Socioeconomic Status, Culture, and Reading Comprehension in Immigrant Students

Frontiers in Psychology

Jon Andoni Duñabeitia¹  Luis J. Fuentes²  Adelina Estévez³  Juan Andrés Hernández-Cabrera⁴  David Saldaña⁵  Joaquín A. Ibáñez-Alfonso⁶  María Teresa Bajo⁷  Pedro Macizo⁷ 

[1] Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición, Universidad Antonio de Nebrija, Madrid, Spain;Department of Language and Culture, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway;Department of Basic Psychology and Methodology, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain;Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain;Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Behavioral Sciences, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain;Individual Differences, Language and Cognition Lab, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain;Individual Differences, Language and Cognition Lab, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain;Human Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychology, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Seville, Spain;Memory and Language Research Group, Department of Experimental Psychology, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain;

关键词: reading comprehension;    immigrants;    socioeconomic status;    second language learners;    culture;    Spanish;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.752273

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Research on reading comprehension in immigrant students is heterogeneous and conflicting. Differences in socioeconomic status and cultural origins are very likely confounds in determining whether differences to native pupils can be attributed to immigrant status. We collected data on 312 Spanish students of Native, of Hispanic origin–therefore with the same family language as native students- and Non-Hispanic origin, while controlling for socioeconomic status, non-verbal reasoning and school membership. We measured reading comprehension, knowledge of syntax, sentence comprehension monitoring, and vocabulary. Differences among groups appeared only in vocabulary and syntax (with poorer performance in the non-Hispanic group), with no differences in reading comprehension. However, regression analyses showed that most of the variability in reading comprehension was predicted by age, socioeconomic status, non-verbal reasoning, and comprehension monitoring. Group membership did not significantly contribute to explain reading comprehension variability. The present study supports the idea that socioeconomically disadvantaged students, both native and immigrants from diverse cultural backgrounds, irrespective of the language of origin, are probably equally at risk of poor reading comprehension.

【 授权许可】

CC BY