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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Fall 2007
Note from the Director
This year is a significant one in PRI's history. This fall marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the institute, which was formed in 1972 as the Population Issues Research Center. It is the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of Penn State's Graduate Program in Demography, which currently enrolls about sixty trainees annually in seven dual-degree programs. From PRI's inception, immigration has been a key research focus among the institute's faculty, reflecting the enduring importance to the nation and the world of this ever-changing but ever-present issue. Several researchers who join PRI this fall are engaged in projects related to immigration; a number of PRI's ongoing and recently completed studies center on immigration's effects on populations; and a PRI interest group on Immigration and Immigrant Adaptation has recently been formed.
Jennifer Van Hook (Sociology), a new faculty associate, comes to PRI from Bowling Green State University. Her research has centered primarily on immigrant incorporation and international migration flows, examining nativity and/or generational differences in a wide variety of demographic and socioeconomic outcomes, such as welfare receipt, poverty, food insecurity, health, household/family structure, and school segregation. She has also been involved in formal demographic work that seeks to estimate the size and characteristics of the unauthorized migrant population as well as to improve the assumptions underlying the estimation techniques used in this research.
Emily Greenman (Sociology), a 2007 graduate of the University of Michigan, concentrates her research on immigration and assimilation. As part of her dissertation, she examined the effect of neighborhood socioeconomic status on how immigrant parents guide their children's assimilation processes. In a project using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), Greenman examined the impact of various aspects of assimilation on educational achievement, psychological well-being, and risk behaviors of Hispanic and Asian immigrant adolescents.
Kevin J. A. Thomas (African and African American Studies) held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and the Harvard Initiative for Global Health before joining PRI this fall. Thomas has studied the effects of migration on populations in South Africa, and is currently undertaking a study of children living in Black immigrant families in the United States.
Leif Jensen (Rural Sociology), Gordon De Jong (Sociology), and R. Salvador Oropesa (Sociology) are currently conducting a study of Dominican immigrants in Reading, Pennsylvania. De Jong and Deborah Graefe (Sociology) recently completed a project on welfare reform which focused on internal migration of immigrants. One area of Suet-ling Pong's (Education and Sociology) research examines assimilation and education among immigrants. Nancy Landale (Sociology) and Oropesa recently carried out a comprehensive overview of family patterns among Hispanics for the Annual Review of Sociology, focusing on changes in family patterns by generational status.
To facilitate collaboration in this area, the PRI interest group on Immigration and Immigrant Adaptation formed during the 2006-07 academic year. The group's monthly meetings provide a forum for lively discussion of issues related to new immigration patterns, immigrant adaptation, and links between immigration and children and families.
The expertise in immigration within PRI dovetails well with a new initiative on Immigration and Social Change within Penn State's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI). The SSRI initiative will encompass faculty hires, networking activities to encourage interdisciplinary research projects, and seed grant support for new projects. In addition, Penn State's 2008 National Symposium on Family Issues will focus on the development of Hispanic children in immigrant families, examining four arenas of research and policy that are significant in the development and well-being of immigrant youth: the new community destinations of immigrant families; the role of families in youth's successful adaptation to their new cultural settings; the role of schools and education policies and practices in youth achievement; and the role of health care services and policies in youth well-being.
All these activities contribute to an exciting and dynamic atmosphere for Penn State researchers interested in immigration and immigrant adaptation, and further PRI's aim to be at the forefront of research in this area. More details about our scholars and their research can be found in this issue of PRInformation.
Nancy Landale
Director
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