Did the Americanization Movement Succeed? An Evaluation of the Effect of English-Only and Compulsory Schools Laws on Immigrants' Education / Adriana Lleras-Muney, Allison Shertzer.

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Lleras-Muney, Adriana

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TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w18302.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2012.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: In the early twentieth century, education legislation was often passed based on arguments that new laws were needed to force immigrants to learn English and "Americanize." We provide the first estimates of the effect of statutes requiring English as the language of instruction and compulsory schooling laws on the school enrollment, work, literacy and English fluency of immigrant children from 1910 to 1930. English schooling statutes did increase the literacy of foreign-born children, though only modestly. Compulsory schooling and continuation school laws raised immigrants' enrollment and the effects were much larger for children born abroad than for native-born children.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w18302 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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August 2012.

In the early twentieth century, education legislation was often passed based on arguments that new laws were needed to force immigrants to learn English and "Americanize." We provide the first estimates of the effect of statutes requiring English as the language of instruction and compulsory schooling laws on the school enrollment, work, literacy and English fluency of immigrant children from 1910 to 1930. English schooling statutes did increase the literacy of foreign-born children, though only modestly. Compulsory schooling and continuation school laws raised immigrants' enrollment and the effects were much larger for children born abroad than for native-born children.