TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lleras-Muney,Adriana
AU  - Shertzer,Allison
TI  - Did the Americanization Movement Succeed?  An Evaluation of the Effect of English-Only and Compulsory Schools Laws on Immigrants' Education
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18302
PY  - 2012
Y2  - August 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18302
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18302.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Adriana Lleras-Muney
Department of Economics
9373 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 310/825-3925
Fax: NA
E-Mail: alleras@ECON.UCLA.EDU

Allison Shertzer
Department of Economics
University of Pittsburgh
4901 WW Posvar Hall
230 South Bouquet Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel: 412/648-7071
E-Mail: shertzer@pitt.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -