Summarizes prior research on immigrant children?s experiences and suggests directions for future research. Among the salient characteristics of contemporary immigrants are both their ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. They face some disturbing trends, including the widening gap between rich and poor and the so-called oppositional cultures of youth with diminished hopes for the future. One theoretical framework, the assimilation perspective, is examined and found unable to explain such anomalies as the persistence of cultural patterns and the downward mobility of successive generations. An alternative framework, the pluralist perspective, posits that ethnicity is an asset not a liability, but still does not answer the phenomenon of second-generation decline. Meanwhile, the structural perspective offers the skeptical view that assimilation may not lead to middle-class status. Further theoretical inquiry would address such questions as: (1) will racial barriers limit the participation of immigrant children in American life; (2) will immigrant families and ethnic communities continue to influence the second generation; and (3) what will ethnic diversity mean for the children of the second generation. Such inquiry into the complex ways of being American is urgently needed. (Description from resources)
