Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.)

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Intervention; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Rights, Students;

Target Population: All

Research Questions the Report Poses: What are the disparities in well-being among U.S racial and ethnic groups?

Findings:

Asian Americans in New Jersey, with the highest Index scores, experience levels of well-being that, if current trends continue, the country as a whole will reach in about fifty years. At the other end of the spectrum, Native Americans in South Dakota lag more than a half-century behind the rest of the nation in terms of health, education, and income. Asian Americans in New Jersey live, on average, an astonishing 26 years longer, are 11 times more likely to have a graduate degree, and earn $35,610 more per year than South Dakota Native Americans.
• Asian Americans live the longest (86.6 years), followed by Latinos (82.8 years);
• African American life expectancy today is on par with that of the average American three decades ago;
• Latinos outlive whites, on average, by over four years, and in all but four states, Latinos either equal or surpass the national average in life span.
• In no U.S. states do African Americans, Latinos, or Native Americans earn more than Asian Americans or whites;
• Asian Americans and whites earn the most; Latinos and Native Americans earn the least. Native Americans' median earnings are less than $22,000, while whites' are more than $30,000;
• African Americans in Maryland earn almost $16,000 a year more than African Americans in Louisiana.
• Nearly one in five Asian American adults has a graduate degree;
• Latinos lag in education; nearly four in ten adults age 25 and older did not complete high school;
• In Florida, Maryland, and Virginia, about one in five Latino adults age 25 and older have obtained at least a bachelor's degree.

• Read the Full Report

Lewis, K. & Burd-Sharps, S. (2010). A Century Apart: Revealing Alarming Disparities in Well-Being among U.S. Racial and Ethnic Groups. Brooklyn, NY: American Human Development Project.

Tags: Asian ELL Students; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.);

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary, Middle, High School, Post-Secondary

• Link to Full Report

Pew Hispanic Center. (2006). A Statistical Portrait of the Foreign-Born Population at Mid-Decade. Pew Hispanic Center: Washington, DC.

Tags: Differentiated Instruction; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Placement;

Target Population: Middle, High School

Research Questions the Report Poses:

• What can we learn from the the gap in ELL enrollment between charter schools and traditional public schools? What are the trends in this gap in New York City?
• Are students who attend charter schools are qualitatively different from those enrolled in district public schools?
• How does the racial/ethnic makeup of charter schools compares to traditional public schools?

Findings:

• In New York City, as in many other areas serving high numbers of ELLs (with a few exceptions), research focused on ELL student access to charter schools has been limited.
• At the school level, New York City charter schools appear to have a disproportionately low enrollment of ELL/LEP students.
• While findings from previous studies of New York City's charter schools suggest that location is a factor for limited ELL enrollment, many of New York's charter schools are located in neighborhoods with traditionally signficiant Hispanic and ELL populations such as the South Bronx and Harlem.
• Those charter schools that buck this trend actively strive to meet the needs of ELLs through ongoing professional development for teachers across the disciplines and active family engagement efforts led by the principal.

The authors of the report suggest the following possible reasons for limited ELL enrollment in charter schools:

• Parents of ELLs may not have adequate knowledge about charter schools; their reliance on (and deferral to) teachers and administrators to make academic decisions about their children's future contributes to this information gap.
• Charter schools face pressure to maintain high academic standards and may be reluctant to serve students who require additional resources. In fact, some funding mechanisms may create a disincentive to enroll higher number of ELL applicants at particular charter schools.

Policy Recommendations:

• More disaggretation of charter school data is needed that provides detailed information about ELL student enrollment, proficiency level, and performance.
• Researchers and policymakers need to reexamine, and in some cases revise, charter school funding mechanisms to ensure that they are not preventing charter school leaders from actively recruiting "at-risk" populations of students.
• Future research about ELLs in charter schools should include investigation of families' knowledge about charter schools and charter school lotteries, as well as of charter school practices regarding student recruitment and staff training and hiring.

• Read the Full Report

Buckley, J.& Sattin-Bajaj, C. (2010, April, 27). Are ELL Students Underrepresented in Charter Schools? Demographic Trends in New York City, 2006-2008. New York University. Retrieved July 27, 2010 from http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP188.pdf

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Bilingual Instruction; Bilingualism / Biliteracy; Books and Other Reading Materials; Curriculum; Differentiated Instruction; Instructional Programs; Language of Instruction; Latino ELL Students; Motivation; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA;

Target Population: Middle and high school students, parents, teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors.

Research Questions the Report Poses: This article questions how important it is for higher education institutions, schools, states, and the federal government to help students prepare for post-secondary education and graduate successfully.

Findings:

• For many students, the decision not to apply for college does not reflect a lack of higher education aspirations; instead, many students are discouraged by the application process and tuition rates.
• There is a growing consensus that high schools should be accountable for what their students' outcomes are after high graduation and that high schools and governments at all levels to increase the academic readiness.
• Proper guidance and easy access to available programs of financial aid and college admission application need to be highly promoted in all states, especially for low-income students.

Policy Recommendations:

The report authors identify three strategies that the federal government and states can potentially pursue in order to help all students enter and suceed in higher education:

• Create data systems that track college readiness and attainment and build accountability.
• Support and build the capacity of high school and college educators.
• Develop strong signals and clear incentives to students about the path to college.

The federal government is encouraged to take note of the recommendations made in this article on the economic, social, and academic factors that can prevent students from attending college. In addition, policymakers at the state and federal level are encouraged to create programs that facilitate the transition from high school to college by promoting students current and future college aspirations.

• Read the Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Center for American Progress 1333 H Street, NW, 10th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005

Nagaoka, Jenny; Roderick, Melissa; Coca, Vanessa. (2009). Barriers to College Attainment: Lessons from Chicago. Washington, D.C. Center for American Progress.

Tags: Asian ELL Students; Bilingual Instruction; Bilingualism / Biliteracy; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA;

Target Population: Preschool

Research Questions the Report Poses: None; instead makes the case that newcomer families and the children within them are, and will continue to be, a significant demographic in American education.

Findings:

• 25 percent of children from newcomer families have a parent who was born in the United States.
• Two-thirds of children from newcomer families have parents who have lived in the United States for ten or more years.
• 80% of children from newcomer families are US citizens
• Almost 60% of children have at least one parent who speaks English exclusively or very well
• Three-quarters of children from newcomer families speak English exclusively or very well
• Almost half of newcomer children speak both English and another language fluently or close to fluently
• Approximately a quarter of newcomer children are from linguistically isolated households
• Children from newcomer families going to pre-school with lower prevalence than children from native born families

Policy Recommendations:

• More resources need to be devoted to getting good early education to children from newcomer families
• A re-examination must take place of education policy toward language instruction, especially views of bi-literacy and bilingualism
• Education programs can and should improve outreach to newcomer parents

• Link to Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Child Trends
Bonnie Wahiba
4301 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 350
Washington, DC 20008
E-Mail: bwahiba@childtrends.org
Phone: (202) 572-6136
Fax: (202) 362-8420 (third floor, Suite 350)

Hernandez, D., Denton, N., and Macartney, S. (2007, April). Child Trends and Children in Immigrant Families - The U.S. and 50 States: National Origins, Language, and Early Education. Albany, NY: Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at SUNY-Albany

Tags: Intervention; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Rights, Parents; Rights, Students;

Target Population: All

Research Questions the Report Poses:

• In what conditions do children of immigrants to America live?
• How can their well–being be improved?

Findings:

• Depending on their country of origin, immigrant children vary widely in their educational achievement, legal and health status, living arrangements and economic resources.
• Although participation in early childhood education programs can offset multifarious problems, immigrant children attend such programs at lower rates than do native children due to various barriers.
• Performance of immigrant children in K–12 education varies by generational status and national origin. Poor parental education, poor–quality schools, and segregated neighborhoods, however, pose risk factors for immigrant children generally.
• Youths from Asia and the Middle East are better represented in postsecondary educational institutions than those from Latin America, Laos, and Cambodia.
• There are formidable barriers to postsecondary education for youth who lack legal status despite having attending U.S. schools previously and qualifying for admission to college.
• Achievement disparities between immigrant children who do not speak English fluently and English–proficient students are wide and persistent.
• Immigrant children are less likely than native children to have health insurance and regular access to medical care.
• Although disadvantaged immigrant families face formidable barriers to upward mobility, their children can overcome these obstacles through simultaneously learning the language and culture of the host society while preserving their home country language, values, and customs.

Policy Recommendations:

• The U.S. should invest in immigrant youth to enable them to contribute to national prosperity.
• Strengthen immigrant children's access to high–quality education: enable more immigrant children to attend preschool, offer effective English language instruction, and reduce financial and nonfinancial barriers to participation in college.
• Resolve legal status issues of immigrant children.

• Read the Full Report

Tienda, M., Haskins, R. (2011) "Immigrant Children: Introducing the Issue." Immigrant Children 21 (1). The Future of Children. Retrieved from: http://www.futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=74&articleid=538.

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Curriculum; Instructional Programs; Latino ELL Students; Motivation; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.);

Target Population: This article targets the general population, especially those Latino and minority groups in high school or first year in college.

Research Questions the Report Poses: This article raises the question of students' academic preparation to transition from high school to postsecondary education.

Findings:

• Poor academic performance during high school due to poor academic preparation for college can predetermine the failure of students during college.
• Current research shows that to make a different in academic preparation, school administrations and teachers have to create a rigorous academic program that needs to be continuous and based on rich coursework.
• Organizations like Achieve, ACT, and the Education Policy Improvement Center are providing feedbacks for students to better their transition from high school to college.

Policy Recommendations:

• Policymakers should begin to address the importance of academic preparation for students, especially in high school, entering college.
• The federal government should be responsible of distributing and communicating the general public the steps to take to gain greater academic preparation and skills in schools.
• Policymakers should propose and manage the strategies implemented to guarantee the success of the programs.

• Read the report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Center for American Progress 1333 H Street, NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20005

Chait, Robin and Andrea Venezia. (2009). Improving Academic Preparation for College: What We Know and How State and Federal Policy Can Help. Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress.

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Comprehension; Content Areas: Math; Fluency; Instructional Programs; Intervention; Language of Instruction; Language Proficiency; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Phonics; Phonological Awareness; Reading; Struggling Readers; Vocabulary; Writing;

Target Population: Elementary School, Middle School, High School

Research Questions the Report Poses: What students are classified as being English Language Learners? How are they best identified, and what recommendations should be made to more adequately instruct possible ELL students to prevent further learning difficulties?

Findings:

• Statistics for ELLs may be hard to obtain or may be inaccurate since many ELL students go without being properly identified
• ELL students can better from more individualized instruction
• Mastery of academic language is necessary for academic success, which can prove to be difficult even for English speaking proficient ELLs
• In order to provide effective support of reading comprehension to ELLs educators must have an understanding of the child's individual needs
• In addition to reading comprehension it is crucial for students to become proficient in mathematics

Policy Recommendations:
While the article did not have any specific policy recommendations the recommendations listed in the article could be taken as such and thus included in this section.

Recommendations for Reading Instruction and interventions:

• ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics in order to build decoding skills.
• K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase opportunities for ELLs to develop sophisticated vocabulary knowledge.
• Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must equip ELLs with strategies and knowledge to comprehend and analyze challenging narrative and expository texts.
• Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs' reading fluency must focus on vocabulary and increased exposure to print.
• In all K-12 classrooms across the U.S., ELLs need significant opportunities to engage in structured, academic talk.
• Independent reading is only beneficial when it is structured and purposeful, and there is a good reader-text match.

• ELLs need early explicit and intensive instruction and intervention in basic mathematics concepts and skill.
• Academic language is as central to mathematics as it is to other academic areas. It is a significant source of difficulty for many ELLs who struggle with mathematics.
• ELLs need academic language support to understand and solve the word problems that are often used for mathematics assessment and instruction.

• Link to Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
N/A

Francis, David J., Mabel Rivera, Nonie Lesaux, and Hector Rivera. (2006). Research-Based Recommendations for Instruction and Academic Interventions. Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners, Retrieved April 11,2008, from http://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Bilingual Instruction; Bilingualism / Biliteracy; Curriculum; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA; Placement; Rights, Parents; Rights, Students;

Target Population:

• All students in preschool, elementary, middle or high school in the Latino community.
• Parents of students attending preschool, elementary, middle or high school in the Latino community.

Research Questions the Report Poses: This article raises the question of the importance of the No Child Left Behind Act to improve the education for limited English proficient students in the Latino community.

Findings:

• Limited English Proficiency students are the fastest growing population in elementary schools in the US.
• Limited English proficient students are concentrated in a few states but are spreading rapidly throughout the nation.
• While five states—California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois—are home to almost 70 percent of all LEP students in elementary school, growth in this student population has been more rapid in other destinations.
• The majority of LEP elementary school students are concentrated in a small number of schools: nearly 70 percent of the nation’s LEP students enroll in only 10 percent of elementary schools.
• The incidence of poverty and health problems is significantly higher in high-LEP than in other schools.
• Instructional contexts vary significantly across schools: high-LEP schools are more likely to offer support and remedial programs (pre-K, enrichment, after-school, summer school).
• Native language instruction is more prevalent in high- than low-LEP schools. The difference in use of other LEP-targeted instructional techniques, though significant, is less marked.
• High-LEP schools face more difficulties filling teaching vacancies and are more likely to rely on unqualified and substitute teachers than schools with few or no LEP children.
• High-LEP schools are more likely to be involved in parental outreach and support activities than schools with lower concentrations of LEP students.
• Teachers in high-LEP schools are more likely to hold ESL/bilingual certification in addition to their main certification.
• Teachers in high-LEP schools are more likely to have provisional, emergency, or temporary certification than are those in other schools.
• High-LEP schools have more new teachers than schools with fewer or no LEP students, and these teachers are substantially more likely to be uncertified than those at other schools.
• Teachers in high-LEP schools tend to report receiving more professional development than do teachers in other types of schools.
• There was a great deal of variation in the way districts with high-LEP schools implemented NCLB testing requirements in both subject areas and ELP (English Language Proficiency).
• Parents of ELL students in high-LEP enrollment schools professed to have very little knowledge of the requirements of NCLB.

Policy Recommendations:

• The U.S. Department of Education should make the development of an appropriate English language proficiency test a national priority and require its use by all states and districts.
• States should ensure that (a) policies are in place to conduct subject matter testing of ELL students using appropriate tests and accommodations and (b) reasonable exemptions are granted.
• The inclusion of pre-K education should be considered in the reauthorization of NCLB. While it is evident from our study that NCLB is changing pre-K education in high-LEP schools, including this component of the educational system in the law would enforce and standardize these changes across all districts and states.
• The NCLB provisions for school choice and Supplemental Educational Services (SES) should be reexamined. These provisions do not seem to be having the intended effect and their feasibility and effectiveness should be studied.
• Teacher Quality
• Districts should assume responsibility for the training and professional development of teachers—including bilingual/ESL teachers—to assist them in meeting the NCLB requirements for high-quality teachers. This assistance might include working with local colleges to increase the production of high-quality bilingual/ESL teachers and to offer courses in areas where current teachers need to acquire credits for certification. Local colleges and alternative certification programs should be encouraged to incorporate courses on ELL instruction as part of the required general teacher education curriculum. These courses should be required for certification or employment of all teachers, at least in high-ELL-enrollment districts but preferably in all districts.
• More effective strategies are needed for conducting parental outreach and information efforts with parents of ELL students. Districts and schools must acquire a greater understanding of effective strategies to reach this group of parents, who face many barriers to understanding the requirements of NCLB and their role in supporting its goals.

• Read the Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
The Urban Institute 2100 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037

Consentino de Cohen, Clemencia and Beatriz Chu Clewell. (2007). Putting English Language Learners on the Education Map: The No Child Left Behind Act Implemented. Washington, D.C. The Urban Institute.

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Bilingualism / Biliteracy; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.);

Target Population: General, especially U.S. minority groups

Research Questions the Report Poses: This report analyzes the demographic trends as more minority students attend suburban school districts in the United States. In addition, the researchers examined a number of individual school districts with high rates of change.

Findings:

• Suburban schools have become increasingly important educators of the nation's minority student populations.
• Every individual suburban school district experienced minority student growth slightly differently.
• As a result of the rapid growth in minority students and flat growth among white students, 287 of the nation's 2,808 suburban school districts have become majority-minority school districts since 1993-94.
• The vast majority (18) of the fastest-growing suburban districts in terms of black enrollment are in the Midwest.
• Several school districts in suburban Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville experienced hyper-growth in their Hispanic student populations since 1993-94. Among Asian suburban students, numerous school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta metro areas are among the 25 fastest-growing suburban school districts.
• Though there has been a marked diversification of many of the nation’s suburban school districts, this does not necessarily mean that suburban students are experiencing greater racial/ethnic interaction at the level of the individual school.
• If suburban schools are highly segregated, with whites attending one set of schools and minority students a different set of schools, then minority student growth will not result in suburban white students attending schools with greater proportions of minority students and will not increase the exposure of white students to non-white students.
• When students of different racial/ethnic background do not attend the same schools, the potential exists that they also may not attend the same type of schools, i.e., schools of similar quality and level of resources.
• Some evidence suggests that racial imbalances in peers have significant effects on minority student achievement (Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006; Harris, 2006).
• Public opinion surveys reveal that adults by large margins support having America's racial/ethnic mix represented in the student bodies of public schools (Elam, Rose and Gallup, 1996).

• Read the Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Pew Research Center 1615 L Street, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036-5610

Fry, Richard. (2009). Sharp Growth in Suburban Minority Enrollment Yields Modest Gains in School Diversity. Washington, D.C. Pew Hispanic Center.

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Asian ELL Students; Differentiated Instruction; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA; Rights, Parents; Rights, Students; Struggling Readers;

Target Population: Parents, teachers, and advocates of elementary and middle schools' education.

Research Questions the Report Poses: This article raises the question of the impact of school mobility and its negative effects on student's educational outcomes.

Findings:

• Hispanic immigrants show the highest mobility rates in states like North Carolina and California.
• Current data shows that a student and its family move from state to state more than three times a year during the first grades of elementary school.
• The negative effect of constant moving is the disruption it causes in the new classroom and in the children involved in this moving process.

Policy Recommendations:

• School districts should monitor students' mobility, especially those students who are moving constantly causing academic disruption in any new classroom.
• School districts should also provide counseling to families who are flagged by mobility rates to ameliorate this situation and prevent constant moving.

• Read the Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Hard copies can be ordered from CALDER and the Urban Institute.

Xu, Z., Hannaway, J., and D'Souza, S. (2009). Student Transience in North Carolina: The Effect of School Mobility on Student Outcomes Using Longitudinal Data. North Carolina: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Tags: American Indian ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.);

Target Population: High School

Findings:

In the states studied by the authors of the reports:

• Overall graduation rates ranged from 54.1% to 79.2%. Graduation rates for American Indian/Alaska Native students ranged from 30.4% to 63.8%
• The gap in graduation rates between the overall state rates and the American Indian/Alaska Native rates was 17 percentage points or more, excluding Oklahoma and New Mexico.
• The poverty rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives is 26% compared to 12% of non-Natives.
• Lack of accurate data is due in part to a highly mobile population, a geographically dispersed student population, undercounting of the population, and distrust among this population regarding the use of data by the federal government.

Student- and school-level factors for AI/AN students dropping out include:

• irrelevant and innapropriate curriculum, assessment, and tracking
• feeling unwanted or "pushed out" of school
• poor quality of student-teacher relationships
• difficulty with classes and with reading
• frustrations related to student being older than other students
• distance from school and lack of adequate transportation
• language barriers

Policy Recommendations:

Key recommendations include the following:

• Conduct further research on the population (research questions specified) including case studies on successful schools.
• Improve data collection and reporting methods for American Indian and Alaska Native students at the state and national levels.
• Prepare educators to work with American Indian and Alaska Native students including (pre-service as well as in-service).
• Review and revise school policies and avoid implementation of policies that exclude, repress, demean, embarrass, harass or alienate Native students.
• Avoid use of negative stereotypes.
• Provide opportunities for students to be immersed in their Native language and culture and develop and implement culturally appropriate and relevant curricula.

Future questions for research include the following:

• Why is the graduation rate for American Indian and Alaska Native students consistently lower in North and South Dakota than in other states with high concentrations of American Indian and Alaska Native students?
• Why is the graduation gap between American Indian/Alaska Native students and their peers narrower in Oklahoma than in North and South
• Dakota?
• Why are American Indian/Alaska Native females graduating at rates higher than their male counterparts?
• To what extent do existing formulas for calculating graduation and dropout rates take into account the effects of student transfer and mobility rates?
• To what extent does an emphasis on tribal languages and cultures have on the dropout and graduation rates for American Indian and Alaska Native students?

• Read the Full Report

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
Shaena Engle, engle@gseis.ucla.edu: (310) 206-5951

Faircloth, Susan C., & Tippeconnic, III, John W. (2010). The Dropout/Graduation Rate Crisis Among American Indian and Alaska Native Students: Failure to Respond Places the Future of Native Peoples at Risk. Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA; www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu.

Tags: Asian ELL Students; Intervention; Latino ELL Students; Other ELL Students (Middle Eastern, African, European, etc.); Rights, Parents; Rights, Students;

Target Population: All

Research Questions the Report Poses:

• What challenges and risk factors do immigrant children face?
• What are the implications of the living arrangements of immigrant children, especially of the three most vulnerable groups (Mexican, Southeast Asian, and Black-Caribbean)?
• What unique qualities of immigrant families work to children's advantages?
• How do U.S. immigrant and integration policies shape immigrant families' circumstances?

Findings:

• Recent immigrants are more likely than more settled immigrants to live in extended families, and these are more often of lateral extension (ie co–residence with a relative in a similar stage of life) than vertical extension adults with their parents). While this offers support in the short–term, it does not have long–term benefits.
• Single–parent families have markedly higher child poverty rates than married–parent families; Cohabiting–couple families generally have child poverty rates between the two.
• Children of immigrants are considerably more likely to live with married parents than are children of natives.
• Compared to native children of their same race, immigrant children are more likely to live with extended family, but less likely to live with grandparents.
• The major challenge facing Mexican immigrants and their children is their limited opportunity for economic integration, owing in large part to their low education, skills, and financial resources, coupled with limited English proficiency and, frequently, unauthorized legal status.
• Recent Mexican immigrants are far more likely to have two–parent families, and this tendency decreases with each generation.
• Living arrangements and challenges especially vary among Southeast Asian immigrants, based on origin, refugee/nonrefugee status, and generation of arrival.
• Black Caribbean immigrant children are far more likely than other ethnicities to live in single–parent homes, specifically female–headed families due to demographics and norms in their home countries.

Policy Recommendations:

• The office of Citizenship and Immigration should work to reduce backlogs of immigrants awaiting citizenship so as to reduce time of separation within families and improve children's lives.
• To reduce immigration backlogs: adequate staffing; affording some citizens' privileges to Legal Permanent Residents, specifically reduced waiting time to bring over children and spouses, even if not parents.
• Current admission criteria need to be reevaluated and updated to account for more recent trends.
• Decrease workforce raids, and deportation in general, when children are involved.
• Though complicated and difficult, it would be very advantageous to develop policies to reduce marital dissolution and nonmarital childbearing.
• More attention and resources should be directed toward immigrant settlement. Legal immigrants and their children should be granted greater access to the social safety net regardless of citizenship status. At the very least, immigrant parents need accurate information about social welfare benefits for which they and their children are eligible.

• Read the Full Report

Landale, N., Thomas, K., Van Hook, J. (2011). "Demography of Immigrant Youth: Past, Present, and Future." Immigrant Children 21 (1). The Future of Children. Retrieved from: http://www.futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=74&articleid=540.