The present article investigates the relationship between the degree of tracking and inequalities in reading literacy of second-generation and non-immigrant students in 28 Western countries. The article takes into account that next to between-school tracking, there are also more subtle forms of tracking, such as tracking within schools or classes. By elaborating how the distinct mechanisms of different tracking characteristics generate achievement inequalities, I assume that any negative effects of tracking on second-generation immigrant students’ achievements are primarily driven by differences in the quality of school environments. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 are used and multilevel regression analysis with country-fixed effects are applied. The findings reveal that a higher tracking degree is related to substantial disadvantages in reading literacy for immigrant children. Furthermore, a higher immigrant concentration in schools is associated with immigrant inequalities in reading performance as the degree of tracking increases, whereas unequal distributions of teacher and instructional quality were found to generate inequalities in countries with less tracking. Even though the results are only partly in line with the theory of tracking influences on immigrant achievement disadvantages, they suggest that the interplay between institutional tracking and school characteristics are crucial for learning inequalities.
This paper investigates the influence of educational tracking on immigrant educational expectation gaps in Sweden, England, the Netherlands, and Germany. To account for heterogeneity in immigrant children's origin countries, this paper additionally focuses on the educational selectivity of immigrant parents. The article argues that with a greater degree of tracking, students receive stronger track signals about their ability and their future opportunities, which should reduce the influence of immigrant parents’ aspirations and mitigate immigrant students’ lower responsiveness to school ability. As a result, immigrant students in countries with a high degree of tracking should have less inflated expectations that are more similar to ethnic majority students. Additionally, the moderating effect that tracking can have on the influence of parental aspirations on immigrant students’ educational expectations should mitigate the beneficial effect of immigrant parents’ selectivity in highly versus lowly tracked countries. Findings based on two waves of the CILS4EU data reveal that second-generation immigrant students have higher educational expectations than ethnic majority students in all countries except Germany. No significant differences are found relating to parents’ educational selectivity. The results support the assumption that stronger track signals in countries with a higher degree of tracking lead to higher responsiveness to school ability among second-generation immigrant students. No support is found for a reduced influence of parental aspirations on the immigrant expectation gap in countries with a higher tracking degree. This study contributes to research on immigrant expectation gaps by highlighting the specific mechanisms through which tracking influences operate.
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