Understanding the Schooling Experiences of Children of Immigrants: The Role of Discrimination, Psychosocial Adjustment, and Academics

Background:  Previous research has linked ethnic minority groups’ perceived discrimination with academic problems (Weinstein, 2002; Wong, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2003) and negative mental and behavioral health (e.g., post-traumatic stress symptoms, Wei et al., 2012; reduced self-esteem, Zeiders et al., 2012; illicit substance use, Brody et al., 2012; smoking, Purnell et al., 2012; and antisocial behavior, Park et al., 2012).  Because of the important role of teachers in supporting children’s emotional well-being and school functioning, students’ experience of teacher discrimination may have particularly deleterious effects.  A growing body of research on minority students’ experience of school-based discrimination suggests links with poor school climate (Ogbu, 2003; Stone & Han, 2005), yet few studies have taken a multilevel approach to explore school contextual influences on school-based discrimination.  

Methods: The data for this study come from Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS; Portes & Rumbaut, 1991-2006), which included 5,262 8-9^thgrade students at 42 schools in San Diego, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami. We used multilevel modeling to examine the extent to which students’ experience of teacher discrimination was associated with depression symptoms, self-esteem, standardized tests, school grade point average (GPA), and school drop-out (at the student level) as well as school size, school socioeconomic status (SES), and minority enrollment (at the school level). 

Results: Perceived teacher discrimination was significantly associated with higher depression symptoms (0.12, p<.001), lower GPA (-.24, p<.001), and lower standardized math test scores (-6.14, p=.02), even when controlling for student socioeconomic status.  School size and minority enrollment were not associated with teacher discrimination, but higher school SES was significantly associated with a modest decrease in teacher discrimination. 

Conclusions:  These findings suggest that students’ experience of teacher discrimination at school, even after accounting for observed and unobserved school-level effects and student-level covariates, may have important mental health and academic consequences on student functioning.  Interventions targeted at improving student-teacher relationships and teacher cultural competence, particularly in lower SES schools, may be beneficial in reducing students’ risk of exposure to teacher discrimination.