Immigrants & Dual Language Learners

Twenty percent of children in the U.S. now live with at least one foreign born parent.

This brief presents research findings as well as policy recommendations arising from a study of the No Child Left Behind Act and its implications for immigrant children and English language learners (ELLs). Analyses are based on nationally-representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey and detailed case studies of selected elementary schools and school districts serving high concentrations of ELL students.

Children born to immigrant parents are a large and rapidly growing segment of the nation’s child population.

Utilizing data on approximately 16,000 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort and a rich set of mediating factors on 16 immigrant groups, this paper by the Foundation’s former Young Scholar Wen-Jui Han, published in Educational Research and Review [Vol. 1 (8)], examines the associations between children’s immigrant generation status and their academic performance.

In this article, published in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health (Volume 9, Number 2, April, 2007), the Foundation’s former Young Scholar, Neeraj Kaushal, and Robert Kaestner investigate the association between the 1996 welfare reform and health insurance, medical care use and health of low-educated, foreign-born, single mothers and their children.

Children from Mexican immigrant families represent one of the fastest-growing populations in the American educational system, but their ability to use this system to improve their long-term prospects may be hampered by problems associated with their schools.

Building on a conceptual model of the transition to elementary school, this study by former Young Scholar Robert Crosnoe, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior [2006, Vol 47 (March): 77-93] explored the role of health in the early cognitive achievement of children from various racial/ethnic minority and immigrant families by applying multilevel modeling to data from a nationally representative sample of American kindergarteners.

Combining conceptual models from immigration and educational research, this study by former Young Scholar Robert Crosnoe, published in the International Migration Review (Volume 41, Number 1, Spring 2007) investigated whether a normative antecedent to the transition to formal schooling in the contemporary U.S. — early child care — links Mexican immigrant status to various aspects of school readiness.