IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v620y2008i1p177-193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Educational Hopes, Documented Dreams: Guatemalan and Salvadoran Immigrants' Legality and Educational Prospects

Author

Listed:
  • Cecilia Menjívar

    (School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University)

Abstract

This article focuses on the effects of an ambivalent legal status on Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants' experiences with the U.S. educational system, focusing on how liminal legality shapes access to educational opportunities and immigrants' perceptions of these opportunities. Drawing on the segmented assimilation framework and on thirty-four in-depth interviews conducted with Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants in Phoenix, Arizona, the author argues that an ambiguous legal status molds views and perceptions of educational prospects and, as such, is central in determining immigrants' place in the educational system. While waiting for their statuses to become regular, they dream of higher education—dreams that are for the most part unattainable. Their legality, while not the only determining factor, does exacerbate and facilitate other conditioning circumstances, such as financial difficulties, family separations, and so on, that also impinge on their educational prospects. This case highlights the importance of immigration policies in shaping assimilation in critical ways.

Suggested Citation

  • Cecilia Menjívar, 2008. "Educational Hopes, Documented Dreams: Guatemalan and Salvadoran Immigrants' Legality and Educational Prospects," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 620(1), pages 177-193, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:620:y:2008:i:1:p:177-193
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716208323020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716208323020
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716208323020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gonzalez, Arturo, 2003. "The education and wages of immigrant children: the impact of age at arrival," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 203-212, April.
    2. Jennifer Glick & Michael White, 2003. "academic trajectories of immigrant youths: Analysis within and across cohorts," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(4), pages 759-783, November.
    3. Charles Hirschman, 2001. "The educational enrollment of immigrant youth: A test of the segmented-assimilation hypothesis," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(3), pages 317-336, August.
    4. Nan Astone & Sara McLanahan, 1994. "Family structure, residential mobility, and school dropout: A research note," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(4), pages 575-584, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jeehye Kang & Ingrid P. Whitaker, 2022. "Mexican-Origin Children's Educational Expectations and Academic Performance: Disparities Across Maternal Legal Status and Children’s Immigrant Generation," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(3), pages 1191-1216, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stiefel, Leanna & Schwartz, Amy Ellen & Conger, Dylan, 2010. "Age of entry and the high school performance of immigrant youth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 303-314, May.
    2. Marie C. Hull, 2023. "What divides the first and second generations? Family time of arrival and educational outcomes for immigrant youth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 754-787, January.
    3. Hou, Feng & Ram, Bali & Abada, Teresa, 2008. "Group Differences in Educational Attainment Among the Children of Immigrants," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2008308e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    4. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    5. Kevin Thomas, 2012. "Migration Processes, Familial Characteristics, and Schooling Dropout Among Black Youths," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(2), pages 477-498, May.
    6. Hull, Marie & Norris, Jonathan, 2020. "The skill development of children of immigrants," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Diaz-Strong, Daysi X. & Ybarra, Marci A., 2016. "Disparities in high school completion among Latinos: The role of the age-at-arrival and immigration status," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 282-289.
    8. David Figlio & Umut Özek, 2020. "Cross-Generational Differences in Educational Outcomes in the Second Great Wave of Immigration," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(4), pages 648-674, Fall.
    9. Robert Bozick & Alessandro Malchiodi & Trey Miller, 2016. "Premigration School Quality, Time Spent in the United States, and the Math Achievement of Immigrant High School Students," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(5), pages 1477-1498, October.
    10. Yue Qian & Claudia Buchmann & Zhe Zhang, 2018. "Gender differences in educational adaptation of immigrant-origin youth in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(39), pages 1155-1188.
    11. repec:pri:crcwel:wp09-21-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Sukanya Basu, 2018. "Age-of-Arrival Effects on the Education of Immigrant Children: A Sibling Study," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 474-493, September.
    13. Björn NILSSON, 2019. "Education and migration: insights for policymakers," Working Paper 23ca9c54-061a-4d60-967c-f, Agence française de développement.
    14. Christine Schnor & Júlia Mikolai, 2020. "Remain, leave, or return? Mothers’ location continuity after separation in Belgium," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 42(9), pages 245-292.
    15. Todd Schoellman, 2013. "Refugees and Early Childhood Human Capital," 2013 Meeting Papers 52, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Osawe, Osayanmon Wellington, 2013. "Livelihood Vulnerability and Migration Decision Making Nexus: The Case of Rural Farm Households in Nigeria," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 161628, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    17. Timothy M. Diette & Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere, 2017. "Do limited English students jeopardize the education of other students? Lessons from the North Carolina public school system," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 446-461, September.
    18. Stephanie Potochnick, 2014. "The Academic Adaptation of Children of Immigrants in New and Established Settlement States: The Role of Family, Schools, and Neighborhoods," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(3), pages 335-364, June.
    19. Letizia Mencarini & Elena Meroni & Chiara Pronzato, 2011. "Leaving mum alone? The effect of parental divorce on children√≠s leaving home decisions," Working Papers 045, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    20. Christina Diaz & Jennifer Lee, 2023. "Segmented assimilation and mobility among men in the early 20th century," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(5), pages 107-152.
    21. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2017. "The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(5), pages 1146-1175, October.

    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:sae:anname:v:620:y:2008:i:1:p:177-193. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.