Jessica Thompson and Dr. Mikaela Dufur, Department of Sociology
As a research team at BYU we study academic achievement and delinquency among youth. Our goal is to provide a new portrait of how investment at home and at school results in returns to children and adolescents in these areas. There is currently increased pressure on schools to be accountable for student outcomes, and No Child Left Behind ties teacher compensation and funding for schools to student achievement. But given the complexity of the processes through which student achievement is realized, will this school-centered strategy actually work? Because families play such a crucial role in promoting academic achievement, could it actually be that the best way to help children’s achievement is to strengthen the capital they experience at home?
My research was a stepping stone in this project. I looked specifically at human capital and how it affects academic achievement. I was particularly interested in how human capital in the home and human capital in the school affects academic achievement among immigrant and children of immigrant students.
The number of children in immigrant families is increasing faster than any other group of children in the country. The rapid growth is changing the race-ethnic composition of America, making the emergence of racial and ethnic minorities as the majority U.S. population a growing reality, one that will first materialize among children. For this reason, it is important to know where we can invest our time and energy so that the rising generation can and will succeed. Immigrant and children of immigrants students are an interesting group to study, not only because they are quickly increasing in number, but because they are also often low in human capital in the home. Children in immigrant families are three times as likely to have a father who never graduated from high school versus those in native families. In addition, one-half of children in newcomer immigrant families have a mother or a father who has limited ability to speak English.
Emphasis on the importance of strong teacher training suggests that students may draw on teachers’ stores of human capital at school as they draw on parental human capital at home. Teachers with greater knowledge or more experience may do a better job in the classroom, thus facilitating student achievement. Therefore, schools with a higher proportion of teachers who have masters’ degrees or greater skills may have a stronger base of human capital upon which they can draw [1].
Because effective change is difficult to bring about in individual families, and in hopes that more can be done at the school level to increase immigrant test scores, I predicted that school human capital would have a greater impact on student academic achievement than family human capital.
To test this hypothesis, I used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS). Data were collected every two years from 1988 to 1994 about U.S. students beginning in the eighth grade. My analyses are based on data from the base year, since it is the only year to include questions specifically asking about immigration and birthplace. I also base my analyses on data from the second follow-up wave of NELS, which is the 12th grade year of the students interviewed. For the purpose of this paper, I only looked at students whose mothers were born outside of the United States (1,416 cases).
My two explanatory variables were school human capital and family human capital. To get these two variables, I used AMOS, a software package for structural equation modeling. AMOS showed a good model fit for the seven variables I used to make up family human capital, including parent’s education level and their English proficiency. To make up school human capital, I used total years the teacher taught in the school district and the teacher degree held.
After creating my two variables, I tested family human capital and school human capital in relation to reading standardized test scores, controlling for such variables as student sex, child immigration status (first generation vs. second generation), number of siblings, and school classification (public vs. private).
After running the AMOS model to assess the strength of the variable’s relationships to the reading test scores, I found that the effect that school human capital had on test scores was .173, versus family human capital at .385. The effects of both forms of capital on test scores were statistically significant. I found that compared to male students, female students had a .110 lower reading score and that as number of siblings increases, test scores decrease (probably attributable to resource dilution). My analysis also revealed that a difference in immigration generations does not make a difference in test scores. That difference actually falls more on capital in the home.
The overall measurement model showed that among first and second generation immigrants, Family Human Capital has a stronger effect on Reading Standardized Test scores than School Human Capital, but that School Human Capital still does have a statistically significant effect.
My research did not take the road I exactly planned, since I originally wanted to look at interaction effects between school human capital and family human capital, and see if school human capital could make up for what family human capital might lack. Because of time restraints, however, I used this preliminary research to further the greater cause of the research team by running analysis among a very narrowed, but very important, U.S. population. I presented this research at the Pacific Sociological Association Conference in Seattle, WA in March 2011. I also presented it at the Mary Lou Fulton Conference at BYU in April 2011.
In addition to my mentor, Dr. Dufur, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Associate Dean John Hoffman and my fellow research team members Karen Spence, Brianne Burr, Liz Warnick and Lauren VanderHorst.
References
- Parcel, Toby L. and Mikaela J. Dufur. 2001. “Capital at home and at School: Effects on Student Achievement.” Social Forces 79(3):881-911.