Generational Status and Academic Achiev Ement among Latino High School Students: Evaluating the Segmented Assimilation Theory

In this study, the author evaluates some of the key assertions of the segmented assimilation theory by examining the generational pattern of achievement among Latino high school students. Segmented assimilation theory posits that the outcomes of immigrants will not necessarily improve monotonically across generations, especially in disadvantaged contexts, and that maintaining familial and ethnic ties can have a protective effect on immigrant students. The author tests these ideas by examining variation in the generational pattern of achievement in low-income schools among Latino high school students. The author finds that changes in achievement across generations generally follow a pattern of classical assimilation with small, though not statistically significant, improvements in achievement from the first to the second generation and from the second to the third generation in both poor and nonpoor schools. Contrary to hypotheses derived from segmented assimilation theory, the author finds no evidence of “downward assimilation” across generations among Latinos attending low-income schools.