Ethnicity, socialization, and academic achievement of Italian-American college students at the City University of New York.
Item
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Title
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Ethnicity, socialization, and academic achievement of Italian-American college students at the City University of New York.
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Identifier
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AAI8914795
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identifier
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8914795
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Creator
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Sterzi, Gabriella.
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Contributor
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Adviser: David Rindskopf
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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The study consists of a mail survey on socialization, ethnicity, and academic achievement of freshmen of Italian background at The City University of New York. Main background variables include generation of respondents in the United States, education and occupation of parents, gender of respondents, college attended. Dependent variables include Ethnic Identity, Ethnic Attitudes, Ethnic Behavior, socialization practices, and measures of academic performance.;The sample of the study was screened from the general freshman population at four colleges of The City University of New York on the basis of Italian sounding last names. The main instrument of the study is a self-report questionnaire which was mailed to respondents with a pre-paid, self-addressed return envelope by the principal investigator. The questionnaire covered background variables, socialization practices, and ethnic variables. Academic performance records were provided by the colleges attended by respondents through a procedure which fully protected anonymity of respondents.;With regard to ethnicity, the results of the study support the assimilation theory (Gordon 1964) for which ethnic groups of European ancestry undergo a process of cultural and structural assimilation to mainstream society across generations of residence in the United States. Nevertheless ethnic attitudes, which may be taken to represent a symbolic component of ethnicity (Gans 1979) were not related to generation and were fairly favorable to the maintenance of Italian ethnicity for all the sample.;The contention of an anti-intellectual bias which would characterize Southern Italian immigrants was not supported by an analysis of socialization practices and academic performance of respondents across generations. Socialization practices such as intellectual training and achievement training were weakly related to ethnicity of respondents in the expected direction. Nevertheless socialization practices and generation of respondents were unrelated to the four measures of academic performance employed in this study.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
