Mexican-American migrant students' academic success: sociological and psychological acculturation

This study attempted to describe and compare academically successful and academically unsuccessful high-risk Mexican-American migrant high school students. The two groups were compared on sociological and psychological indicators of acculturation, urbanization, and socioeconomic status (SES). It was hypothesized that the successful group would have higher SES, be more acculturated, urbanized, and psychologically adjusted to modern value systems, and have higher occupational aspirations and expectations than the unsuccessful group. In addition, their world views were compared by exploring early recollection data. The results showed that the unsuccessful group came from families that were larger, poorer, more rural, and more "foreign" (i.e., more parents and children born in Mexico) than the successful students' families. Regarding the psychological indicators of acculturation, the successful group was found to score higher on modernism, to be more stably acculturated, to have a clearer sense of themselves, to have higher occupational aspirations and expectations, and tended to desire jobs with greater responsibility and stability than did the unsuccessful group.