Second-Generation Nigerians in the United States

Second-Generation Nigerians

Patricia Anekwe, an Igbo woman, arrived in the United States in 1980. She acquired a BS in sociology and followed that with an MS, also in sociology. Later she applied to join the original class of PhD candidates at Western Connecticut State University. She received her doctorate in 2008.

She said, “When I began exploring topics for my dissertation in 2006, my intent was to study the educational experiences of second-generation Nigerian youth in America. However, circumstances led me to narrow my focus to the high-achieving ones.”

As part of her study, she asked the young people to identify themselves on these self-appointed criteria. I just listed 4 of these:

1. High school cumulative grade point of 3.5 or higher
2. High school AP courses where available
3. Extra-curricular activities
4. College and career aspirations

She later followed up on all the career aspirations of her candidates. What she found confirmed her initial aspirations but with just a few changes.

Her research was focused on these three questions:

1. What are the characteristics of high-achieving second-generation NIgerian immigrant youth in the United States?
2. What are the effects of personal, family, school, and community factors on the academic achievement of high-achieving second-generation Nigerian youth?
3. What challenges do high-achieving second-generation Nigerian youth face in schools and how do they deal with the challenges of being Black, of immigrant origin, and high-achieving?

For her in-depth interviews, she used 11 people. Nine of the young people were born in the U.S., while 2 immigrated from the United Kingdom before the age of 6. She also counted the ethnic groups – seven were Igbo and 4 were Yoruba. They were 3 males and 8 females.

She counted where they were in school. Five were in high school, five in college, and one was a graduate student.

Another Book

In the meantime, another book came out. This was called “Beyond Expectations: Second Generation Nigerians in the United States and Britain.”

It was written by Onoso Imoagene.

This book came out in 2017. The list includes over 150 people, a much wider sample. I have not read it. But I can guess some of the conclusions are the same with parents and children.

Patricia’s Conclusions

For Patricia’s study she said that researchers have not found a single factor that determines the academic outcomes of these second-generation youth. Rather she determined that personal, family, school, “and other contextual factors” all have a basis in their success.

She described the 11 in-depth participants in her study and then focused on the 6 group interviewees.

What Mrs. Anekwe discovered included the following:

Most of the interviewees and focus-group participants followed the educational path of their parents. Many of the people aspired to a physician’s degree. Of the 16 participants, including the 2 not counted, nine aimed at this degree. In the end, only 3 earned medical degrees. Another 3 earned engineering degrees, two earned law degrees, one became a pharmacist, one a clinical psychologist, one an investment banker, and five chose other fields.

But all are successful in their interests.

She also discovered these factors that contributed to the students’ success.

1. Academic expectations are relevant to all the students. They expected to do well and did not tolerate any less. Most of the students acknowledged the “Nigerian thing” which parents held about their children’s own achievements. Even when students acknowledged a “B” grade, they still recognized the hard work they had done to achieve this.
2. As youths developed their own self-selection of goals, parents played a vital role. They helped the students identify “agency,” the sense that the students had high achievement goals and were able to recognize these. As they did not expect less than the best, students helped parents and others to recognize achievement-oriented goals. The students veered away from advisers who did not recognize their abilities and went toward more focus-oriented ones.
3. Motivation occurs in their own aspirations about their education. One student said, “My ultimate goal . . . is to become a physician. . .  I want to help others and I can do that through medicine, which is the most fundamental way of helping any human being.”

Next time I’ll discuss what parents found about their children and what advice the children gave to the parents!