Background

Studies demonstrate that occupational optimism can boost adolescents’ academic attainment and perseverance in education. To contribute to this literature, we consider two hypotheses. The first posits that bilingual immigrants are remarkably resourceful and determined. Thus, they are more occupationally ambitious than their peers. The second proposes that immigrant students engage in “strategic adaptation” by specializing in science, viewed as a level playing field.

Methods

To assess these hypotheses at two points of time, we analyze data from 19 societies that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2006 and 2015. Our primary method is path analysis with balanced replicate weights (BRR) undertaken separately for each country’s data.

Results

We find that, in many countries, bilingual immigrants expect to enter higher status occupations than non-immigrants. However, immigrants who do not speak another language are also optimistic, so linguistic resources cannot explain occupational ambition. Furthermore, immigrants accord science more instrumental value and enjoy it more at school, which accounts, across societies, for up to 12% of the variation in vocational optimism indicated by the expected occupational status, and up to 41% in plans to pursue a career in science professions.

Conclusion

Our results align with the “strategic adaptation” argument that many young immigrants might seek to specialize in science as a pragmatic tactic to ensure high occupational attainment.

中文翻译：

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移民乐观还是移民实用主义？语言资本，对青少年的科学取向和职业期望

背景

小号案例研究表明，职业乐观主义可以提高青少年的学业成绩和毅力教育。为了对此文献做出贡献，我们考虑了两个假设。第一个假设是双语移民非常足智多谋。因此，他们比同龄人更具职业野心。第二条建议移民学生通过专门研究科学来从事“战略适应”，这被视为一个公平的竞争环境。

方法

为了在两个时间点评估这些假设，我们分析了2006年和2015年参加国际学生评估计划（PISA）的19个学会的数据。我们的主要方法是对每个学生分别进行平衡复制权重（BRR）的路径分析国家的数据。

结果

我们发现，在许多国家，双语移民期望比非移民进入更高身份的职业。但是，不会说另一种语言的移民也很乐观，因此语言资源无法解释职业抱负。此外，移民赋予科学更多的工具价值，并在学校更享受科学的价值，这在整个社会中占预期职业地位所表明的职业乐观差异的12％，在从事职业的计划中占41％在科学界。

结论

我们的研究结果与“战略适应”论点相吻合，即许多年轻移民可能会寻求专门研究科学，以作为务实的策略来确保获得较高的职业素养。