Another under-researched question concerns the impact intergenerational dynamics in immigrant families have beyond the bounds of the household and family. Of particular interest is the effect on second-generation educational and academic achievement. One study of several hundred newly arrived immigrant children recruited in schools in Boston and San Francisco (Suarez-Orozco et al. 2008) found no direct link between reported acculturation tensions with parents and academic performance; another, based on a large-scale representative sample of children of immigrants in south Florida and southern California, found that parent-child conflict had a negative effect on school achievements (Portes & Rumbaut 2001).
Qualitative studies indicate that cultural values that cause family clashes may also promote academic success. Second-generation daughters may resent that they face greater restrictions than their brothers on their freedom of movement, yet their more highly structured and monitored lives can have positive effects on their educational achievement because they are kept closer to home and away from the temptations of the street (Lopez 2003, Smith 2006). For daughters and sons alike, Portes & Fernández-Kelly (2008) argue that authoritarian parental childrearing practices can contribute to educational success by keeping the second generation away from negative Americanizing influences and promoting a sense of dignity by providing a strong cultural reference point. Research on the second generation suggests another dynamic that can have implications for educational achievement. Punishing children by sending them back to the home community can heighten intergenerational conflicts, although the separation may heal the breach (Foner 2009c) and, in some cases, provide a second chance to make it in the United States. The New York second-generation study (Kasinitz et al. 2008) suggests that a spell in the home country can instill values and provide an educational environment that stands young people in good stead when they return to the United States to enter college and the workforce, although it is also true that spending a year or two out of U.S. schools can derail children academically.