IN SEARCH OF THE NEW 2ND-GENERATION - ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES FOR IDENTIFYING 2ND-GENERATION CHILDREN AND UNDERSTANDING THEIR ACQUISITION OFENGLISH

Social scientists are devoting increasing attention to second-generati on children for insights into the long-term consequences of immigratio n for American society. However, there is considerable disagreement ov er the operational criteria that should be used to determine membershi p in the second generation. Using the Public Use Microdata Sample of t he 1990 U.S. Census, this study examines several issues. First, the im plications of different operational criteria for descriptive analyses that focus on the size and composition of the second-generation child population are considered. We then assess whether different operationa l strategies have implications for multivariate analyses, especially t hose that focus on language skills. The results indicate that a key de cision for most studies, except those that focus on socioeconomic comp osition, is how foreign-born children are classified. Foreign-born chi ldren should not be combined with native-born children on the grounds that they comprise the ''de facto'' second generation. Instead, resear chers should make distinctions between the ''decimal'' generations to avoid obscuring diversity within the child population.