Research

Immigrant status affects academic success in adoption situations

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- As the adoptee population in the U.S. continues to grow, the immigrant status of parents and children in adoption situations and the implications of that status for academic success are becoming increasingly important among educators. A Penn State researcher recently found that U.S.-born adoptees have higher rates of academic success than foreign-born adoptees, and that adoptees living with immigrant families are more successful than those living with U.S.-born parents.

Kevin J. A. Thomas, associate professor of sociology, demography, and African studies, is interested in how immigrant status can influence how adopted children perform in school. His latest project focuses on the relationship between adoption status and school progress and how it differs among foreign-born and U.S.-born adopted children. The results were published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

According to Thomas, the project is a continuation of previous work he’s done on children of immigrants in disadvantaged socioeconomic situations. “Earlier adoption studies provided information on how adoptees adjust to life in their new families, but were mostly based on small sample datasets and left unanswered questions regarding whether adopted children achieve similar levels of academic success as their peers living with biological parents,” he said.

Thomas used the American Community Survey, an ongoing statistical survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, to discover nuances in the relationship between adoption and child well-being. His results were somewhat unexpected, as he found the most favorable adoption-schooling outcomes among U.S.-born adoptees living with first-generation immigrant families.

“While I was surprised by my findings, I quickly realized immigrant families have many characteristics that may help children succeed,” Thomas explained. “Immigrant families typically have a high level of optimism and expect to be successful in the U.S.”

Thomas also noted that immigrant families who adopt are often of a relatively high socioeconomic status. “These families have been shown to care more about education, demonstrated by their level of involvement with academic activities such as helping their children with homework and college applications.”

Several of Thomas’ findings were in line with previous findings by other researchers. “The project also demonstrated that adoptees who are themselves immigrants are at an academic disadvantage compared to their U.S.-born peers or to children living with their biological parents in immigrant families,” said Thomas.

As Thomas predicted, children living with their biological families consistently demonstrated greater levels of academic success compared to their adopted peers, with stepchildren also having higher levels of academic achievement compared to adoptees. While most adopted children lived with families of a higher socioeconomic status, these advantages did not completely offset the disadvantages associated with adoption status.

“I found that the achievement gap between adoptees and their biological peers would have been even higher had it not been for the more favorable socioeconomic status of the adoptive family,” Thomas explained.

An absence of information on the preadoption circumstances of the adopted children in the ACS survey limits the explanation of possible causes for the differences reported, Thomas said, and for this reason the results should be considered tentative. 

In the future, he would like to explore how language barriers impact the academic and socioeconomic success of immigrant children in adoption situations. He also plans to examine the implications of interracial adoptions on child well-being, in particular comparing black children born in the U.S. to those born in other countries.

The project is being supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and Penn State’s Population Research Institute, part of the Social Science Research Institute.

Last Updated February 16, 2016

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