sample of 57 participants, and we exercised reflexivity throughout the data collection process. Insights from our advisory committee throughout the data collection process further strengthened our findings. In addition, we found a high degree of consistency in the narratives of parents, community leaders, and service providers/policymakers. A possible explanation for this consistency is that most community leaders and service providers (all except three) were themselves immigrants and as such may have had parenting experiences that were similar to those of African immigrant parents. However, we did not collect data on the demographic characteristics of these informants. Another explanation may be that the frequency of contact with parents allowed community leaders and service providers to gain in-depth understanding of parent-child relations in African immigrant families.
These strengths notwithstanding, our study encountered limitations. A major shortcoming of our study was the inclusion of a broad array of African immigrants, as opposed to a focus on a specific African country or ethnic group. However, a sampling heterogeneity of this nature can also be a strength because it can draw on multiple perspectives and experiences to shed light on a social phenomenon. Another limitation of our study was our lack of sample stratification, which limited our ability to explain how key nuances, such as parents’ social capital, employment status, and level of acculturation, influenced parent-child relations. Future studies could further shed light on differences across and within various groups of African immigrants in the province.
Conclusion
In summary, we explored in this study how cultural values, gender, and socioeconomic status intersect to influence parent-child relations in African immigrant families in Alberta, as well as how these factors change across transnational spaces. Our findings point to the need for interventions focused on strengthening parent-child relations in this population. Potential strategies for such interventions include addressing income as a determinant of parent-child relations and of children’s health, attending to the role of gender, supporting a greater role for fathers throughout all developmental stages (including early childhood), and equipping African immigrants with skills for disciplining their children within the limits of Canadian child protective regulations, all of which have been shown to have achieved remarkable success in improving child health in other disadvantaged populations. Implementing culturally appropriate policies and service delivery that attend to changing power relations across transnational spaces will likely also improve the well-being of this growing but challenged segment of the Canadian population.
Author Note
Mr. Ayalew was affiliated with the Africa Centre at the time this work was conducted and is currently a member of the African community of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
References
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Scholarly
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ournal
Landale, Nancy S
;
Thomas, Kevin J A
;
Jennifer Van Hook
.
The Future of Children
; Princeton
Vol. 21, Iss. 1,
(Spring 2011).
DOI:10.1353/foc.2011.0003
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Summary
Children of immigrants are a rapidly growing part of the U.S. child population. Their health, development, educational attainment, and social and economic integration into the nation’s life will play a defining role in the nation’s future.
Nancy Landale, Kevin Thomas, and Jennifer Van Hook explore the challenges facing immigrant families as they adapt to the United States, as well as their many strengths, most notably high levels of marriage and family commitment. The authors examine differences by country of origin in the human capital, legal status, and social resources of immigrant families and describe their varied living arrangements, focusing on children of Mexican, Southeast Asian, and black Caribbean origin. Problems such as poverty and discrimination may be offset for children to some extent by living, as many do, in a two-parent family. But the strong parental bonds that initially protect them erode as immigrant families spend more time in the United States and are swept up in the same social forces that are increasing single parenthood among American families. The nation, say the authors, should pay special heed to how this aspect of immigrants’ Americanization heightens the vulnerability of their children.
One risk factor for immigrant families is the migration itself, which sometimes separates parents from their children. Another is the mixed legal status of family members. Parents’ unauthorized status can mire children in poverty and unstable living arrangements. Sometimes unauthorized parents are too fearful of deportation even to claim the public benefits for which their children qualify. A risk factor unique to refugees, such as Southeast Asian immigrants, is the death of family members from war or hardship in refugee camps.
The authors conclude by discussing how U.S. immigration policies shape family circumstances and suggest ways to alter policies to strengthen immigrant families. Reducing poverty, they say, is essential. The United States has no explicit immigrant integration policy or programs, so policy makers must direct more attention and resources toward immigrant settlement, especially ensuring that children have access to the social safety net.
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Summary
Children of immigrants are a rapidly growing part of the U.S. child population. Their health, development, educational attainment, and social and economic integration into the nation’s life will play a defining role in the nation’s future.
Nancy Landale, Kevin Thomas, and Jennifer Van Hook explore the challenges facing immigrant families as they adapt to the United States, as well as their many strengths, most notably high levels of marriage and family commitment. The authors examine differences by country of origin in the human capital, legal status, and social resources of immigrant families and describe their varied living arrangements, focusing on children of Mexican, Southeast Asian, and black Caribbean origin. Problems such as poverty and discrimination may be offset for children to some extent by living, as many do, in a two-parent family. But the strong parental bonds that initially protect them erode as immigrant families spend more time in the United States and are swept up in the same social forces that are increasing single parenthood among American families. The nation, say the authors, should pay special heed to how this aspect of immigrants’ Americanization heightens the vulnerability of their children.
One risk factor for immigrant families is the migration itself, which sometimes separates parents from their children. Another is the mixed legal status of family members. Parents’ unauthorized status can mire children in poverty and unstable living arrangements. Sometimes unauthorized parents are too fearful of deportation even to claim the public benefits for which their children qualify. A risk factor unique to refugees, such as Southeast Asian immigrants, is the death of family members from war or hardship in refugee camps.
The authors conclude by discussing how U.S. immigration policies shape family circumstances and suggest ways to alter policies to strengthen immigrant families. Reducing poverty, they say, is essential. The United States has no explicit immigrant integration policy or programs, so policy makers must direct more attention and resources toward immigrant settlement, especially ensuring that children have access to the social safety net.
Introduction
Children of immigrants–defined as children with at least one foreign-born parent –are a large and growing segment of the child population of the United States. Today more than one in five U.S. children has one or more foreign-born parents. Furthermore, since 1990 the children of immigrants have accounted for more than three-quarters of the growth in the size of the U.S. child population.1 Children of immigrants need not be immigrants themselves: most, in fact, are U.S. citizens by virtue of being born in the United States. In 2007, 87 percent of the children of immigrants were citizens; among the youngest of such children (those up to age five) fully 96 percent were citizens.2 Because of its size and growth, this new group of U.S. citizens warrants the attention of policy makers, researchers, and advocates who are seeking to improve the well-being of children in the United States.
Immigrant families face unique challenges as they adapt to their new country, yet they also bring with them many strengths, most notably high levels of marriage. U.S. immigration policy shapes immigrants’ family circumstances by selecting the types of immigrants permitted to come into and to remain in the United States, often on the basis of marriage and family relationships. But immigration policy does not consistently nurture these relationships: in some ways it can weaken them. Furthermore, the nation’s acknowledged lack of a well-developed integration policy may exacerbate immigrants’ challenges and put their children’s outcomes at risk.
Children of immigrants have much in common as a result of their parents’ experiences with immigration and their status as relative newcomers. But their individual situations vary widely because of differences in their parents’ human and financial capital, legal status, social resources, and degree of assimilation, all of which are tied closely to their country or region of origin.
The majority of children of immigrants in the United States today are of Latin American origin, and more than 40 percent have parents from a single country–Mexico. Mexican immigrant families face challenges with respect to assimilation because of low parental education, poverty, and language barriers, and because a relatively high share of parents are unauthorized. In his article in this volume, Jeffrey Passel estimates that about one-third of Mexican children of immigrants are either unauthorized themselves or have unauthorized parents. The next largest group, about 20 percent of all children of immigrants, is those children whose parents have migrated from Asia, most commonly from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, and Korea.3 Asian immigrant families vary widely by parental education and skills. Parents from China, India, Korea, and the Philippines tend to be highly educated, skilled professionals, while those from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia and Laos, generally have low education and skills.4 Although they are less dominant numerically, the children of black immigrants face special challenges because of their skin color. Most are of Caribbean origin, with parents coming from Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago. Poverty and the dynamics of race in the United States combine to make some of these children especially vulnerable to negative outcomes.
In this article, we describe and discuss the implications of the living arrangements of children of immigrants, with an emphasis on three highly vulnerable groups: Mexican-origin children; Southeast Asian children (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian); and black Caribbean-origin children. As noted, children in these groups face risk factors related to their parents’ low human capital, mode of entry into the United States (for example, as a refugee or unauthorized migrant), or status as a racial minority. We highlight family circumstances that may either counter or exacerbate the negative impacts of these risk factors. Although most children of immigrants live with their parents, the share varies by immigrant group and by generation. We also consider the living arrangements of youths–often foreign-born labor migrants who enter the United States alone as adolescents–who live in households with no parents. We conclude by discussing specific ways that U.S. immigration and integration policies shape immigrants’ family circumstances, and we suggest ways to alter policies to strengthen immigrant families.
Why Children’s Living Arrangements Matter
Children depend on their families, who are at the center of their everyday life. Although children’s families are not necessarily restricted to those who live in their households, the household is the site of daily activities and typically is the unit that provides most of their resources. Consequently, disparities in children’s outcomes are rooted in their divergent family circumstances.
Living arrangements may be particularly important in shaping the ways in which immigrants and their children are integrated into the social and economic life of the United States. Key features of living arrangements include parental marital and residential status as well as the presence or absence of grandparents, other relatives, or nonrelatives in the household. Many immigrant families are poor, face discrimination, and have limited access to resources because of their legal status, yet these problems may be offset for children to some extent by benefits associated with their household and family structures, such as living in a two-parent family. A significant finding in this regard is that children of immigrants are more likely to live in two-parent families than their co-ethnic counterparts who have native-born parents.5 Not only do two-parent families fare better economically than single-parent families, but also children living with both biological parents are less likely to experience a range of cognitive, emotional, and social problems that have long-term consequences for their well-being.6
Some children of immigrants live in extended families, although patterns of family extension vary widely by parental duration of residence in the United States. Although not specifically focused on children, some research shows that recent immigrants are more likely than more settled immigrants to live in extended families. Such arrangements more often involve lateral extension (for example, co-residence with a relative in a similar stage in the life course, such as a sibling) than vertical extension (co-residence of adults with their parents) because immigrants often leave older family members behind in the country of origin.7 Living in a laterally extended family may offer some benefits to individuals or families, although the choice of such a living arrangement may be driven more by the short-term instrumental needs of recent immigrants than by its potential long-term benefits. To the extent that extended-family living arrangements are unstable or are an indirect indicator of hardship, they may not benefit children over the long run.
In what ways do children’s living arrangements influence their short-term and long-term well-being? Researchers conclude unequivocally that single-parent families have markedly higher child poverty rates than married-parent families, both for children as a whole and within different racial and ethnic groups. Cohabiting-couple families generally have child poverty rates between the two. Explanations for these differences include the number of potential adult earners in the household, the frequent failure of noncustodial parents to provide child support, and economies of scale for parents living together.8 Whether the link between family structure and family resources is causal is a matter of debate. Skeptics suggest that men and women with the greatest earning potential or resources are most likely to marry, while those with intermediate earning potential are most likely to cohabit and those with low earning potential are most likely to become single parents. Studies that make rigorous attempts to control for such self-selection into those three family types find evidence that family structure has causal effects on family income. From the point of view of children, however, the debate is largely academic. For them, what is important is that living with two married parents generally results in a higher standard of living and access to more opportunities than living in other arrangements.
The role of extended-family living arrangements in child poverty is less clear, both because researchers have paid it less attention and because of analytical complexities related to different types of extension, assumptions about income pooling, and potential variation by race and ethnicity or by whether parents are native- or foreign-born. Nonetheless, by assuming that the incomes of all household members are pooled, one recent study showed that the economic standing of children living with single mothers (those with no spouse present) was substantially better when they were living in extended families than when no other adults were present in the household.9
Beyond their impact on children through economic resources, living arrangements may shape child outcomes through their influence on family stress, the availability of adult supervision and attention, and the quality of parenting.10 Burdened with both economic and time challenges, single-parent families tend to be less effective at parenting and to be subject to greater stress than two-parent families are. In addition, children in single-parent or cohabiting families must often undergo more family transitions than those in married-couple families. Extended-family living arrangements may compensate for some of the difficulties faced by single parents or other overburdened families. By providing child care or helping with household tasks, extended-family members may ease family stress and ensure that children’s needs are met, thereby making child outcomes more positive. Some studies, however, indicate that parents who live with extended kin often are those least able to care for themselves and their children–and this may be the case in immigrant families. Complex living arrangements may be most common among recently arrived immigrants, who need help as they adapt to life in the United States. Extended-family members may band together as a survival strategy, but such households may be unstable and provide few resources for children.11
Living Arrangements of Children of Immigrants
We combine five years of data (2005-09) from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a large nationally representative data set, to document the living arrangements of children under age eighteen. We emphasize two aspects of living arrangements: parental marital and residential status (married co-resident parents, cohabiting co-resident parents, single parent, no resident parents) and the presence of other adults in the household (grandparent, other relative, nonrelative). We focus first on differences in children’s living arrangements by parental nativity (whether parents are native- or foreign-born) for four racial and ethnic groups: Hispanics, Asians (including Pacific Islanders), non-Hispanic whites, and non-Hispanic blacks (table 1).
Despite differences across the broad groups, one pattern consistently emerges. Children of immigrants are considerably more likely to live with married parents than are children of natives (52 percent versus 44 percent for Hispanics; 65 percent versus 50 percent for Asians; 63 percent versus 58 percent for non-Hispanic whites; 44 percent versus 24 percent for non-Hispanic blacks). As illustrated in figure 1, the greater likelihood that children of natives will live with a single parent explains most of this difference, although such children are also slightly more likely to live in a household with no resident parents.
Differences by parental nativity in extended-family living arrangements are less consistent across racial and ethnic groups. For example, among Hispanics and blacks, children of immigrants are less likely to live with grandparents than are children of natives (8 percent versus 14 percent for Hispanics; 10 percent versus 15 percent for blacks). Among Asians and non-Hispanics, the share living with grandparents differs little by parental nativity. In contrast, as figure 2 shows, children of immigrants are much more likely to live with extended kin other than grandparents in all groups except non- Hispanic whites. Among Hispanics, for example, 23 percent of children of immigrants have other extended kin living in their households, compared with 14 percent of children of natives. On balance then, children of immigrants are more, but only slightly more, likely to live with either grandparents or other extended-family members than children of natives, except among blacks (31 percent versus 29 percent among Hispanics, 19 percent versus 18 percent among non-Hispanic whites, and 30 percent versus 22 percent among Asians). Among blacks the division is equal at 30 percent.
Finer distinctions among immigrants’ children reveal somewhat different living arrangements by the child’s generational status (table 2), which is based on the nativity of the child as well as of his or her parents.12 Table 2 separates children with immigrant parents into three groups: the first generation, the second generation, and the 2.5 generation. First-generation children were born outside the United States and had at least one foreign-born parent. Second-generation children were born in the United States and had two foreign-born parents. U.S.-born children with one foreign-born and one U.S.-born parent are the 2.5 generation. Finally, third- or higher-generation children were born in the United States and had two U.S.-born parents.
In general, the share of children living with married parents declines with each generation in the United States, but first-generation children are slightly less likely to live with married parents than are second-generation children. Living with a married parent who has an absent spouse (not shown) is also particularly prevalent among first-generation children. In addition, such children are distinctive in being more likely than other children of immigrants to live in households with no resident parent. These various arrangements suggest that newly arrived immigrant families may encounter complications that reduce children’s chances of living with both parents and lead some children to live in households that provide no parental supervision. However, with the exception of first-generation Asian children (who make up 22.5 percent of Asian children of immigrants), first-generation children account for no more than 20 percent of children of immigrants in the major racial and ethnic groups.
Important distinctions also exist by country (or region) of origin within each broad racial or ethnic group. Children in the three specific groups that we highlight (Mexicans, Southeast Asians, and Caribbean blacks) share common disadvantages that stem from their parents’ relatively low education and income. Because of the histories and broader contexts of immigration from their countries of origin, however, the groups differ in parental legal status (for example, unauthorized versus authorized), parental work patterns, the types of communities in which they live, and their reception by the native-born population. We thus discuss the family situations and living arrangements of each group separately.
Children in Mexican Immigrant Families
Given the volume of immigration from Mexico, the predominance of children of immigrants among Mexican-origin children, and the comparative youth of the Mexican-origin population, children of Mexican immigrants are of special importance in shaping the future of the U.S. population. According to Census Bureau projections, the Hispanic population will account for nearly one-quarter of the nation’s total population by 2040. Jennifer Glick and Jennifer Van Hook estimate that the Mexican-origin population alone will account for 15-17 percent of the U.S. population by then.13 It is therefore important to understand the circumstances that may influence the future outcomes of today’s Mexican-origin children.
The major challenge facing Mexican immigrants and their children is their limited opportunity for economic integration, owing in large part to their low education, skills, and financial resources. On average, foreign-born Mexicans have completed eight and a half years of education, compared with about twelve years for native-born Mexicans and more than thirteen years for native-born whites.14 Together with their limited English proficiency and frequently unauthorized legal status, the low education of Mexican immigrant parents severely limits their opportunities for stable, well-paid employment.15 With the premium for education and skills especially high in today’s high-tech economy, it is no surprise that about 34 percent of Mexican children of immigrants are poor, compared with 24 percent of Mexican children of natives.16 For these reasons, many scholars and policy analysts are concerned that the Mexican-origin population may remain socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged well into the future.
For children, living in poverty increases the risk of negative outcomes, including health and developmental problems, poor academic performance, low completed education, and low earnings in adulthood. Because poverty and family structure are linked, poor children often face not only resource deficits but also other risk factors associated with single parenthood, such as high family stress, inadequate supervision, multiple family transitions, and frequent residential moves. For Mexican-origin children, however, poverty and family structure vary in a less straightforward manner. Although Mexican children of immigrants have a higher poverty rate than Mexican children of natives, they are more likely to live in two-parent families. As shown in the top panel of table 3, 56 percent of Mexican children of immigrants live with two married parents, compared with 45 percent of Mexican children of natives. When cohabitating parents are included, fully 75 percent of Mexican children of immigrants live in a two-parent family, compared with 63 percent of Mexican children of natives. The favorable family structures of children with foreign-born parents may reduce some of the risk factors typically associated with poverty.
Despite that initial advantage, however, Mexican-origin children increasingly face challenges related to their household and family structure as their families become more settled. In particular, the favorable two-parent family structure becomes much less common among native-born children in both the 2.5 and third generations (see table 4). That pattern suggests that as Mexican families spend more time in the United States (as indexed by generation), the strong parental bonds that protect Mexican-origin children erode. Over time, Mexican families may be more and more subject to the same forces that are increasing single parenthood among American families generally.
Even though Mexican children of natives are more likely to live in single-parent families than Mexican children of immigrants, they have a lower rate of poverty. That finding, however, does not mean that family structure is inconsequential. Poverty rates would be even lower for children of natives if not for their disadvantaged family structure. As illustrated in figure 3, children of natives are less likely to live in poverty regardless of family type. For example, in married-couple families, 28 percent of children of immigrants are poor, compared with 11 percent of children of natives. The explanation for this difference, in large part, is that foreign-born Mexican parents have lower human capital and earnings than do their native-born counterparts. In addition, although employment rates of foreign- and native-born Mexican men are roughly comparable, the employment rate of foreign-born Mexican women is substantially lower (56 percent) than those of their native-born (76 percent) and white counterparts (80 percent).17 Similarly, in single-parent Mexican families, children of immigrants have higher poverty rates (51 percent) than children of natives (40 percent). Still, children of natives are four times more likely to be poor if they live in a single-parent than in a married-couple family. Thus the higher prevalence of single-parent families among Mexican children of natives suggests that economic progress is being eroded by shifts in family structure.
Mexican immigrant families also face special challenges associated with migration itself. Mexican immigrants are predominantly labor migrants, sojourners who come to the United States temporarily to work during their early adult years (as early as late adolescence through their mid-thirties). At least initially, they maintain strong ties with their households and families in Mexico, sending remittances and visiting or even eventually returning home. Others remain permanently in the United States even though many are unauthorized. Not surprisingly, these migration patterns shape children’s living arrangements. For example, the circular nature of Mexican labor migration appears to contribute to the formation of highly unstable households made up of both extended kin and non-kin. In addressing the question of why Mexican immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born Mexicans to live in extended families, Van Hook and Glick recently contrasted an explanation focused on cultural norms brought from Mexico with an explanation that stresses the use of extended-family co-residence as a survival strategy.18 They showed that recent immigrants live in household structures very different from those in Mexico, with considerably more lateral extension (for example, living with adult siblings) and co-residence with nonrelatives. As Mexican immigrants live longer in the United States, they are less likely to live in either of those arrangements and less likely to live with extended kin altogether. The study also found that extended-family arrangements are highly unstable, with considerable turnover of household members. Although Van Hook and Glick’s research was not based on families with children, it suggests that living in an extended-family may temporarily benefit Mexican children of recent immigrants by helping their parents cope with the many challenges they face when they first arrive in the United States. But such an arrangement is unlikely to be stable or to contribute to children’s long-term well-being.
One particularly troubling difficulty posed by migration is that it can separate children from their parents, either because one family member migrates first and later brings over other family members (stage migration) or because a parent is deported or deterred from the dangerous border crossing. Ethnographic accounts detail “transnational family” patterns among labor migrants from Central America and Mexico,19 whereby one or more family members (often a parent) will migrate for work, leaving other family members behind. Children born in the country of origin may be left there in the care of a single parent or relative even as new U.S.-born siblings are raised in the United States, so children in both countries are living apart from one or both parents and siblings. Little is known about how many children live in these types of families, but the number may be substantial. In the United States, although most Mexican children of immigrants live with two parents, 21 percent live with only one parent. Of these “single” parents, 17 percent are married but live apart from their spouse. Although the whereabouts of these parents is unknown, they may be living in Mexico. In a study of an immigrant-sending community in central Mexico, Joanna Dreby found that 28 percent of children had one or both parents living in the United States.20 Clearly further study is warranted to learn more about how long children of immigrants remain separated from their immediate family members and how that separation affects their well-being and future integration into U.S. society. Because of the limits of cross-sectional data for studying family separations and instability, it will be necessary to build binational data sets that follow children and parents over time to advance research in this area.
Migration also separates children from their parents when foreign-born adolescents travel to the United States alone in search of work. Among foreign-born Mexicans aged twelve to seventeen, fully 12 percent live in U.S. households with no resident parent.21 These youths are highly likely to live with relatives other than parents or grandparents (62 percent), such as siblings, cousins, or aunts and uncles, or in households that do not include family members (27 percent). Because they are rarely enrolled in school and are subject to limited supervision, youth living apart from their parents are at high risk of negative short-term outcomes (such as unmet health care needs or drug and alcohol abuse) and negative long-term outcomes (such as limited education and skill development).22 Yet few studies provide information on the circumstances of Mexican children who live apart from their parents. Researchers know little about the stability of their living arrangements or about whether living with extended kin is protective for these vulnerable youth.
Yet another risk factor for Mexican children of immigrants is the mixed legal status of their family members. Almost half of Mexican children of immigrants live in families where the children are citizens and the parents are not. (The comparable share for children of Asian immigrants is 13 percent; for children of European immigrants, 14 percent).23 Beyond lacking U.S. citizenship, many of the parents in Mexican mixed-status families are unauthorized, especially those who have immigrated relatively recently. Using data from 2004, Jeffrey Passel showed that most Mexico-born U.S. residents who entered the country after 1990 were unauthorized, with figures ranging from 70 percent during 1990-94 to 85 percent during 2000-04.24 Although the citizen children of unauthorized parents are on an equal legal footing with all citizen children, their parents’ unauthorized status affects them adversely in many ways. Unauthorized parents typically work in unstable, low-wage jobs that do not carry health benefits. Thus Mexican children of unauthorized parents are more likely to be poor than other Mexican children of immigrants. In addition, as Passel notes in his article in this volume, unauthorized parents often fail to take advantage of public benefit programs for which their children qualify, because they fear deportation. These hardships may be intensified by unstable living arrangements and periods of separation from one or both parents. Researchers as yet know little about the family situations of children with unauthorized parents and should make that topic a high priority for future work.
The lives of children in mixed-status families would become especially difficult if U.S. citizenship laws were to change. One particularly disturbing recent development has been the mounting criticisms of birthright citizenship, which grants citizenship to all persons born in the United States as stated in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For the United States to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants, as some have advocated, could jeopardize child well-being and Mexicans’ prospects for social integration. Jennifer Van Hook and Michael Fix projected the size of the unauthorized population if all children with an unauthorized mother were denied legal status.25 Their mid-level estimates suggest that within four decades, the unauthorized population would be 72 percent higher than the number under current law, and 15 percent of the unauthorized would be third- or higher-generation Americans. Because infants would be the first to lose U.S. citizenship, children would be disproportionately affected. By 2050 the share of all U.S. children who would be unauthorized would more than double, mostly likely exceeding 5 percent. In all likelihood, most of these children would be of Mexican or other Hispanic origin.
Children in Southeast Asian Immigrant and Refugee Families
Refugees come to the United States under very different circumstances than do Mexican labor migrants. Many flee their countries of origin from stressful and sometimes dangerous situations with little or no planning and may be ill prepared for life in the United States. Unlike labor migrants, however, they and their children are legally resident in the United States and receive settlement assistance from the federal government.
Refugees admitted to the United States in recent decades have increasingly come from diverse countries of origin.26 Yet much of what scholars know about the living arrangements of children in refugee families comes from studies of the children of immigrants from Southeast Asia and Indochina–largely because Southeast Asian refugees have been in residence in the United States longer than most of their contemporary counterparts. The three major Southeast Asian refugee groups in the United States are the Vietnamese (whose arrival between 1970 and 2000 resulted in a tenfold increase in the Asian foreign-born population), Cambodians, and Laotians.27 Refugees from Laos include former Hmong guerrillas, a group that fought on behalf of the U.S. government during the Vietnam War, as well as their descendants. In addition to their larger numbers, Vietnamese refugees differ from their counterparts from Cambodia and Laos in other important ways. For example, although children were overrepresented in refugee movements from all three countries, Cambodian and Laotian refugee groups brought with them more children than did the earlier Vietnamese groups.28 Similarly, because Vietnamese refugee families fled to the United States earlier, their families have a greater share of second-generation children.29
Many studies of Southeast Asian immigrants base their discussion of living arrangements on the circumstances of the refugees’ flight from conflicts and the ensuing implications for both their mode of entry and their situation after arrival. The refugee experience poses a range of challenges for Southeast Asian children of immigrants through its influence on household characteristics. Parental social and economic attributes, for example, differ for children in refugee and nonrefugee families, with other Asian immigrants tending to be more highly skilled and better educated than Southeast Asian refugees.30 According to Ruben Rumbaut’s study of children in San Diego, children in Southeast Asian refugee groups are less likely than other children to have parents who graduated from college. They are also the least likely to live in families that owned their own home.31 Human capital also varies among the refugee groups, with families from Cambodia and Laos more disadvantaged than those from Vietnam. Rumbaut finds that parental schooling and home ownership rates are much lower among Cambodians and Laotians than among the Vietnamese. Other studies find parental human capital lowest among the Laotian Hmong refugees, many of whom were poor rural farmers before migrating to the United States.32
Other characteristics of Southeast Asian refugee parents depend on when they arrived in the United States. Earlier refugee cohorts from Vietnam, for example, had more schooling when they arrived than did more recent arrivals.33 That disparity has important implications for child well-being among the Vietnamese because recent Southeast Asian refugee cohorts arrive with a greater number of children than earlier cohorts.34
The unique context of Southeast Asian refugee immigration also has implications for the family characteristics of the children, some of which pose significant challenges. First, a relatively high share of Southeast Asian children of immigrants lives in nontraditional family structures because of the death of family members, either in war or from hardships of life in refugee camps.35 Cambodian refugee households suffered the worst effects. As observed by Nga Nguy, many Cambodian immigrants had spouses in their native country who were killed or simply taken away by Khmer Rouge guerrillas before they arrived in the United States.36 More than a third of all Cambodian refugees are estimated to have lost either a family member or a close friend.37
Family deaths naturally diminished the likelihood that children would live in two-parent families. Rumbaut, for example, finds that Cambodian youths are less likely than other immigrant youths to live with two parents. Studies of Hmong and other Laotian youths report similar findings. According to the Youth Development Study in Minnesota, most Hmong youths live in households missing either one or two parents who died in conflict or in refugee camps; about two-thirds live in families without a biological father.38 A significant number of Laotian immigrants to the United States also arrived as single parents, having lost their partners to conflict.39
Consequently Southeast Asian children of immigrants are more likely to live in single-parent families than their Asian counterparts overall (16 percent versus 12 percent for all Asians). They are, however, with the exception of Cambodian-origin children, less likely to live with a single parent than either Mexican or Caribbean black children of immigrants. As table 3 shows, about 16 percent of Southeast Asian children of immigrants live in single-parent families (24 percent for Cambodians), compared with 21 percent of Mexican and 43 percent of Caribbean black children of immigrants. Thus, although the significance of premigration parental mortality for family structure may have declined, the high prevalence of single-parent families among Southeast Asian immigrants suggests that their family structure is also a product of other social determinants.
Family structure among Southeast Asian youths is determined by the absence not only of Southeast Asian fathers but also of American fathers of children born outside the United States. For example, Jeremy Hein maintains that a significant number of first-generation Vietnamese and Cambodian children who arrived in the United States with only their mothers and siblings had fathers who were American soldiers.40 Because many of these fathers also died during the wars in their respective countries, only a few of their children were reunited with their fathers after arriving in the United States.
As another consequence of their war experiences, Cambodian immigrants created complex networks of extended-family relationships that foster family cohesion across fragmented households. Hein finds that these networks involve attaching isolated individuals and fragmented families to other families through friendship, fictive kinship, or marriage. It is not unusual for these households to contain multiple generations, as well as married siblings or friends who are unrelated to other household members but nonetheless considered part of the family. Among Vietnamese refugees, interstate mobility after arrival in the United States also complicates household structures. According to Nazli Kibria, many Vietnamese refugees migrate from one U.S. state to another to live with friends and other kin, thus creating new households that allow them to pool resources to combat poverty.41 Hmong household relationships too are often highly complex. Estimates from the 2000 census indicate that the Hmong are more likely than the rest of the U.S. population to live in households that include grandchildren, parents, siblings, and other kin members.42
Table 3 shows that the likelihood of living with a grandparent varies considerably by country of origin among Southeast Asian children of immigrants, from a high of 23 percent for Cambodians to a low of 7 percent for Laotians. All Southeast Asian children, however, are highly likely to live in households with relatives other than grandparents. Combining grandparents and other relatives, fully 37 percent live in households with relatives other than their parents. Almost half of Cambodian children live in complex family households. Southeast Asian refugees are, therefore, highly likely to have siblings, other relatives, and nonrelatives within their households who help provide child care and with whom they share resources.43 Nonetheless, the share of other relatives in their households is roughly comparable to that of Caribbean black children of immigrants and only somewhat higher than that of Mexican children of immigrants.
Southeast Asian children also have larger families than do other immigrant groups. Among Southeast Asians, Hmong families are the largest and also the youngest.44 Southeast Asian families are large for several reasons.45 The first is their fertility rate, which exceeds that of all other immigrants except Mexicans. The second is their desire to retain the characteristics of traditional Southeast Asian families after arriving in the United States. For example, Hmong immigrant families, like families in their country of origin, are formed early in the life course because of early marriage among females and the importance of childbearing.46 As many as half of Hmong girls in California are estimated to marry before age seventeen.47 Zha Blong Xiong and Arunya Tuicomepee report that the Hmong have higher teen birth rates than blacks, Latinos, and other Asians.48 Not surprisingly, their analysis also shows that families consisting of married couples with children are more prevalent among the Hmong than among the U.S. population overall, again reflecting the importance of early marriage and childbearing among Hmong adolescents.
Studies about the possible effects of Southeast Asian childbearing patterns on socioeconomic outcomes report mixed findings. For example, the high fertility rate of Southeast Asians has been linked with an increased risk of welfare dependency.49 And findings show that large family size is associated with low labor force participation among females. Yet, according to many studies, the link between early childbearing and low educational attainment is weaker among Hmong teenage mothers than among their non-Hmong counterparts.50
Southeast Asian youths who immigrate to the United States by themselves are especially vulnerable, particularly when they live in households with no parents present. As table 3 shows, 5.2 percent of Southeast Asian children (and 6.1 percent of Vietnamese children) live without parents. Some of these unaccompanied youths arrive in the United States either as orphans or having been sent by parents to establish initial ties to facilitate future immigration through family reunification preferences.51 Many of these children must make significant life-course transitions, such as their first employment experience, without their parents.52 Despite such known vulnerabilities, however, only a few studies have systematically examined the living arrangements of unaccompanied refugee youths from Southeast Asia. A 1988 study found that many resettled within new U.S. families after arriving in the United States.53 Similar patterns have been found in more recent refugee groups.54
Research on the implications of these living arrangements for children’s outcomes focuses on unaccompanied Southeast Asian refugee youths in American foster families–finding, for example, that they have lower grades than their counterparts in ethnic foster families.55 Unaccompanied siblings within the same foster family face other difficulties. For example, Mary Ann Bromley found that youths whose oldest sibling was their “household head” before immigrating to the United States have trouble adjusting when their sibling is replaced as household head by their foster father.56 She also reports that unaccompanied refugee youths in American families are likely to feel isolated and have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, although these feelings generally disappear as their stay in the United States lengthens. When they transition to independent living, older unaccompanied youths in foster care face many practical difficulties, such as taking care of themselves and finding employment to meet their expenses.57
Children in Black Caribbean Families
As U.S. immigration flows have become more diverse, the black foreign-born population has grown larger. Now one of the nation’s fastest-growing immigrant groups, black immigrants, particularly those from the Caribbean, have drawn attention from scholars and social commentators for their economic success despite their disadvantaged racial origins.58 Nevertheless, research and policy attention to the living arrangements of their children is generally limited–and at odds with the “success story” often told about black immigrants. Recent studies suggest that the children of black immigrants are more likely than other children to face several types of familial vulnerabilities that have significant implications for their well-being. For example, among all children of immigrants, the children of black immigrants are the least likely to live with two married parents; they are highly likely to live in single-parent families or with grandparents rather than parents.59 In addition, they live in less favorable familial circumstances as they assimilate. As their generational status increases, they are more likely than children in other immigrant groups to continue to live in socioeconomically vulnerable household contexts, such as in single-mother households.
Most studies on the living arrangements of children of black immigrants focus on the largest such group–Caribbean immigrants– in part because they arrived earlier than black immigrants from other regions.60 Recent estimates indicate that more than half of all black children of immigrants have Caribbean-origin parents.61 We thus confine our review of the research to the children of black Caribbean immigrants.
Household living arrangements among black Caribbean immigrants are influenced by gender disparities in Caribbean immigration to the United States. Specifically, there are more female than male Caribbean immigrants, and this has influenced the sex composition of adults in immigrant families.62 Caribbean-origin children of immigrants, especially those from the English-speaking Caribbean, are more likely to live in female-headed families than are children in many other immigrant groups.63 Some scholars suggest that the high prevalence of single-parent families among Caribbean immigrants also reflects the influence of pre-migration familial norms unique to the Caribbean region. The higher prevalence of female-headed households among Caribbean than non-Caribbean immigrants in South Florida, for example, reflects the higher prevalence of such families in Caribbean countries of origin.64 At the same time, female-headed households among Caribbean immigrants sometimes result from shifts in who is designated as household head. Such shifts may arise from the post-immigration economic influence of women in families accompanied by husbands or fathers during their initial migration to the United States.65
Table 3 compares the family structures of black children of immigrants from the Caribbean and from Africa. Caribbean-origin youth are considerably less likely to live with married parents (33 percent) than their counterparts whose parents migrated from Africa (55 percent). They are more likely than any other group shown in table 3 except black children of native-born Americans to live in a single-parent family (43 percent compared with 55 percent).
The prevalence of single-parent families among Caribbean immigrants varies by group and by state of residence. Sherri Grasmuck and Ramon Grosfoguel maintain, for example, that in New York, Dominican immigrants have more female-headed households than do Jamaicans or Haitians.66 But in both California and Florida, Rumbaut finds that the children of Jamaican and Haitian immigrants are the most likely to live in father-absent families.67 Regardless of place of residence, however, Caribbean children in single-parent families fare worse than their counterparts in two-parent families. Among Caribbean immigrants in Southern Florida, for example, children in single-parent families were found to have lower grade point averages, as well as lower math and reading scores, than those in two-parent families.68 In addition, Mary Waters’ work among Caribbean youths in New York indicates that children in female-headed single-parent families generally have working mothers whose ability to supervise them is constrained by their limited access to networks of extended-family members and friends.69
Among Caribbean immigrants, single-parent households are sometimes temporary family arrangements associated with sequential patterns of family migration in which females initially migrate with their children to be followed by their spouses.70 Indeed, our analysis of the CPS data shows that among all black children of immigrants living in single-parent households, roughly one in five has a married parent living elsewhere. Stage-migration patterns may thus separate members of black immigrant families, much as they do Mexican immigrant families. Even when the “married-but-apart” group is added to the “married” category, however, the resulting share is substantially lower than that among other children of immigrants. Moreover, evidence suggests that a large share of the U.S.-born children of Caribbean immigrants lives in female-headed single-parent families. Waters, for example, notes a high prevalence of female single-parent households among second-generation black Caribbean children of immigrants,71 suggesting that the high prevalence of single-parent living arrangements among Caribbean families cannot be explained simply by sequential migration patterns and traditional or home country familial norms. The persistence of single-parent families across generations suggests post-immigration influences that are yet to be examined systematically.
Extended-family members who remain in the Caribbean generally play a crucial role in the residential patterns of these children. Parents sometimes send children back to their country of origin to keep them from being socialized negatively by their peers or to influence their developmental trajectories. Once back in the Caribbean, children usually live in nonparent households headed by extended-family members.72 Likewise, when limited resources prevent the entire family from immigrating, siblings left behind live with extended-family members.73 These children, who are generally very young, are raised in nonparent households until their early teenage years, when they are reunited with their parents in the United States.74 Post-migration changes in households also have social implications for the integration of newly arriving Caribbean teenagers into the family. Extended separation between parents and their children may be especially stressful for children whose parents divorce or remarry, or both, in their absence, especially when children have to live with new stepparents.75 Consequently the reunification of Caribbean children and their immigrant parents in the United States after long separation is often associated with elevated parent-child conflict.76
Immigration and
Immigrant Integration Policy
and Child Well-Being
Immigration policy shapes the laws and practices that affect the national origins, numbers, and characteristics of those who come to live in the United States. It includes admissions, refugee, and border policies. Immigrant integration policy involves the laws and practices concerning the settlement and incorporation of immigrants and their children. Despite the wide diversity of the challenges that face immigrants and their families because of their unique patterns of immigration and integration, it is possible to identify some ways to alter U.S. immigration and integration policies to help sustain the pre-existing strengths of a broad range of immigrant families.
Immigration Policy
Since 1965 U.S. immigration policy has been guided by principles that promote the reunification of immigrants with their children and other relatives living abroad. In practice, however, policy often violates these principles. Sometimes, it serves to separate rather than support immigrant families. One issue requiring policy makers’ attention is that legal immigrants to the United States must often wait several years before their spouses and children may legally join them. Relatives of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents (LPRs) are permitted to immigrate to the United States under the “family reunification” provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, long backlogs for some family reunification admission categories, including the spouse and minor children of legal permanent residents, contribute to extended periods of family separation. Backlogs are partially a consequence of inadequate staffing. Doris Meissner and Donald Kerwin argue that the office of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) is understaffed and ill prepared for the inevitable periodic surges in applications.77 They acknowledge that serious efforts have been made during the past decade to reduce backlogs, but contend that some of the apparent successes have come about by redefining the backlog rather than reducing the waiting time for applicants. According to Meissner and Kerwin, reductions in the backlog (made possible by surges in funding and staffing) tend to be offset by increases in the number of applications as word gets out that wait times have become shorter.
Backlogs are also attributable to the mismatch between admission policy and the demand for visas. Under the family reunification criteria, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants are eligible for admission to the United States. Current admission criteria grant unlimited numbers of visas to minor children and spouses of U.S. citizens, meaning that they may be admitted as soon as their case has been approved. But the spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents must usually wait several years after their application is approved before they are issued an immigration visa, because the number of visas available to minor children and spouses of LPRs is limited by numerical annual caps that are applied equally to all countries regardless of demand for immigrant visas. The caps, devised to prevent single countries from dominating immigration flows, place unrealistic restrictions on countries with large numbers of potential immigrants to the United States, such as Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines. In 2006 a spouse or a minor child sponsored by an LPR had to wait about six years between applying and being admitted, and the wait has been estimated to be much longer for Mexicans, who apply in such large numbers.78 Immigrants qualifying for other visa categories, such as unmarried adult children, often have an even longer wait (for example, fifteen years for Mexicans).
During the waiting period between application and admission, prospective immigrants must remain outside the United States. If authorities discover that they have lived in the United States illegally for more than one year, admission is denied and they are not allowed to immigrate for ten more years.79 Meanwhile, young children living outside the United States spend critical childhood years separated from their immigrant parent(s) and sometimes even “age out” of the admission category for which they were initially eligible (because they are no longer minor children). Thus, children who turn twenty-two while waiting for admission must find alternative legal pathways–and may endure even longer waiting periods–if they wish to join their parents in the United States. If children are finally reunited with their parents, interpersonal problems may arise as these families negotiate their new lives together and older children born outside the United States must contend with new U.S.-born siblings.
Long waits for legal admission may also encourage illegal immigration. As the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future argues, “The system’s multiple shortcomings have led to a loss of integrity in legal immigration processes. These shortcomings contribute to unauthorized migration when families choose illegal immigration rather than waiting unreasonable periods for legal entry.”80 Guillermina Jasso and her colleagues find that about half of LPRs are not new arrivals but had been living (most illegally) in the United States.81 In 2005 (the last year estimates were made available), the backlog included 3.1 million approved LPR applications. If half of these cases were living illegally in the United States in 2005, that would imply that about 14 percent of the estimated 10.5 million unauthorized residents at that time had been approved for legal admission but remained unauthorized because of the long waiting lists.82
Reducing immigration backlogs could improve children’s lives. At the very least, adequate staffing could reduce waiting times within existing immigration law. Some observers argue further that minor children and spouses of LPRs should be treated like the minor children and spouses of citizens and be admitted immediately without a wait. Still others have proposed legislation to reduce the backlog by allowing LPRs, like citizens, to bring in their spouses and children, but not their parents.83 All these measures are likely to shorten the time that legal immigrants are separated from their spouses and children living abroad and could also reduce the size of the unauthorized population.
Another immigration policy issue with important implications for immigrant families is the deportation of unauthorized immigrants. About 5 million children in the United States have at least one unauthorized parent. Nearly one in three children of immigrant parents (and half of all foreign-born children) has at least one unauthorized parent.84 In the past decade, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stepped up workforce raids and deportations of unauthorized workers. The number of unauthorized immigrants arrested at workplaces increased from 500 in 2002 to 3,600 in 2006. Often the unintended victims of these raids and arrests are the children of the immigrants. Indeed, U.S. courts have ruled that having a citizen child is not sufficient cause to prevent deportation of parents who are not authorized to reside and work in the United States. In several case studies on the impact of workforce raids on children, Randy Capps and his colleagues found that the arrest and deportation of unauthorized workers often resulted in family separation and financial hardship for children of immigrants. 85 For every 100 unauthorized workers arrested, about 50 children were in their care. Following a workforce raid, unauthorized immigrant parents were often held overnight while their children were placed in the care of neighbors, babysitters, and relatives. Single parents or parents who were the sole caregiver of children were often released on the same day. Frequently, however, one of the parents was held (some for several months) while the other was released on bond to care for children but not permitted to work. Despite assistance from family members, community organizations, and churches, these families experienced great financial hardship and emotional stress. Although the number of children directly affected by workforce raids now appears to be low compared with the overall number of children of immigrants, the effects could spread if deportation efforts are increased.
Immigrant Integration Policy
The successful economic and social integration of today’s immigrant families is key to the future well-being of the nation’s children. Of particular concern is the increase in the share of immigrant children living with single parents across generations. But developing policies that reduce the levels of marital dissolution and nonmarital childbearing for this population is extremely difficult. Researchers and policy makers do not know how to reduce these behaviors in the broader U.S. population, let alone among the children and grandchildren of immigrants. To some degree, declines in marriage rates and increases in single parenthood may be inevitable among immigrant families as they acculturate, because divorce and single parenthood have become increasingly commonplace in U.S. society. Nonetheless, it is clear that both marital dissolution and nonmarital childbearing are strongly associated with economic hardship– both because economic disadvantage leads to fewer marriages and greater marital instability and because single parenthood reduces the number of earners in children’s households. The successful economic integration of immigrant families is therefore critical to efforts to reduce the prevalence of single-parent families among second- and third-generation children and to reduce the negative consequences of living in a single-parent household. Measures to reduce poverty among all children of immigrants, regardless of their living arrangements, are of central importance.
Unlike many other countries with large immigrant populations, the United States has no explicit immigrant integration policy or programs. If anything, the U.S. government has weakened its support for immigrant families over the past three decades, as is evident in the steady withdrawal of social welfare benefits for noncitizens since the early 1980s and in the welfare reforms of 1996 that tied eligibility for federal welfare benefits to citizenship. 86 Welfare reform led to substantial reductions in receipt of welfare among noncitizens and was also associated with increases in food insecurity among immigrant families and their children.87 Nor were the effects of welfare reform limited to noncitizens. Even though U.S.-born children of immigrants remained eligible for welfare benefits, their rates of participation in welfare programs, especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly the food stamp program), decreased faster than did those of children of citizens. Some accounts suggest that the decrease in participation was attributable to immigrants’ confusion about eligibility, their worry that applying for benefits would jeopardize their ability to naturalize or sponsor relatives for immigration, or their fear of bringing attention to other unauthorized immigrants living in the household.88 Although some observers believe that immigrants should not receive economic support, accumulating evidence suggests that immigrants are unlikely to be drawn to the United States because of its welfare benefits. Nor are they especially “welfare-prone” or deterred from working because of the availability of welfare benefits.89 On the basis of that evidence, we suggest that more attention and resources should be directed toward immigrant settlement. Legal immigrants and their children should be granted greater access to the social safety net regardless of citizenship status. At the very least, immigrant parents need accurate information about social welfare benefits for which they and their children are eligible.
Conclusion
Children with immigrant parents are a rapidly growing part of the U.S. child population, and they are here to stay. Their health and development, educational attainment, and future social and economic integration will play a defining role in the nation’s future. Immigrant families have many strengths–in particular, high levels of marriage and commitment to family life–that clearly benefit their children and offset to some extent potential negative impacts of other risk factors. But despite their strengths, these families are vulnerable because of the separations and economic insecurities inherent in the migration process, the stresses of forging a new life in the United States, and the lack of an explicit U.S. immigrant integration policy.90 In facing these challenges, immigrant families reshape and adapt themselves through extended-family living arrangements, social support networks of kin and non-kin, and family networks that extend beyond national boundaries.
Quite apart from immigration, children’s living arrangements in the United States have been changing rapidly in response to a sharp rise over the past several decades in nonmarital births, cohabitation, and marital dissolution. Despite rising rates of female employment, the growth of single parenthood resulting from these changes has led to a striking inequality in children’s life chances, with children in two-parent families having access to far more economic resources and parental time than children in families with only one, or, even worse, no parent. Differences in the living arrangements of children of immigrants by generational status suggest that as immigrant families spend more time in the United States, their family patterns progressively mirror those of the general population. The nation should pay special heed to how this aspect of immigrants’ Americanization heightens the vulnerability of their children.
Endnotes
*
Karina Fortuny and Ajay Chaudry, “Children of Immigrants: Immigration Trends,” Fact Sheet No. 1 (Washington: Urban Institute, 2009).
*
Ibid.
*
Authors’ calculations, 2005-2009 Current Population Surveys.
*
Min Zhou and Yang Sao Xiong, “The Multifaceted American Experiences of the Children of Asian Immigrants: Lessons for Segmented Assimilation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, no. 6 (2005): 1119-52.
*
Ralph Salvador Oropesa and Nancy S. Landale, “Immigrant Legacies: Ethnicity, Generation, and Children’s Familial and Economic Lives,” Social Science Quarterly 78, no. 2 (1997): 399-416.
*
Paul R. Amato, “The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation,” Future of Children 15, no. 2 (2005): 75-96.
*
Jennifer Van Hook and Jennifer E. Glick, “Immigration and Living Arrangements: Moving beyond Economic Need versus Acculturation,” Demography 44, no. 2 (2007): 225-49.
*
Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill, “For Love or Money? The Impact of Family Structure on Family Income,” Future of Children 15, no. 2 (2005): 57-74.
*
Pamela R. Davidson, “Diversity in Living Arrangements and Children’s Economic Well-Being in Single-Mother Households,” in Child Poverty in America Today, edited by Barbara A. Arrighi and David J. Maume (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2007).
*
Amato, “The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation” (see note 6).
*
Jennifer E. Glick and Jennifer Van Hook, “Through Children’s Eyes: Families and Households of Latino Children in the United States,” in Latina/os in the United States: Changing the Face of America, edited by Havidan Rodriguez, Rogelio Saenz, and Cecelia Menjivar (New York: Springer, 2008), pp. 72-86.
*
The Current Population Survey provides information on the birthplace of the child and the child’s mother and father even if the child does not live with his parents.
*
Jennifer E. Glick and Jennifer Van Hook, “The Mexican-Origin Population of the United States in the Twentieth Century,” Migration between Mexico and the United States: Binational Study (U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, 1998).
*
Brian Duncan, V. Joseph Hotz, and Stephen J. Trejo, “Hispanics in the U.S. Labor Market,” in Hispanics and the Future of America, edited by Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell (Washington: National Academies Press, 2006), pp. 228-90.
*
Edward E. Telles and Vilma Ortiz, Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008).
*
Authors’ calculations from the 2005-2009 Current Population Surveys.
*
Duncan, Hotz, and Trejo, “Hispanics in the U.S. Labor Market” (see note 14).
*
Van Hook and Glick, “Immigration and Living Arrangements: Moving beyond Economic Need versus Acculturation” (see note 7).
*
Cecilia Menjivar and Leisy Abrego, “Parents and Children across Borders: Legal Instability and Intergenerational Relations in Guatemalan and Salvadoran Families,” in Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America, edited by Nancy Foner (New York University Press, 2009), pp. 160-89. Joanna Dreby, “Negotiating Work and Family over the Life Course: Mexican Family Dynamics in a Binational Context,” in Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America, edited by Foner, pp. 189-212.
*
Ibid.
*
Authors’ calculations from the 2005-2009 Current Population Surveys.
*
Ralph Salvador Oropesa and Nancy S. Landale, “Why Do Immigrant Youth Who Never Enroll in U.S. Schools Matter? An Examination of School Enrollment among Mexicans and Non-Hispanic Whites,” Sociology of Education 82 (2009): 240-66.
*
Fortuny and Chaudry, “Children of Immigrants: Immigration Trends” (see note 1).
*
Jeffrey Passel, “Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics,” Background Briefing Prepared for Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future (June 2005).
*
Jennifer Van Hook and Michael Fix, The Demographic Impacts of Repealing Birthright Citizenship (Washington: Migration Policy Institute, September 2010).
*
David A. Martin, “A New Era for U.S. Refugee Resettlement,” Colombia Human Rights Law Review 36 (2004): 299-322.
*
Min Zhou and Yang Sao Xiong, “The Multifaceted American Experiences of the Children of Asian Immigrants: Lessons for Segmented Assimilation” (see note 4).
*
Jeremy Hein, From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia: A Refugee Experience in the United States (New York: Twayne Press, 1995).
*
Ruben Rumbaut, “Passages to Adulthood: The Adaptation of Children of Immigrants in Southern California,” in Children of Immigrants: Health, Adjustment, and Public Assistance, edited by Donald Hernandez (Washington: National Academies Press, 1999), pp. 478-545.
*
Mary Waters and Karl Eschbach, “Immigration and Ethnic and Racial Inequality in the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology 21 (1995): 419-46.
*
Rumbaut, “Passages to Adulthood” (see note 29).
*
Teresa Swartz, Jennifer C. Lee, and Jeyland T. Mortimer, “Achievements of First-Generation Hmong Youth: Findings from the Youth Development Study,” CURA Reporter (Spring 2003): 15-21.
*
Steve Gold, “Migration and Family Adjustment: Continuity and Change among Vietnamese in the United States,” in Family Ethnicity: Strength in Diversity, edited by Harriette Pipes McAddo (Sage Publications, 1998), pp. 300-14.
*
Rumbaut, “Passages to Adulthood” (see note 29).
*
Rebecca Kim, “Ethnic Differences in Academic Achievement between Vietnamese and Cambodian Children: Cultural and Structural Explanations,” Sociological Quarterly 43, no. 2 (2002): 213-35.
*
Nga Nguy, “Obstacles to the Educational Success of Cambodians in America,” The Khmer Institute (www.khmerinstitute.org).
*
Hein, From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (see note 28).
*
Swartz, Lee, and Mortimer, “Achievements of First-Generation Hmong Youth” (see note 32).
*
L. J. More and others, “Laotian American Families,” in Working with Asian Americans: A Guide for Clinicians, edited by Evelyn Lee (Guilford Press, 1997), pp. 136-52.
*
Hein, From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (see note 28).
*
Nazli Kibria, “Household Structure and Family Ideologies: The Dynamics of Immigrant Economic Adaptation among Vietnamese Refugees,” Social Problems 41, no. 1 (1994): 81-96.
*
Zha Blong Xiong and Arunya Tuicomepee, “Hmong Families in America in 2000: Continuity and Change,” in Hmong 2000 Census Publication: Data and Analysis, edited by Bo Thao, Louisa Schein, and Max Niedzweicki (Hmong National Development, Inc., & Hmong Cultural and Resource Center, 2006), pp. 12-20.
*
Donald Hernandez, Nancy Denton, and Suzanne Mcartney, “Family Circumstances of Children in Immigrant Families,” in Immigrant Families in Contemporary America, edited by Jennifer E. Lansford, Kirby Deater-Deckard, and Marc H. Bornstein (Guilford Press, 2008), pp. 9-29.
*
Kou Yang, “The Hmong in America: Twenty-Five Years of the U.S. Secret War in Laos,” Journal of Asian American Studies 4, no. 2 (2001): 165-174.
*
Joan R. Kahn, “Immigrant and Native Fertility during the 1980s: Adaptation and Expectations for the Future,” International Migration Review 28, no. 3 (1994): 501-19.
*
Ray Hutchison and Miles McNall, “Early Marriage in a Hmong Cohort,” Journal of Marriage and Family 56, no. 3 (1994): 579-90.
*
Hein, From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (see note 28).
*
Xiong and Tuicomepee, “Hmong Families in America in 2000” (see note 42).
*
Ruben Rumbaut and John Weeks, “Fertility and Adaptation: Indochinese Refugees in the United States,” International Migration Review 20, no. 2 (1986): 428-66.
*
Swartz, Lee, and Mortimer, “Achievements of First-Generation Hmong Youth” (see note 32).
*
Hein, From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (see note 28).
*
Ibid.
*
Mary Ann Bromley, “Identity as a Central Adjustment Issue for the Southeast Asian Refugee Minor,” Childcare Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1988): 104-14.
*
Paul L. Geltman and others, “The ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’: Functional and Behavioral Health of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Resettled in the United States,” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 159, no. 6 (2005): 585-91.
*
Linda A. Piwowarczyk, “Our Responsibility to Unaccompanied and Separated Children in the United States: A Helping Hand,” Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 263 (2005): 263-96.
*
Bromley, “Identity as a Central Adjustment Issue for the Southeast Asian Refugee Minor” (see note 53).
*
Laura Bates and others, “Sudanese Refugee Youth in Foster Care: The ‘Lost Boys’ in America,” Child Welfare 84, no. 5 (2005): 631-48.
*
Suzanne Model, West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story? (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008).
*
Peter D. Brandon, “The Living Arrangements of Children in Immigrant Families in the United States,” International Migration Review 36, no. 2 (2002): 416-36.
*
April Gordon, “The New Diaspora–African Immigration to the United States,” Journal of Third World Studies 15, no. 1 (1998): 79-103.
*
Mary M. Kent, Immigration and America’s Black Population (Washington: Population Reference Bureau, 2007).
*
Harriette Pipes MacAdoo, Sinead Younge, and Solomon Getahun, “Marriage and Family Socialization among Black Americans and Caribbean and African Immigrants,” in The Other African-Americans: Contemporary African and Caribbean Immigrants in the United States, edited by Yorku Shaw-Taylor and Steven Tuch (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2001), pp. 93-116.
*
Donald J. Hernandez, “Demographic Change in the Life Circumstances of Immigrant Families,” Future of Children 14, no. 2 (2001): 17-47.
*
Philip Kasinitz, Juan Battle, and Ines Miyares, “Fade to Black? The Children of West Indian Immigrants in South Florida,” in Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Ruben Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes (University of California Press, 2001), pp. 267-300.
*
Holger Henke, The West Indian Americans (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001).
*
Sherri Grasmuck and Ramon Grosfoguel, “Geopolitics, Economic Niches, and Gendered Social Capital among Recent Caribbean Immigrants in New York City,” Sociological Perspectives 40, no. 3 (1997): 339-63.
*
Ruben G. Rumbaut, “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem, and Segmented Assimilation among Children of Immigrants,” International Migration Review 28, no. 4 (1994): 748-94.
*
Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares, “Fade to Black?” (see note 64).
*
Mary C. Waters, “Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City,” International Migration Review 28, no. 4 (1994): 795-820.
*
David A. Baptiste Jr., Kenneth V. Hardy, and Laurie Lewis, “Family Therapy with English Caribbean Immigrant Families in the United States: Issues of Emigration, Immigration, Culture, and Race,” Contemporary Family Therapy 19, no. 3 (1997): 337-59.
*
Waters, “Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City” (see note 69).
*
Marjorie F. Orellana and others, “Transnational Childhoods: The Participation of Children in Processes of Family Migration,” Social Problems 48, no. 4 (2001): 572-91.
*
Henke, The West Indian Americans (see note 65).
*
Mary C. Waters, Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (Harvard University Press, 2001).
*
Ibid.
*
Baptiste, Hardy, and Lewis, “Family Therapy with English Caribbean Immigrant Families in the United States” (see note 70).
*
Doris Meissner and Donald Kerwin, DHS and Immigration: Taking Stock and Changing Course (Washington: Migration Policy Institute, 2009).
*
Patricia Hatch, “U.S. Immigration Policy: Family Reunification” (Washington: League of Women Voters, 2010) (www.lwv.org/Content/ContentGroups/Projects/ImmigrationStudy/BackgroundPapers1/ImmigrationStudy_FamilyReunification_Hatch ).
*
Ibid.
*
Doris Meissner and others, Immigration and America’s Future: A New Chapter, Report of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, Spencer Abraham and Lee H. Hamilton, Co-Chairs (Washington: Migration Policy Institute, 2006).
*
Guillermina Jasso and others, “The New Immigrant Survey Pilot (NIS-P): Overview and New Findings about U.S. Legal Immigrants at Admission,” Demography 29, no. 2 (2000): 127-39.
*
Ruth Ellen Wasem, U.S. Immigration Policy on Permanent Admissions (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2010); Michael Hoefer, Nancy Rytina, and Christopher Compbell, Estimates of the Undocumented Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2005 (Washington: Office of Immigration Statistics, Department of Homeland Security, 2006).
*
OpenCongress, “S.1085: Reuniting Families Act” (Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation, 2009) (www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s1085/show).
*
Jeffrey S. Passel, Jennifer Van Hook, and Frank D. Bean, “Estimates of the Legal and Unauthorized Foreign-Born Population for the United States and Selected States, Based on Census 2000” (Washington: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2009).
*
Randy Capps and others, Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children (Washington: Urban Institute, 2007).
*
Gregory A. Huber and Thomas Espenshade, “Neo-Isolationism, Balanced-Budget Conservatism, and the Fiscal Impacts of Immigrants,” International Migration Review 31 (1997): 1031-54.
*
George J. Borjas, “Food Insecurity and Public Assistance,” Journal of Public Economics 88 (2004): 1421-43.
*
Michael Fix and Wendy Zimmermann, “All under One Roof, Mixed Status Families in an Era of Reform,” International Migration Review 35, no. 134 (2001): 397-419.
*
Jennifer Van Hook and Frank D. Bean, “Explaining the Distinctiveness of Mexican-Immigrant Welfare Behaviors: The Importance of Employment-Related Cultural Repertoires,” American Sociological Review 74, no. 3 (2009): 423-44.
*
J
ason Fields, “Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002,” Current Population Reports, P20-547 (Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, 2003).
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The Criminalization of Black Children Across US Social Systems
1
The Criminalization of Black Children Across US Social Systems:
A Literature Review
Lucina B. Kayee
Social Work Department, Metropolitan State University
Social Work 351 – Social Research
Professor Robert Wilson
August 13th, 2022
Abstract
The criminalization of Black children is not a novel phenomenon in the United States. However, in the past twenty years, more serious inquiries and studies have taken place to broaden and deepen our understanding of how established systems are constructed to aid and perpetuate in the entrapment, persecution, and imprisonment of Black youth. This literature review will look at the social structures that exist to support the punitive systems that criminalize Black children; this includes but is not limited to harassment by law enforcement, overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system, and the funneling of Black foster youth into the juvenile justice system. These three topics only scratch the surface regarding the systemic criminalization of Black children.
Background, rationale, and significance of the literature review topic
The relationship between the criminal justice system and Black Americans has been a well-studied phenomenon in the past thirty years. Black Americans are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, ranging from interactions with police officers to incarceration rates. The social history of Black incarceration is well studied, and this literature review seeks to look at the existing systems that continue to perpetuate the targeting of Black Americans by the criminal justice system, specifically Black American children. This literature review’s importance lies in identifying existing discriminatory practices within the various public and private social systems extant in the United States. Racism and its systemic impacts are far from extinct; Racisms impact affects Black people throughout the entirety of their lifetimes, and this literature review attempts to identify the relationship between these seemingly disparate systems and practices in regard to how they criminalize Black children.
Interactions between public systems and private institutions
Black children experience punitive treatment for their behaviors throughout all social systems, whether engaging in criminal activity or not. Punitive punishment of Black children is prevalent in all social systems and settings, in particular when Black children occupy public spaces such as schools, stores, and even sidewalks. In a study on Black youth of Baltimore ages 15 to 24, researchers found that Black youth in impoverished neighborhoods changed their behaviors such as how they emote, their speech patterns, and especially where they walk and at what time of the day, they travel in order to avoid police harassment. Two-thirds of the young men in the study sample discussed negative police interference upon their daily activities, whether they were engaging in illegal activities or not. Police interactions were almost never described as ‘safe’ by the young folks in the sample, and police harassment extended even onto private property where youth may be relaxing on their front porches and stoops. Schools are often regarded as an extension of police officers’ jurisdiction with the presence of school resource officers. Police harassment, according to the study, can extend all the way from the outside of a young person’s residence all the way to the classroom (Boyd et. al, 2019).
The overrepresentation of Black youth in the criminal justice system
The systemic targeting of Black youth is just the beginning of the punitive process that funnels children into the criminal justice system. Once charges have been filed and they enter the criminal justice system, they have the odds stacked against them. In a 2021 study, authors Abrams, Barnert, and Mizel, found that Black children are vastly overrepresented in all aspects of the criminal justice system. Using statistical models, the researchers compared the incarceration rates of Black children under 12 with that of white children under 12. The referral rate for Black children was 3.8 times higher for Black children compared to white children. Similar and even more disparate statistics exist for petitions filed and wardship status among Black children. The authors highlighted the role of schools in the criminalization of Black children. In the 2015-2016 time period, Black students only made up 15% of the total student population, but 31% of students were referred from schools to law enforcement, according to the US Department of Education. According to the authors, Black children are more harshly punished for misbehavior or unjustly targeted for normal behaviors (Abrams et. al, 2021).
How the foster care system systemically criminalizes Black foster youth
Intersections of private and public spheres and systems seem fraught with intentional targeting of Black youth; however, this does not paint a complete picture. Unintentionally within social systems still, yield effective results in the criminalization and imprisonment of Black children. In a qualitative study by researcher Michaela Christy Simmons on African American foster children in New York City spanning the 1920s to the 1960s she found that the transition from governmental child welfare systems to private contractors left Black foster children without placements and thus were placed into juvenile detention centers. The catalyst for this longstanding practice was not necessarily intentional but rather neglect on both parties’ parts to find equal and adequate placement for Black foster youth (Simmons 2020). This is another branch of a network of social systems that funnel Black children into prison systems, whether guilty or not. Another layer to remember is that schools play a part in referrals to child protection agencies.
Conclusion
There is an insidious element to the ecology of social systems that unduly punish Black people and target them throughout their lifetimes, even as children. It is clear that massive policy changes will need to be implemented to address the gross negligence of the police, school, and judicial systems. Beyond legal changes, there must be racial bias trainings for the teachers of our children. As is evidenced by this review, only by looking at the deep intersections between social systems can either of these solutions work.
References
Abrams, L. S., Mizel, M. L., & Barnert, E. S. (2021). The criminalization of young children and overrepresentation of Black Youth in the Juvenile Justice System. Race and Social Problems, 13(1), 73–84.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-021-09314-7
Boyd, M. L., & Clampet-Lundquist, S. (2019). “It’s Hard to Be Around Here”: Criminalization of Daily Routines for Youth in Baltimore. Socius.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118822888
Simmons, M. C. (2020). Becoming Wards of the State: Race, Crime, and Childhood in the Struggle for Foster Care Integration, 1920s to 1960s. American Sociological Review, 85(2), 199–222.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420911062
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