Aspirations, Motivations and Immigrant Children's Unexpected Success in Education

Evidences have shown that despite their undesirable family background, immigrant children are doing unexpectedly well in education when compared to their native counterparts. Previous studies have failed to prove that strong motivation towards better life and high aspiration for upward mobility may contribute to their academic success. To fill this gap, I use Hong Kong PISA data to identify four types of incentives that theoretically would cause immigrants¡¯ outstanding performance, and use mediation analysis to measure how much of the effect of immigrant status on academic achievement is mediated through these factors. The results confirm that aspirations and motivations do mediate a part of the immigrant effect on mathematics achievement, and educational aspiration seems to be the relatively more important one. For immigrant students from families with low socioeconomic status, although their academic advantage is especially large, but that does not mean they have stronger motivations and higher aspirations.