Resilient teenagers: Explaining the high educational aspirations of visible-minority youth in Canada

Abstract

While previous studies show that visible minority and immigrant studentsare disadvantaged within the school system, findings from a nationalCanadian survey of 15-year old students and their parents indicatethat visible-minority immigrant students nevertheless have highereducational aspirations than Canadian-born nonvisible minority students.Using the 2000 Youth in Transition survey, this paper examines sociodemographic,social psychological, and school performance factors that help explainmuch of the difference in aspirations between these groups. We concludeby identifying areas of future research that could further uncoverthe family, school, and community processes that shape aspirationsand the relationships between aspirations and future educationaland occupational attainment.