The ALSS focused on the living standards of families with at least one child under the age of 20 years.

The research I am going to describe is based on families living in 9 urban areas and 2 rural areas.

First, to what extent do the three groups of parents differ in terms of socio economic status, health and wellbeing?

In fact, parents in limited English families fared less well than the others in all three respects.

My second question was: are those in limited English families likely to catch up to the other groups with time?

After all, a relatively high proportion were recent migrants

I found that a high proportion of parents in limited English families had no more than Year 10 of schooling.

This is likely to operate as a barrier for that generation to catch up to other families - at least in terms of employment status, occupational status and financial wellbeing.

The next generation

It can take more than one generation for some migrant families to catch up to the majority of Australian families. Indeed, parents may have opted to experience considerable hardship in their new country in the hope of improvingthe life chances of future generations.

My next task, then, was to see how well any adolescent children in these families were faring, compared with adolescents in other families. Secondary school children and school leavers completed questionnaires of their own.

The Sample

• Gender: much same proportions of boys and girls in each group

• Age: limited English group included a high proportion aged 16+ years

• Nevertheless a high proportion of all groups were still at school

My key question concerned the wellbeing of the next generation - in particular, what is the prognosis for those in limited English families?

I looked at 4 issues:

• the families' current socio-economic status,

• educational aspirations held by secondary school students and their parents,

• current education and employment circumstances of school leavers

• and indicators of health and wellbeing.

  Socio-economic status

  Those in limited English families were the most likely to have incomes below the poverty line, to have neither parent in paid work, to have a blue collar background, and to have parents with no more than Yr 10 of schooling.

  Patterns for sound English families more closely resembled those for the English only than limited English groups, especially in terms of paid work status - where the most common situation was for both parents or sole mother to be in paid work.

  However, higher proportions of sound-English than English-only families were poor, and the parents in sound-English families were the most likely of all groups to have tertiary qualifications.

  
  Educational aspirations

  Parents completed a questionnaire about each of their children. This questionnaire could be completed by one or both parents and the author was not indicated, although it seems that this task mostly fell on the mother.

  For each of their children taken separately, parents indicated whether they expected him/her to complete Year 12, and what they hoped their child would do after leaving school.

  The students were also asked these questions.

  • Whether boys or girls, most parents expected their children in Years 7 to 10 to complete Year 12, and such expectations did not vary significantly across the language groups. Most of these students held the same expectations.

  • In relation to their hopes beyond schooling, parents and school students were given a list of work and study options and asked to indicate which path they would like for the student.

  • A full-time higher education (at university or CAE) was the most commonly endorsed option of parents and students in all three language groups. This is not surprising, given that higher education is more likely to result in professional occupations and higher salaries.

  Figure 1: Higher Education Aspirations

  Parents and girls in sound English families (the yellow bars) were more likely than their counterparts in the other two groups to indicate a preference for higher education.

  Unlike all other groups, much the same proportion of boys and their parents in limited English families (the first two red bars) had their sights on higher education.

  Of the other language groups, parents were more likely to hold these aspirations than the students.

  Finally, parents in English only families (the blue bars) were slightly more likely to hold these aspirations for daughters than sons, and the daughters themselves were also more likely than sons to hope for higher education.

  Figure 2: Shared Aspirations - Parents and Students

  The greatest chance of success is probably achieved when both parent and child share the same aspirations for the child - other things being equal.

  Parents and young people in sound English families were the most likely to agree in hoping for higher education for the child.

  The pattern of results for sons and daughters in sound English families are almost identical. Agreement was the most common of the four possibilities for these families.

  The most common situation for English-only families (especially in relation to sons) was for neither parent nor student to hope for higher education for the student. .

  Interestingly, 15 per cent of boys in limited English families were hoping for higher education, while their parents were not.

  Thus, to the extent that parental and personal aspirations for higher education have a positive influence on educational outcomes, students in sound-English families seemed the most advantaged, and those in English-only families seemed the least advantaged.

  Figure 3: Aspirations by Occupational Status

  Next, I examined the relationship between aspirations and occupational status of parents. Here, occupational status refers to the current or most recent occupation held by the father or sole mother.

  For lower white collar backgrounds, there is no red bar, because there were insufficient numbers to enable derivation of percentages.

  The yellow bars stand out here - especially in relation to parents' views. Most parents in sound English families hoped for higher education for their children, and this trend did not vary significantly with occupational status.

  Similarly, for students in sound-English families, aspirations for higher education did not vary significantly with the family's occupational background.

  By contrast, the proportion of English-only parents and students holding these aspirations was highest in upper white collar families and lowest in blue collar families.

  Unlike the other groups, this graph would suggest that young people in blue collar, limited English families (the last red bar) were more likely than their counterparts in upper white collar families to hope for higher education. However, there were only 23 young people in white collar families (but 75 in blue collar families). With such a small number, the pattern of results for this group was not significant.

  For some families, occupational status and educational level do not tally in expected ways, so it is useful to consider both these aspects of socio-economic status.

  
  Figure 4: Aspirations by Educational Status

  In most cases, higher education aspirations were most likely when the father or sole mother had tertiary education and least likely when they had no more than year 10 of schooling.

  Two things stand out in this graph:

  (a) the second and third yellow bars stand out - indicating the relatively high proportion of sound English parents with Yr 11 to tertiary education holding these aspirations -

  so too does the last yellow bar, highlighting the high proportion of students of tertiary educated, sound English parents who hope to go on to full time higher education.

  
  
  (b) The last two red bars also stand out - particularly the last one.

  These refer to the relatively high proportion of young people from limited English parents who hope to go on to higher education. This applies particularly for those with better educated parents, but also for those whose parents have no more than Year 10 of schooling.

  
  School leavers
  Let's now look at what has happened to the school leavers.

  
  Completion of Yr 12
  
  Outcomes for school leavers varied according to language status:

  Successful completion of Year 12 applied to only around half of those in English only families and approximately two-thirds of the those in the other two groups.

  Employment / study activities

  At the time of the survey, the school leavers in English-only families were the least likely to be engaged in further study or training (51 per cent), followed by those in limited English families (62 per cent). On the other hand, 75 per cent of those in sound-English families were enrolled in some course or training.

  Of those undertaking a course or training, the two groups who spoke a language other than English at home were more likely than the English only group to be enrolled at University or CAE (63 to 67 per cent versus 51 per cent).

  The educational success of those who spoke a language other than English at home apparent here is consistent with previous research. For example, Dobson, et al (1996) reported that young people who speak a language other than English at home are more likely to participate in higher education than English language users. However, these authors noted that outcomes vary according to country of birth, with Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Eastern European language groups having participation rates twice as high as those English-language speakers and around four times higher than Arabic, Italian, Khmer and Turkish speakers.

  These authors explained much of the variability in participation rates in terms of socio economic status differences of language groups, but noted that the Vietnamese who had high participation rates tended to come from low socio-economic status families. Dobson, et al concluded that:
  
  (The Vietnamese) are repeating the classic migrant success story in which the parental drive to succeed is successfully transferred to the younger generation in such a way that they overcome class and other handicaps which other less motivated groups find to be impassable obstacles (p.53).

  Conclusion so far:

  These results for secondary school children and school leavers suggest that the children of migrants who speak a language other than English at home were on the road to educational success, thereby increasing their chances of occupational and financial success.

  The picture was not as rosy for those in English-only families - especially where the family had low socio-economic status.

  
  Wellbeing

  Educational progress, however, may not necessarily reflect a positive sense of wellbeing.

  Adolescence is frequently portrayed as a difficult period for the young people themselves and / for their parents.

  For young people in Australia from non-English-speaking backgrounds, there may be additional sources of stress, for example :
  

  • the experience of racism,
    
  • parental pressures to retain the traditions, roles and values of their country of origin,
    
  • stricter parental controls,
    
  • possible embarrassment about their family's culture,
  Those who feel they are unlikely to meet exceptionally high educational aspirations held by their parents may also feel considerable pressure.

  On the other hand, the family's culture may be a source of pride rather than embarrassment and conflict.

  Mathers (1996) found that, compared with their English speaking counterparts, both young men and women who spoke a language other than English at home indicated higher levels of psychological distress, and the young women were more likely to report unhappiness.

  
  

HEALTH AND WELLBEING Those in limited English families differed from the other two groups in the following ways: Health: Lower proportion of boys and girls had chronic illnesses Parents and boys viewed boys' health less favourably Parents' view of development: Parents were less satisfied with their son's: * ability to get on with peers * Physical development, coordination * General behaviour Responses of young people: Boys and girls were less satisfied with life as a whole, living standards, housing, and family income Girls were also less satisfied with several other issues, especially their level of independence/freedom Boys and girls indicated a lower sense of mastery Girls indicated lower sociability

Conclusion

These results suggest that young people in sound English families were doing well in the areas of education, health, and emotional wellbeing.

Those in limited English families had the lowest socio-economic status.

Compared with their counterparts in other language groups, parents in limited English families seemed less content with their son's development, while girls in such families appeared to be less content with life as a whole and with several domains of life.

This pattern of results highlights the importance of taking into account parents' command of English when undertaking research into families with a non English speaking background. These groups are very different in terms of parents' educational level and in terms of the outcomes for parents and children in several areas.

Given that those with a good command of English are probably more inclined to participate in research, studies which fail to take into account English language skills are likely to provide a rosier picture of the progress and wellbeing of migrants with non-English speaking backgrounds.

Failure to recognise these differences in research may result in failure to identify and address some of the special needs of families with limited English skills.

My main reason for undertaking this analysis, however, was to see if the low wellbeing of parents in limited English families was also apparent in their offspring or whether there was evidence of improvement across the generations. The greatest improvement appeared in the area of education, with likely spin offs for occupational and financial success.

References

Dobson, I., Birrell, B., and Rapson, V. (1996), 'The participation of non-English speaking-background-persons in higher education', People and Place, Vol.4(1), pp.46-54

Mathers, C.. (1996), Health Differentials Among Young Australian Adults. Canberra ACT: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.