Immigrant Boys' Experiences in U.S. Schools 1

Currently the children of immigrants ² comprise 20 percent of the U.S.'s youth population (Hernández and Charney 1998; Landale and Oropesa 1995). The majority of these children have Latino, Asian, or Caribbean origins, representing unprecedented cultural and linguistic diversity (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001). The last fifteen years have witnessed growing scholarly attention to their adaptation (Gibson 1988; Kao and Tienda 1995; Laosa 1989; Olsen 1997; Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Portes and Zhou 1993; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001; Sung 1987; Zhou and Bankston 1998). However, the issue of gender has been relatively unexplored in the literature on immigrant youth (Goodenow and Espin 1993; Valenzuela 1999). Several scholars have identified a general pattern that is consistent with the national trend: Immigrant girls tend to outperform boys in educational settings (Brandon 1991; Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Rong and Brown 2001). Yet, to date, very few studies have explored why this gendered pattern may exist. This chapter examines the experiences of schooling among immigrant youth, with a particular focus on the immigrant boy experience in school context. ²