Impact of an Early Childhood Intervention in Reducing Achievement Gaps Among Children of Black Immigrants and Non-Immigrants

At least half of the achievement gap for low-income, Black children is already present in kindergarten, attributable in part to limited opportunities for acquiring foundational skills necessary for school success. There is some evidence that low-income, minority children from immigrant families have more positive outcomes than their non-immigrant counterparts, although little is known about how the “immigrant paradox” may manifest in young children. This study examines the immigrant paradox in young, Black children using data drawn from a cluster (school) randomized trial of a family-centered, school-based intervention to promote early learning that took place in ten public schools serving low-income students.   Limiting our analyses to Black children in the control and intervention conditions who had data from pre-kindergarten, when the intervention was implemented, through 2^nd grade follow-up, we explored moderation by immigrant status through two separate aims. 

Our first aim was to examine individual child and classroom risk factors as predictors of underachievement among Black children from immigrant and non-immigrant families in the control condition of the RCT.  Predictive associations were moderated by immigrant status such that among those with lower pre-k school readiness or in lower quality classrooms, immigrant children had higher achievement than those from non-immigrant families.

Our second aim was to examine whether immigrant status moderated intervention effects on child academic outcomes for Black children in the intervention condition of the RCT. We found that the intervention significantly increased child academic competency over time for children from non-immigrant families (d= .12 to .50 across time, from pre-kindergarten through second grade) compared to children from immigrant families (d= .03 to .14 across time). Similar moderation patterns were found for reading achievement, as measured by the KTEA. 

The present study showed that children from immigrant families are less susceptible to risk factors for low academic achievement, and perhaps as a result, benefit less from intervention aimed at supporting their academic competencies.  In contrast, intervention effects were stronger, especially over time, for Black children from non-immigrant families who in general, showed greater declines in academic skills in the early years of schooling.  Discussion will center around implications for prevention efforts aimed at supporting the heterogeneous Black student population.