The Effect of Immigrant Mothers’ Educational Attainment on the Academic Achievement of Multicultural Adolescents: Utilizing Contextual Attainment

This study investigates how the educational attainment of immigrant mothers shapes the academic achievement of multicultural adolescents in South Korea by employing the concept of contextual attainment. Prior research has relied primarily on absolute years of schooling, a measure that systematically undervalues the educational credentials of immigrant mothers whose human capital is frequently discounted in the host society. Contextual attainment, which situates each mother’s schooling within the gender- and cohort-specific educational distribution of her country of origin, offers a more accurate indication of pre-migration class position. Analyzing the 8th wave of the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study (MAPS) alongside the Barro–Lee Educational Attainment dataset, this study finds that mothers’ contextual attainment exerts a significant positive effect on adolescents’ academic performance even after accounting for current household socioeconomic resources. Parent–teacher consultations and educational aspirations of both parents and adolescents appear to partially mediate this relationship. Taken together, these findings suggest that disparities in academic achievement among multicultural adolescents reflect processes of intergenerational class reproduction rather than mere cultural adaptation. Accordingly, the results underscore the transferable nature of nonmaterial capital across national boundaries and highlight the need to reconsider the heterogeneous class backgrounds within immigrant families.