Minor Forms of Parental Maltreatment and Educational Achievement of Immigrant Youths in Young Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Parental hostility and emotional rejection—or aggregated as general harsh family interactions with parents—have received little research attention due to such parent-child interactions being counted as minor forms of parental maltreatment and regarded as being less harmful. However, recent research showed that these minor forms of parental maltreatment on youth development are far from negligibility on account of their frequency, chronicity, and incessancy. In this longitudinal study, we investigated how parental hostility, emotional rejection, and harsh family interactions with parents of in early adolescence of immigrant youths (wave-1 Mage = 14) adversely impact successful college graduation of immigrant youths in young adulthood (wave-3 Mage = 24) through the mediation of their development of academic aspirations in late adolescence (wave-2 Mage = 17). Using data from a representative sample of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (N = 3344), the current study revealed that parental hostility, emotional rejection, and harsh family interactions with parents significantly impaired successful college graduation of immigrant youths in young adulthood, with the decreased odds of 20.1% to 30.22%. Furthermore, academic aspirations of immigrant youths in late adolescence not only significantly mediated the abovementioned relationships but also contributed to the higher odds of immigrant youths’ college graduation by 2.226 to 2.257 times. Findings of this study related to educational innovations, family services, and policy implications are discussed herein.