Between Family, Job Responsibilities, and School: Generation Status, Ethnicity, and Differences in the Routes Out of School

Silvia Elena Giorguli Saucedo, Brown University
Michael J. White, Brown University
Jennifer E. Glick, Arizona State University

In the context of a continuous and diverse flow of immigrants, where immigrants include both the most educated groups and the least educated (Rumbaut, 1994), this paper explores to what extent education can work as a mechanism of integration and as a leveler for recent immigrants and for second generation children. Do immigrants, immigrant's children and third generation students leave school for the same reasons? Does the pattern of immigrants leaving school vary by ethnicity? Using event history analysis and data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey 1988-1992, our first results suggest that the reasons for leaving school vary by nativity. While recent immigrants leave school often due to 'family related reasons,' the third generation leaves school due to 'school related problems.' The timing also varies by generation status. Recent migrants leave at earlier stages (mainly in the transition between middle and high school) than other generational groups.