cultural attributes and adaptations linked to achievement motivation among latino adolescents
TRANSCRIPT
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Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 33, No. 6, December 2004, pp. 559–568 ( C© 2004)
Cultural Attributes and Adaptations Linked to AchievementMotivation Among Latino Adolescents
Gladys E. Ibanez,1 Gabriel P. Kuperminc,2 Greg Jurkovic,3 and Julia Perilla4
Received May 14, 2003; accepted November 13, 2003
This exploratory study examined whether associations between perceived school experiences andachievement motivation varied by language acculturation and generational status among a sampleof immigrant and U.S. born Latino adolescents (n = 129). Ogbu’s (1993) notion of primary andsecondary cultural differences was adapted to better suit comparisons within this Latino group usingthe terms cultural attributes and cultural adaptations. Academic competence, school belonging, andparent involvement were positively related to achievement motivation. Academic competence andparent involvement were strongly related to achievement motivation among students who spokeEnglish or were born in the U.S., suggesting that these associations may be cultural adaptations.Future intervention programs for Latino students, regardless of acculturation or generational status,should focus on making them feel supported and included. Acculturated Latino youth and youthwho have lived in the U.S. for a long time should be targeted for programs that enhance academiccompetence and parent involvement.
KEY WORDS: Latino adolescents; achievement motivation; acculturation; cultural adaptation.
INTRODUCTION
Immigrants arrive in the U.S. with hopes of a betterlife, if not for themselves, for their children. Immigrantparents pass their hopes and dreams down to their childrenin phrases such as “estudia y sea alguien” or “study and besomebody” (Suarez-Orozco, 1989). Although the major-
1Research fellow, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education,Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-0117. Received PhD in Psychologyfrom Georgia State University. Current research interests include fam-ily processes and HIV prevention research within Latino popula-tions, particularly gay youth. To whom correspondence should be ad-dressed at 719 Ormewood Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia 30312; e-mail:[email protected].
2Associate Professor, Community Psychology, Georgia State University,Atlanta, Georgia. Received PhD in Developmental Psychology atUniversity of Virginia in 1994. Current interests are social ecology,school climate, and Latino youth.
3Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology, Georgia State University. Re-ceived PhD from University of Texas-Austin in 1975. Research interestsinclude family processes, trauma, and filial responsibility.
4Research Associate Professor, Georgia State University. Received PhDfrom Georgia State University in 1995. Research interests include im-migrant Latinos, domestic violence, and community psychology.
ity of Latinos enter high school with educational and ca-reer aspirations as high as those of the majority population,many Latino students are failing in school (Goldenberg,1996). Moreover, school achievement among Latinos lagsbehind that of their White, African American, and Asiancounterparts (Kao and Tienda, 1998). What happens tothe hopes and dreams of immigrant youth, and why arethose hopes and dreams not being realized? One wayto address this question is to examine what motivatesLatino immigrant adolescents to achieve their dreams. Forexample, perceived school experiences such as a senseof academic competence, a sense of school belonging,and parent involvement have been positively related toachievement among a general population of students inthe U.S. (Goodenow and Grady, 1993; Harter, 1988; Kaoand Tienda, 1998). However, cultures may value schoolexperiences differently and will have their own native the-ory of what leads to greater achievement (Ogbu, 1981).
This study focused on 2 processes that immigrantadolescents might use to adapt to their new environment.These processes are referred to in the present study ascultural attributes and cultural adaptations. Specifically,immigrants and their families bring with them culturally
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distinctive ways of perceiving and making sense of theirreality (cultural attributes), but they also create new waysof understanding their surroundings (cultural adaptations).Little is known about the cultural attributes that immi-grants bring with them to the U.S., and the cultural adap-tations that immigrants create as a response to their ex-periences in the new host culture. Furthermore, there areno studies that examine the association between perceivedschool experiences and achievement motivation as it per-tains to cultural attributes and adaptations. Therefore, themain purpose of this study was to learn more about per-ceived school experiences linked to achievement motiva-tion within a sample of immigrant and U.S. born Latinostudents across language acculturation levels and genera-tional status. Understanding of schooling within the Latinoculture can help U.S. schools better utilize existing cul-tural resources that promote achievement motivation, andit can produce culturally tailored interventions targetingLatino youth.
Cultural Attributes and Adaptations
Several theories have been put forward to explainthe school performance of minority children. These the-ories range from biological determinism, which assumesgenetic inferiority of minority children (Jensen, 1969) totheories that recognize the impact of different cultural set-tings on the development of children’s skills and abilities(Trueba, 1989). Although earlier theories offered an ex-planation for why many students experience school diffi-culties, these explanations could not account for the schoolsuccess experienced by many Latino students.
John Ogbu, an educational anthropologist, arguedthat earlier theories had been constructed without tak-ing into account the social reality of ethnic minorities.According to Ogbu’s (1991) cultural–ecological perspec-tive, transactions between immigrant youth and the schoolsystem are linked to wider sociohistorical factors such asimmigration and immigrant’s adaptations to the new hostculture. On the basis of his work with African Americanchildren, Ogbu (1991) describes 2 types of cultural dif-ferences that exist between minorities and a dominantsociety. Primary cultural differences, such as language,result from members of 2 different populations havingtheir own ways of behaving, thinking, and feeling, beforecoming into contact with one another (Ogbu, 1993). Sec-ondary cultural differences refer to differences that resultfrom contact between the dominant-group culture and theculture of the minority group. An oppositional stance tothe White, middle-class school system by some AfricanAmerican children is an example of a secondary culturaldifference (Ogbu, 1991, 1993).
The present study uses a different comparative ap-proach by investigating similarities and differences be-tween members of the same broadly defined group (youthof Latin American descent) separated by linguistic accul-turation and generational status. Thus, the terms primaryand secondary cultural differences were adapted to betterreflect the goals of the present study by using the terms cul-tural attributes and cultural adaptations. Cultural attributesrefer to cultural traits or values that do not change with ac-culturation or generation status (similar to Ogbu’s primarycultural differences). Cultural adaptations refer to changesin values that occur with acculturation to the U.S. or themore time spent in the U.S. (similar to secondary culturaldifferences). In sum, within this theoretical framework,the present study focused on school experiences relatedto achievement motivation among Latino adolescents inthe U.S. to determine whether these associations may becultural attributes of Latino culture or adaptations to theU.S. by Latino youth.
School Experiences Linkedto Achievement Motivation
Three school experiences that promote achievementare a sense of academic competence, a sense of school be-longing, and parental involvement (Goodenow and Grady,1993; Harter, 1988; Kao and Tienda, 1998). Academiccompetence, which refers to a student’s perceptions of hisor her school-related abilities (Harter, 1988) is highly cor-related with academic achievement and motivation (Ecclesand Wigfield, 2002; Marsh, 1990). School belonging, orthe extent to which students feel personally accepted, re-spected, included, and supported at school (Goodenow,1993), may be most crucial for students who are likely tofeel alienated and unaccepted in an environment whosevalues and beliefs may be incompatible with their own(Ford, 1993; Steele, 1992). For example, Goodenow andGrady (1993) found stronger associations between schoolbelonging and academic motivation for Latino than forAfrican American students. Lastly, there is growing evi-dence that parents contribute to adolescents’ educationaland developmental attainment (e.g., Dornbusch and Wood,1989; Entwisle, 1990). For example, greater parental in-volvement is associated with more positive attitudes to-ward school, lower rates of drop out, and higher academicachievement among White youth (Epstein, 1987; Lareau,1987). Little is known about the relation between parentalinvolvement and achievement motivation among Latinoyouth. However, the literature suggests that Latino par-ents may have low levels of involvement due to certainsocial and cultural factors such as a language barrier ordifferences in cultural values (Delgado-Gaitan, 1991).
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The Present Study
Perceived school experiences may relate differentlyto achievement motivation after Latino youth have spenttime living in the U.S. and/or have acculturated to theU.S. The acculturation process, or the process of adopt-ing certain aspects of the host culture (Berry, 1998), wasexamined as a possible moderator of the relation betweenschool experiences and achievement motivation. Gener-ational status (e.g., whether a youth migrated before 12,after 12, or was U.S. born) and language acculturation(degree to which adolescents are adopting the host lan-guage) were considered processes that may lead to culturalchanges or adaptations.
In the present study, it is hypothesized that (1) a senseof competence will be positively related to achievementmotivation regardless of acculturation level or genera-tion status; (2) a sense of school belonging will be morestrongly related to achievement motivation for high accul-turated and U.S. born youth than for low acculturated orimmigrant youth; and (3) parent involvement will be morestrongly related to achievement motivation for high accul-turated and U.S. born youth than for low acculturated orimmigrant youth.
METHOD
Participants
Data were collected in May 1999. The sample comesfrom a large public high school in the Atlanta, GAmetropolitan area. The student body consisted of 1,300students in 1997–1998 in grades 9–12 of which 28%were Latinos (Council on School Performance, 1999).Researchers recruited participants by going to classes,explaining the study to those students who identified asLatinos, and signing up those who were interested in par-ticipating. Each student was required to bring a signedparental consent, and to sign an assent form signifyingpersonal consent before participating. One-hundred andtwenty-nine students returned both a signed parental con-sent form and an assent form. Of the 129 respondents, 64%(n = 82) were girls, and ages ranged from 14 to 19, with amean age of 16.2. All of the youth were either immigrants(n=96; 74%) or U.S. born children of immigrants (n=33;26%). Most (n = 65; 66%) of the immigrants were bornin Mexico, 16% (n = 16) were born in Central America(El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua), 10%(n = 10) were born in the Caribbean (Cuba, the DominicanRepublic, or Puerto Rico), and 6% (n = 6) were born inSouth America (Colombia or Peru).
Measures
Each independent variable represents a distinctschool experience: (1) a sense of academic competence;(2) a sense of school belonging; and (3) parental involve-ment in schooling. Moderators were language accultura-tion and generational status. Three dependent variables—school aspirations, school expectations, and importance ofschooling for future success—represented achievementmotivation. All measures were self-reported, and trans-lated even if there was an existing Spanish version in or-der to make them more linguistically appropriate to thissample (Brislin et al., 1973). Those procedures include ini-tial translation (from English to Spanish), back-translation(from Spanish to English), and centering (comparison ofboth the original English and the back-translated Englishfor similarity).
Academic Competence
Academic competence was assessed with a 5-itemsubscale adapted from Harter’s (1988) Self PerceptionProfile for Adolescents, which measures a student’s per-ceptions of his/her abilities or competence within therealm of scholastic performance (e.g., “I do well in mostschool subjects”). The response format used in the origi-nal scale consists of pairs of statements, one representinga positive statement, and the other a negative statement.For each pair of statements, the child is asked to choosewhich statement is most true for him or her. When trans-lated into Spanish, this response format seemed awkward.Consequently, the items were slightly altered and a re-sponse format of a 4-point Likert scale (1 = not at alltrue, 4 = very true) was used. Internal consistency wasadequate (α = 0.75).
School Belonging
The Psychological Sense of School MembershipScale (PSSM; Goodenow and Grady, 1993; Hagborg,1994) was used to assess adolescents’ satisfaction withschool and perceptions of support from students and teach-ers (e.g., “I feel I am a part of my school.”). The 18-itemscale uses a 4-point Likert scale response (1 = not at alltrue, 4 = very true). It displayed good internal consistency(α = 0.79).
Parental Involvement in Schooling
The Parental Involvement in Schooling Scale (PI;Steinberg et al., 1992) assesses the degree to which parents
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assist their child with homework, attend extracurricularactivities, and help with class selection. The scale consistsof 7 items on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = not at all true,4 = very true). The Cronbach alpha was 0.74.
School Aspiration and School Expectations
Studies on school aspirations and expectations typi-cally have used single-items to measure these 2 constructs(McWhirter et al., 1998; Reyes et al., 1999; Trusty, 1999).Consistent with past work, school aspirations was mea-sured by 1 item, “If you could do exactly what you wanted,how far would you go in school?” The response format in-cluded 7 options ranging from “9th–11th grade” to “get alaw degree, PhD, or medical doctor’s degree.” School ex-pectations were also assessed by 1 item, “We can’t alwaysdo what we most want to do, how far do you think youactually will go in school?” The responses were the sameas for the school aspiration item.
Importance of Schooling
Scales adapted from the work of J. S. Eccles andA. J. Sameroff was used to assess importance of schooling(Roeser and Eccles, 1998). Importance of schooling forfuture success (e.g., “I have to do well in school if I wantto be a success in life”) was measured using 4-items witha 4-point Likert scale (1 = not at all true, 4 = very true).Internal consistency was 0.68.
Language Acculturation and Generation Status
Adolescents completed the Language AcculturationScale (α = .83; Marin and Marin, 1991), which measurespreference of one language over another in certain areassuch as speaking and writing (e.g., “In general, in whatlanguage do you read?”). Responses to 5 items were givenon a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = only Spanish to 5 =only English). We used the Generational History Scale(Marin and Marin, 1991) and the age of arrival to createan immigrant status variable, which included 3 levels: 1 =late immigrants (migrated after 12), 2 = early immigrants(migrated before 12), and 3 = U.S. born.
Covariates
Age, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) wereassessed. Age and gender were self-reported. Gender wascoded as male (1) and female (2). SES was measured us-ing school records of students who received financial as-
sistance for lunch. Students from low SES received freelunch (0) or partially free lunch (1). Students from highSES did not qualify for free lunch (2).
Procedures
Questionnaires were administered in small group-settings of 5–15 students. In all test sessions, students pre-ferred test administration in Spanish, although items werewritten in English and Spanish, which allowed studentsto read in whatever language, was most comfortable. Aninterviewer introduced each questionnaire to the students,and read each item aloud to control for reading compre-hension. Students were paid $10 for completing the ques-tionnaire, which lasted approximately 1 h and 30 min.
Data Analyses
The main analyses included 2 sets of regression anal-yses. The first set of regressions was conducted with age,gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) entered as co-variates in Step 1. Language acculturation was enteredas the moderator in the second step. Although school ex-periences were entered in Step 3, each school experiencewas analyzed separately in order to avoid multicollinearityamong the predictor variables. In Step 4, each school ex-perience by language acculturation interaction term wasentered and analyzed separately. This resulted in 3 sep-arate regression models for each dependent variable fora total of 9 regression models. The second set of anal-yses was identical to the previous analyses except thatgeneration status and not language acculturation was en-tered as the moderator. Three separate regression modelswere conducted for each of the dependent variables result-ing in 9 regression models. Only regression models withsignificant interaction terms will be presented in tables.
RESULTS
There were very few missing data on any of the de-pendent or independent variables; thus, missing data werereplaced by sample means. Except for educational expec-tations and parental involvement, all measures were nega-tively skewed. Because most measures were skewed in thesame direction, data transformations were not conducted.Because the Atlanta sample included adolescents fromseveral countries other than Mexico (or of Mexican de-scent), we used t tests to examine subgroup differencesbetween Mexican and non-Mexican adolescents on allmeasures. No significant subgroup differences were foundsuggesting that youth from several Latino subgroups couldbe analyzed together.
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Table I. Correlational Analysis for All Measures Among Latino Youth in the U.S. (n = 129)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Age —2. Gender 0.01 —3. SES −0.07 −0.06 —4. Generation status −0.21∗ 0.02 −0.18∗ —5. Acculturation −0.11 −0.07 −0.07 0.64∗∗∗ —6. Aspirations −0.05 −0.04 0.19∗ −0.01 0.06 —7. Expectations 0.07 −0.02 0.01 0.18∗ 0.25∗∗ 0.43∗∗∗ —8. Importance. of schooling 0.12 0.14 0.05 −0.17 −0.10 0.26∗∗ 0.25∗∗ —9. Competence −0.09 −0.17 −0.01 0.26∗∗ 0.33∗∗∗ 0.22∗ 0.35∗∗∗ 0.22∗ —
10. School belonging 0.13 −0.01 0.02 0.18∗ 0.22∗ 0.22∗ 0.37∗∗∗ 0.43∗∗∗ 0.48∗∗∗ —11. Parents involved 0.06 −0.04 −0.02 0.08 0.08 0.10 0.33∗∗∗ 0.31∗∗∗ 0.33∗∗∗ 0.48∗∗∗ —
Note. Imp = Importance.∗ p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ***p < .001.
Educational aspirations were quite high. Twenty per-cent aspired to graduating from a university, 14% to ob-taining a master’s degree, and almost one-third of Latinoyouth aspired to a doctoral degree (31%). Educationalexpectations were more modest and evenly distributed.Sixteen percent expected to graduate from high school,21% expected some college, 24% expected a 2-year col-lege degree, and 23% expected to graduate from a univer-sity. Only 5% expected to obtain a master’s or a doctoraldegree.
Correlational analysis was also conducted (Table I).Educational aspirations were positively correlated withSES, educational expectations, importance of schooling,academic competence, and school belonging. Educational
Table II. Achievement Motivation Regressed on Language Acculturation, School Experiences, and InteractionTerms (n = 129)
Educational Educational Importanceaspirations expectations of schooling
Independent variables β �R2 β �R2 β �R2
Step 1: Background 0.04 0.01 0.04Age −0.02 0.12 0.13Gender 0.02 0.05 0.20∗SES −0.21∗ −0.04 −0.05
Step 2: Moderator 0.01 0.07∗∗ 0.01Acculturation status 0.02 0.17 −0.16
Step 3: School experiencesa
Academic competence 0.27∗∗ 0.05∗ 0.32∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗∗ 0.36∗∗∗ 0.09∗∗School belonging 0.22∗ 0.05∗ 0.33∗∗∗ 0.10∗∗∗ 0.36∗∗∗ 0.21∗∗∗Parental involvement −0.03 0.01 0.31∗∗∗ 0.09∗∗∗ 0.32∗∗∗ 0.10∗∗∗
Step 4: Interaction term(s)a
Competence × Acculturation 0.20∗ 0.03∗ 0.05 0.00 0.15 0.02Belonging × Acculturation 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00Parent involved × Acculturation 0.00 0.00 −0.07 0.01 0.24∗∗ 0.06∗∗
aPredictors were analyzed separately due to multicollinearity. Interaction terms were also analyzed separately.All school experiences and interaction terms are presented together for readability.
∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
expectations were positively correlated with generationstatus, acculturation, importance of schooling, academiccompetence, school belonging, and parental involvement.Importance of schooling was positively correlated withacademic competence, school belonging, and parentalinvolvement.
Acculturation as Moderator
Language acculturation was examined as a possi-ble moderating factor between school experiences andachievement motivation. In terms of educational aspira-tions, the 3 models accounted from 6 to 13% of the vari-ance (see Table II). Students of low SES reported higher
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Fig. 1. School aspirations regressed on Competence × Languageacculturation.
aspirations, and students who reported more academiccompetence and sense of school belonging also reportedmore aspirations. There was one significant interactionterm. Language acculturation moderated the relationbetween competence and aspirations (see Fig. 1). For low-acculturated youth, school aspiration was similar regard-less of whether they felt competent at school or not. How-ever, for high-acculturated youth, school aspiration wasmuch higher for students who felt competent at schoolthan those who did not feel competent.
For school expectations, the 3 models accounted from16 to 19% of the variance. High-acculturated youth re-ported more expectations than low- acculturated youth.All school experiences—competence, school belonging,and parent involvement—were positively related to expec-tations, and there were no significant interaction terms.
For the importance of schooling, the 3 models ac-counted from 14 to 22% of the variance. All the schoolexperiences—competence, school belonging, and parentinvolvement—were positively related to the importanceof schooling. There was one significant interaction term.Language acculturation moderated the associationbetween importance of schooling and parent involvement(see Fig. 2). For low-acculturated youth, the level of theimportance of school was similar regardless of whethertheir parents were highly involved or not involved. How-ever, for high-acculturated youth, the importance of schoolwas much higher for students whose parents were involvedin school than for those students whose parents were notinvolved.
Generational Status as Moderator
Immigrant Vs. Nonimmigrant
Generation status, defined as immigrant students ver-sus U.S. born students, was also examined as a moderating
Fig. 2. Importance of schooling regressed on Parental involvement× Language acculturation.
factor between school experiences and achievement mo-tivation. In terms of educational aspirations, the 3 modelsaccounted for 9 to 14% of the variance (see Table III).Students of lower SES reported higher aspirations thanhigh-SES students. There was no main effect for immi-grant status on aspirations. Both academic competenceand school belonging were positively related to aspira-tions. Only one interaction term was significant. The as-sociation between aspirations and competence was mod-erated by immigrant status. For immigrant Latino youth,their aspirations were similar whether they had a strongsense of competence at school or not. But for the U.S. bornLatino youth, a sense of competence seemed strongly re-lated to their level of aspirations. Among the U.S. bornLatino youth, those with high levels of competence re-ported high aspirations where as those who reported lowlevels of competence reported low aspirations (see Fig. 3).
The models predicting educational expectations ac-counted for 10 to 13% of the variance (see Table III). Noneof the covariates nor immigrant status were significant pre-dictors. However, all 3 school experiences—competence,school belonging, parent involvement—were significantlyand positively related to expectations. There were no sig-nificant interaction effects. That is, school experienceswere related to school expectations the same for all Latinoyouth regardless of generation status.
The models predicting the importance of schoolingaccounted for 13 to 27% of the variance. School was moreimportant for Latina girls than for boys. All 3 school ex-periences were significantly and positively related to theimportance of schooling. There was one significant inter-action term. The association between the importance ofschooling and competence was moderated by immigrantstatus. That is, competence does not relate to importanceof schooling in the same way for everyone. For immigrant
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Table III. Achievement Motivation Regressed on Immigration Status, School Experiences, and InteractionTerms (n = 129)
Educational Educational Importanceaspirations expectations of schooling
Independent variables β �R2 β �R2 β �R2
Step 1: Background 0.05 0.00 0.04Age −0.06 0.05 0.13Gender 0.02 0.05 0.20∗SES −0.24∗∗ 0.01 −0.04
Step 2: Moderator 0.00 0.00 0.01Immigrant/non-immigranta 0.08 −0.02 0.17
Step 3: School experiencesb
Academic competence 0.28∗∗ 0.05∗ 0.34∗∗∗ 0.10∗∗∗ 0.34∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗School belonging 0.28∗∗ 0.05∗ 0.36∗∗∗ 0.12∗∗∗ 0.44∗∗∗ 0.18∗∗∗Parental involvement 0.15 0.02 0.35∗∗∗ 0.12∗∗∗ 0.30∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗
Step 4: Interaction term(s)b
Competence × Immigrant −0.20∗ 0.04∗ −0.08 0.01 −0.22∗ 0.04∗Belonging × Immigrant −0.15 0.02 −0.02 0.00 −0.01 0.00Parent involvement × Immigrant −0.15 0.02 −0.03 0.00 −0.13 0.02
aHigher scores represent immigrants and lower scores represent U.S. born.bPredictors were analyzed in separate models and not together with the other predictor variables because ofmulticollinearity. Interaction terms were also analyzed separately.
∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
Latino youth, students have a similar belief that school isimportant regardless of their sense of competence. For theU.S. born Latino youth, those with high levels of compe-tence also reported high levels of the importance of school-ing where as those with low levels of competence reportedlow levels of the importance of schooling (see Fig. 4).
Early Immigrant Vs. Late Immigrant
Generational status was also defined as students whomigrated before the age of 12 versus those who migrated
Fig. 3. School aspirations regressed on Competence × Immigrant/Nonimmigrant status.
after 12, and used as a possible moderator between schoolexperiences and achievement motivation. For school as-pirations, the models accounted for 8 to 12% of the vari-ance. Results will be presented in the text rather than ina table because of a lack of significant interaction terms.SES (β = −0.25, p < 0.01), academic competence (β =0.24, p < 0.05), and school belonging (β = 0.24, p <
0.01) were significant predictors. For school expectations,the models accounted for 13 to 17% of the variance. Gener-ational status was negatively related to school expectations
Fig. 4. Importance of schooling regressed on Competence ×Immigrant/Nonimmigrant status.
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(β = −0.21, p < 0.05). That is, students who migratedbefore the age of 12 had higher expectations than stu-dents who migrated after the age of 12. All school experi-ences were significant predictors of school expectations:academic competence (β = 0.21, p < 0.01), school be-longing (β = 0.33, p < 0.001), and parental involvement(β = 0.33, p < 0.001). Finally, the models accounted for14 to 22% of the variance in the importance of school-ing. Girls (β = 0.20, p < 0.05) and students who mi-grated after the age of 12 (β = 0.20, p < 0.05) are morelikely to think school is important. Academic competence(β = 0.34, p < 0.001), school belonging (β = 0.42, p <
0.001), and parental involvement (β = 0.29, p < 0.001).There were no significant interaction terms.
DISCUSSION
This study examined the association between achiev-ement motivation and school experiences among Latinoyouth in the U.S., and examined whether these associa-tions varied by language acculturation and generationalstatus. Findings suggest that although all 3 school experi-ences were important predictors of achievement motiva-tion, a sense of competence and parent involvement relatedto certain aspects of achievement motivation differentlyacross generation status and language acculturation levels.
School belonging and parent involvement were pos-itively related to achievement motivation. This finding re-flects the importance that most Latino cultures attach tocollectivist and affiliative socialization goals (Abi-Nader,1990). Perhaps the key to motivating all Latino youth re-gardless of acculturation or generational status is based onrelationships—relationships within the school and familymicrosystems. Furthermore, parent involvement was pos-itively related to expectations and importance of school-ing but not to aspirations. Parental involvement may beimportant for school values that are more concrete (e.g.,expectations) rather than abstract (e.g., aspirations). Thisfinding also suggest that parent’s belief that school is im-portant for success is critical in order to pass those be-liefs on to their children. This finding is consistent withprevious research that has found parental involvement tobe associated with positive attitudes toward school anda positive future outlook (Epstein, 1987; Lareau, 1987).This finding also provides evidence that parental involve-ment is important for school expectations among Latinostudents, which is contradictory to the general assumptionthat parental involvement may not be salient in Latino cul-ture (Martin, 1998). In addition, this finding suggests thatexpectations and aspirations are not the same construct.Aspirations may be abstract values whereas expectationsmay deal with the concrete reality of these adolescents’
schooling experiences (Mickelson, 1990). In this study,parent involvement may provide the concrete form of sup-port that is needed for a youth to believe they can actuallyachieve their goals, but may have little to do with the levelof goals to which they aspire.
The present study found 4 possible cultural adapta-tions: 3 of the 4 dealt with a sense of competence. Compe-tence was positively related to aspirations and theimportance of schooling for the U.S. born and high-acculturated-Latino youth, but unrelated for immigrantand low-acculturated-Latino youth. Students who havenot mastered English might perceive language to be themain barrier to achieving aspirations and may place lessemphasis on their overall academic ability. This findingis consistent with Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco’s(1995) findings that immigrant students named languageas their main barrier to success. Once English is learnedand school performance cannot be attributed to language,Latino students’ explanation for poor school performancemay become more internalized in their sense of academiccompetence or lack thereof. This suggests that for thoseEnglish speaking Latino students, promoting a sense ofacademic competence is critical to increase achievementmotivation.
The fourth cultural adaptation found in this study wasthat parent involvement was positively related to the im-portance of schooling for high-acculturated students, butnot for low-acculturated students. Our sample of adoles-cents all had immigrant parents; immigrant parents bringwith them their own cultural beliefs about schooling andideas of what parent involvement entails. On the otherhand, acculturated students are adapting to the U.S. cul-tural beliefs about schooling, which may value anotherform of parent involvement. One explanation for this find-ing could be that acculturated students who perceive theirparents involved as it is defined in the U.S. (e.g., PTA meet-ings, school board meetings) will also report schooling asimportant for success, whereas high-acculturated studentswhose parents are not involved will not view school as im-portant. Low-acculturated students, who have not adaptedto the U.S. model of schooling, may not expect their par-ents to be involved in this way; their sense of the impor-tance of schooling may be unrelated to parental involve-ment in school. Future research should not only focus onhow cultural adaptations by adolescents relate to schooloutcomes, but also how parents are adapting their owncultural model of schooling to their new environment, andhow parental cultural adaptations may relate to adolescentschooling.
There seem to be both cultural attributes and cul-tural adaptations involved in how Latino youth perceiveschool experiences and achievement motivation. In terms
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of cultural attributes, school belonging appears to relateto achievement motivation for all Latino youth regardlessof generation or language acculturation level. In contrast,a sense of competence and parent involvement may bemore salient for U.S. born and high-acculturated-Latinoyouth, suggesting that interventions targeting Latino youthshould be tailored according to their degree of adaptationto the U.S.
Implications
Future research should focus on strategies used byminority students to gain a sense of competence, schoolbelonging, and parental involvement. Some examples ofinterventions that may increase school belonging amongLatino student’s include mentoring programs, culturallyrelevant extracurricular activities (e.g., soccer, LatinAmerican clubs), interventions that focus on improvingteacher expectations (Weinstein et al., 1991), and inter-ventions that focus on improving the quality of supportiverelationships within the school (e.g., Comer et al., 1996;Felner and Adan, 1988). Similarly, intervention programsthat can lead to a sense of competence and parental in-volvement will be positively related to achievement mo-tivation such as cultural awareness training and parentadvocacy groups.
School interventions geared toward increasing as-piration, expectation, and the perceived importance ofschooling among Latino students must take acculturationstatus into account. This study implies that there may besome adaptation to the U.S. school system by childrenof immigrants. The present study suggests that the mi-crosystems of family and school are especially importantfor acculturated Latino students.
Strengths and Limitations
The present study has several limitations. First, thecross-sectional design and convenience sampling makesit impossible to attribute causal relationships among thevariables. The generalizability of the findings is also alimitation. Our findings may not generalize to second orthird generation Latino youth or to Latino youth not livingin the South. Finally, because there was a large number ofregression equations conducted, there is an increase in thelikelihood of Type I error.
Despite its limitations, the present exploratory studyis one of a few to compare achievement motivation amongLatino adolescents across acculturation and generationstatus. This form of comparative within-group study is
culturally respectful and offers a unique perspective on thescripts and norms that immigrant children may bring withthem across the migration process. Comparing immigrantLatino children with their U.S. born Latino counterpartsaddresses adaptations that may occur when there is contactbetween immigrants and the U.S. culture.
The present study provided a glimpse of what strate-gies and components are shared among immigrant andU.S. born Latino youth about schooling. It provided in-formation on which school experiences relate differentlyto achievement motivation based on language accultura-tion and generational status. It also points to the need forfuture studies on the specific strategies used within theLatino cultural model of schooling that may lead to posi-tive school experiences. Further research on achievementmotivation should be conducted with students living inLatin American countries to learn more about the culturalmodel of schooling for Latinos. In conclusion, this within-group approach should provide an interesting perspectiveto research on the growing immigrant student populationin the U.S., and necessary if we are to study adaptive pro-cesses that immigrants’ may use to respond to their newenvironment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by Grant #88-01-09from the Russell Sage Foundation. Appreciation is ex-tended to Dr Roger Bakeman, Art Murphy, and Jose deJesus Gutierrez Rodriguez for their invaluable assistance;to Bernardo Roque for his help in data collection; andto our schools and students who provided us with thisinformation.
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