Social Bonds Across Immigrant Generations: Bonding to School and Examining the Relevance of Assimilation

The focus of this study is to investigate school bonding among adolescents in immigrant families using a segmented assimilation theoretical framework. Data are drawn from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, a nationally representative sample of 10th graders. We focus on a subsample consisting of 9,870 first- (N = 1,170, 12 %), second- (N = 1,540, 16 %), and third-plus-generation (N = 7,160, 73%) students in 580 public schools. Our findings suggest that adolescents’ school bond seems to diminish or “decline” as the children of immigrants assimilate. Implications for research on racial/ethnic and immigrant generational disparities in adolescent social bonds to school are also discussed.