Decoding effects of micro social contexts on the academic achievement of immigrant adolescents from the poor working-class: Peers, institutional agents, and school contexts

While some immigrant students from poor working-class backgrounds have demonstrated high academic achievement, less is known about why and how they show high achievement, while so many other poor working-class peers do not. In seeking an answer, based on social capital theory, I focus on capturing micro social contexts which shape the educational experiences and outcomes of immigrant working-class adolescents. Among various micro social contexts, I place significant emphasis on peers, institutional agents, and school contexts.;I first conducted a case study with a mixed-methods approach to examine how and why immigrant working-class students navigate and cultivate resources embedded in their social relationships. Social network analysis served as the critical foundation for capturing the associations of social capital with academic achievement. I also conducted follow-up qualitative analysis utilizing semi-structured interviewing in order to complement network data. This qualitative analysis focused on exploring how immigrant working-class students interpret the social contexts surrounding them such as school characteristics, social interactions, and relationships. Coupled with this case study, the scope of my study was expanded by analyzing a large secondary dataset which tested major findings from the case study on a larger scale. By using the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), I investigated the effects of social networks and key school organizational features on immigrant students' academic achievement.;Findings from this study indicate that (1) there is a significant disparity in obtaining relational benefits within the same class category---i.e. high-achieving immigrant working-class students tend to gain more benefits from their social relationships than low-achieving immigrant working-class students; (2) the type of friends immigrant adolescents have in their social relationships is more important than how many close friends they have---i.e. having supportive and academically-oriented friends is the highest contributing factor to high achievement; (3) the academic achievement of high-achieving immigrant working-class students is positively associated with their having quality relationships with other peers via out-degree ties (i.e. resource mobilization); (4) ethnic cohesion (from the case study) and immigrant cohesion (from the CILS analysis) contribute to peer networks seemingly due to their social setting; (5) in terms of peer networks, high-achieving immigrant adolescents' social capital seems to be comparable to the concept of bonding social capital, given that it is primarily based on same-ethnicity and same-achievement level. However, these students' developing bonding social capital seems not to be due to it being their best option in scaffolding social resources, but because it is one of a few options they can access and utilize; (6) ethnic cohesion coupled with positive ethnic identity seems to be helpful for academic achievement of immigrant students because the co-ethnic group serves as a positive reference group; (7) having quality relationships with institutional agents is positively associated with high achievement, and one of the most important components of quality relationships is to have longer durations of relationships with institutional agents; (8) even though immigrant students are connected with "influential" (or important) institutional agents, such relationships do not necessarily mean that students are navigating, drawing, or activating resources embedded in their relationships with influential institutional agents; (9) smaller school size is viewed as a good spatial mechanism for sound school social relations and learning environments for immigrant adolescents across ethnic groups; (10) acting White might be not applicable to schools where schools are structurally small, culturally college-bound, and ethnically-homogenous; and (11) persistent race and class stratification facing immigrant working-class students remains a large socio-structural force that shapes their network orientation and perspectives of opportunity structures. Implications for these findings are discussed.