Education Outcomes for BC’s Immigrant Children

1. Education Outcomes for BC’s Immigrant Children Immigrant HealthandWell‐Being Workshop Constance Milbrath & Martin Guhn Metropolis Conference March 12-15, 2014 Gatineau, Quebec

2. Creating knowledge to help children thrive

3. Educational, health and well-being outcomes of children born to immigrant and refugee families in British Columbia*Research Questions • What is the unique influence of different heritage cultural/national origins on a child’s developmental health at Kindergarten, and on a child’s long term developmental successes or challenges in their educational trajectory, physical health, and mental health, once family and neighbourhood SES are taken into account? • Do first and second generation immigrant children show better or worse academic success, physical health, and mental healththan non-immigrant and/or children born in Canada to second and third generation immigrant parents? • *Funded by CIHR

5. EDI-Education-Health-CIC Landing files 5years K 9 years Grade 4 15 years Grade 10 Birth 12 years Grade 7 18 years Grade 12 EDI FSA FSA Provincial Exams Provincial Exams & GPA VitalStatistics(Births) Education Health (Medical/Health Services, Hospital Care) – Child health & mental health data Citizen and Immigration Canada (Landing Files) – Parent/Family data at landing

6. BC Lower Mainland Study Populations* • 3 Birth Cohorts 1990-1999 • Ever Designated ELL** • EDI Cohorts (1999-2013) • Ever Designated ELL** *10 BC School Districts **English Language Learner the new term replacing English as a Second Language

7. EDI Subscales Predictors/Outcomes Physical Health & Well-Being • Physical readiness for school • Physical independence • Gross and fine motor skills Social Competence • Overall social competence • Responsibility & respect • Approaches to learning • Readiness to explore new things Emotional Maturity • Prosocial and helping behaviour • Anxious and fearful behaviour • Aggressive behaviour • Hyperactive and inattention Language and Cognitive • Basic literacy • Interest in literacy/numeracy & memory • Advanced literacy • Basic numeracy Communication Skills

8. Ethno-Cultural Early Development Instrument Patterns Research Summary How is the ethno-cultural language background of children related to different patterns in developmental outcomes? Do such differences reflect cultural differences in parenting styles and values? Our research indicates that kindergarten children from different language backgrounds have distinctly different patterns of teacher-rated developmental outcomes on the EDI.

13. Mean GPA for 1990-1992 Birth Cohorts

14. BC Graduation Rates by Language Groups for the 1990-1992 Birth Cohorts

15. Thank youSpecial acknowledgment & thanks to the Human Early Learning Partnershipwww.earlylearning.ubc.ca Constance Milbrath & Martin Guhn constance.milbrath@ubc.ca & martin.guhn@ubc.ca

16. EXTRA SLIDES IF Time

17. The Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) lKimberlySchonert-Reichl, Martin Guhn & MDI Team

18. 5 Dimensions of the Middle Years Development Instrument I 1 Social and Development Optimism, empathy, happiness & prosocial 4 2 Physical Health & Well-Being General health, nutritiion & Sleep patterns Connectedness Adult Support in family, School & neighbourhood, connected to peers Constructive Use of After- School Time Time spent in Activities 3 5 School Experiences Academic self-concept, School climate, victimization

21. Culture and Developmental Outcomes References D'Andrade, R. G. (1984). Cultural meaning systems. In R. A. shweder  & R. A. Levine (Eds.).  Culture theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion (pp. 88-119).  New York, NY: CUP. Hutchins, E. (2002). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Milbrath, C., Ohlson, B. & Eyre, S. (2009) Adolescent Cultural Models of Romantic Relationship.Journal of Research on Adolescence, 19(2), 313-351. Research to Action Relevance to Policy and Practice The findings have important implications for public discourse. The interaction - high cultural density is associated with buffering effects for Punjabi speaking children but not for Cantonese speaking children - indicates that neighborhood constellations and contextual effects cannot be generalized across, in this case, different cultural subpopulations. More broadly speaking, the findings indicate that it is important for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to acknowledge that the interaction of personal, contextual, and cultural factors may lead to developmental outcome patterns that differ from one subgroup or one context to the next. Definitions of Culture Culture consists not of behaviors, or even patterns of behavior, but rather of shared information or knowledge encoded in systems of meaning.  (D’Andrade, 1984) Cultures nurture the growth and development of children through their more intangible legacies such as shared systems of norms, beliefs, attitudes, values and knowledge, that serve as mental blueprints for social interactions and living practices. (D’Andrade, 1984) Culture is a human cognitive process “…that takes place both inside and outside the minds of people…(t)he very same processes that constitute the conduct of an activity and produce changes in the individual practitioners … also produce changes in the social, material, and conceptual aspects of the setting.” (Hutchins, 2002, p. 374) Behavior, as inseparable from culture, is not determined solely by what is inside an individual, but also by the socio-cultural system that is representative of the artifacts of individuals engaging in cultural activities. (Milbrath, Ohlson & Eyre, 2009, p.315) Research Summary To date, few studies in Canada have examined developmental health outcomes of immigrant children during the early years. In particular, there is little research on the interactions between cultural and contextual variables with regard to children’s developmental outcomes. This study examines the relationship between children’s language background (as a proxy of ethno-cultural family background), the socio-economic status background of their neighborhood (low versus high SES), and percentage of families with same cultural background within a neighborhood (using a composite of census cultural data), and developmental outcomes as rated on the EDI (EDI mean total score). Given the population level data base that links EDI data to census variables, this is the first study that can systematically examine the ways in which ethno-cultural family background and neighborhood background variables are jointly related to children’s developmental outcomes. Research Team Constance Milbrath constance.milbrath@ubc.ca Martin Guhn martin.guhn@ubc.ca Clyde Hertzmanclyde.hertzman@ubc.ca