CIDC (Children of Immigrants: Development in Context)
Follow-up
This study was conducted in 2007 by Flavia Perea and a team of undergraduate students at Brown. Using updated academic records for the original CIDC cohort, Dr. Perea examined the extent to which early academic performance predicted later grades and academic outcomes in children of Cambodian, Portuguese, and Dominican immigrants.
Elementary school GPA was found to be highly predictive of academic outcomes in high school for all adolescents. In general, children who were doing well or excelling in elementary school were likely to be doing well in high school, and children who were under-performing or at risk for academic failure in grades 4-6 were likely to be doing poorly in high school. However, we also observed differences between these two immigrant
groups. Though strong school values in elementary school were predictive of later academic achievement for both groups, parent education was particularly important for promoting academic success among Dominican 9th graders. For the Cambodian adolescents, prior academic stress put them at risk for poor 9th grade school performance, whereas parents’ belief in school involvement promoted early high school academic success.