IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cmgdev/wp1102b-dreaming-in-spain-revised.pdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dreaming in Spain: Parental Determinants of Immigrant Children's Ambition

Author

Listed:
  • Alejandro Portes

    (Princeton University)

  • Erik Vickstrom

    (Princeton University)

  • William Haller

    (Clemson University)

  • Rosa Aparicio

    (Instituto Iniversitario Ortega y Gasselt)

Abstract

We examine determinants of educational and occupational aspirations and expectations among children of immigrants in Spain on the basis of a unique data set that includes statistically representative data for foreign-origin secondary students in Madrid and Barcelona plus a sample of one-fourth of their parents. Independently collected data for both generations allow us to establish effects of parental characteristics on childrens orientations without the confounding potential inherent on childrens reports about parents. We analyze first determinants of parental ambition and, through a series of step-wise regressions, the effects of these goals and other parental and family characteristics on childrens aspirations and expectations. A structural equations model synthesizes results of the analysis. The model confirms some predictions from the existing research literature, but rejects others. Parental goals, knowledge of Spanish, sex and childrens age relative to class year as shown to be the major determinants of childrens level of ambition. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Alejandro Portes & Erik Vickstrom & William Haller & Rosa Aparicio, 2011. "Dreaming in Spain: Parental Determinants of Immigrant Children's Ambition," Working Papers 1342, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Migration and Development..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cmgdev:wp1102b-dreaming-in-spain-revised.pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066875/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos J. Gil-Hernández & Pablo Gracia, 2018. "Adolescents' educational aspirations and ethnic background: The case of students of African and Latin American migrant origins in Spain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(23), pages 577-618.
    2. Raisa N. Akifyeva, 2015. "Children and Parents in the Migration Context: Dissonant or Consonant Trajectories," HSE Working papers WP BRP 103/HUM/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    aspirations; expectations; children of immigrants; adaptation; Spain;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • I39 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Other
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:cmgdev:wp1102b-dreaming-in-spain-revised.pdf. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.