TY - JOUR
T1 - Bilingualism and the academic achievement of first- and second-generation asian americans
T2 - accommodation with or without assimilation?
AU - Mouw, Ted
AU - YuXie,
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - Recent scholarship claims that bilingualism has a positive effect on the academic achievement of immigrant children. According to this perspective, growing up speaking two languages is beneficial because it stimulates cognitive development and allows immigrants a means of resisting unwanted assimilation. Immigrant children who are fluent bilinguals can use their native-language ability to maintain beneficial aspects of their ethnic culture while accommodating to the linguistic demands of an English-speaking society. Using data on first- and second-generation Asian American students from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study, we test for these hypothesized effects of bilingualism. We find no evidence that bilingualism per se has a positive effect on achievement. Instead, speaking a native language with parents has a temporary positive effect if the parents are not proficient in English. These results indicate that the academic importance of bilingualism is transitional: The educational benefits of delaying linguistic assimilation exist only before immigrant parents achieve a moderate level of English-language proficiency.
AB - Recent scholarship claims that bilingualism has a positive effect on the academic achievement of immigrant children. According to this perspective, growing up speaking two languages is beneficial because it stimulates cognitive development and allows immigrants a means of resisting unwanted assimilation. Immigrant children who are fluent bilinguals can use their native-language ability to maintain beneficial aspects of their ethnic culture while accommodating to the linguistic demands of an English-speaking society. Using data on first- and second-generation Asian American students from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study, we test for these hypothesized effects of bilingualism. We find no evidence that bilingualism per se has a positive effect on achievement. Instead, speaking a native language with parents has a temporary positive effect if the parents are not proficient in English. These results indicate that the academic importance of bilingualism is transitional: The educational benefits of delaying linguistic assimilation exist only before immigrant parents achieve a moderate level of English-language proficiency.
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U2 - 10.2307/2657529
DO - 10.2307/2657529
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0344348924
VL - 64
SP - 232
EP - 252
JO - American Sociological Review
JF - American Sociological Review
SN - 0003-1224
IS - 2
ER -