Title:
Ethnic Communities and School Performance among the New Second Generationin the United States – Testing the Theory of Segmented Assimilation

Abstract:
The Theory of Segmented Assimilation has become a popular framework for explaining the adaptation of the children of the post-1969 wave of immigration to the United States. These are assumed to experience divergent outcomes depending on the way they are received by US society, their access to social capital through ethnic communities and the exposure to the oppositional cultures of marginalised domestic minorities. The article critically reviews those arguments and provides a test in the area of school performance. Based on data from the regional Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, my analyses show that indicators of communitybased social capital can indeed account for a considerable extent of inter-ethnic differences in school performance. However, my results challenge the notions that ethnic communities are generally supportive of the school performance of the second generation, while contact with the oppositional cultures of domestic minorities is the main cause of lower-than-average achievement. Instead, they support a conditional view of ethnic communities. According to this view, the extent to which immigrant families’ insertion into ethnic communities can support the school performance of their children depends on the communities’ socio-economic profile and level of aspirations.