Educational Achievement of Second Generation Immigrants: An International Comparison

Abstract

This paper investigates the educational achievements of second generation immigrants in several OECD countries in a comparative perspective.We first show that the educational achievement (measured as test scores in PISA achievement tests) of children of immigrants is quite heterogeneous across countries, and strongly related to achievements of the parent generation. The disadvantage considerably reduces, and even disappears for some countries, once we condition on parental background characteristics.Second, we provide novel analysis of cross-country comparisons of test scores of children from the same country of origin, and compare (conditional) achievement scores in home and host countries. The focus is on Turkish immigrants, whom we observe in several destination countries. We investigate both mathematics and reading test scores, and show that the results vary according to the type of skills tested. For mathematics, in most countries and even if the test scores achievement of the children of Turkish immigrants is lower than that of their native peers, it is still higher than that of children of their cohort in the home country -conditional and unconditional on parental background characteristics. The analysis suggests that higher school quality relative to that in the home country is important to explain immigrant children's educational advantage.

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

“…This interpretation is supported by the findings of Dustmann et al (2012) for Turkish second generation immigrants. Another possible interpretation that might play a role is return migration.…”

Does early educational tracking increase migrant-native achievement gaps? Differences-in-differences evidence across countries

“…In the context of migrant inclusion, proficiency in the national language has been shown to be a key determinant of educational success for children of immigrants (e.g., Dustmann et al, 2012;Schneeweis, 2011). This study adds to this literature by providing first evidence on an important interaction between migrants' proficiency in the national language and the age of first tracking into different types of secondary schools by ability.…”

“…Previous studies already showed that second-generation migrants perform substantially better when they are more proficient in the national language (e.g., Dustmann et al, 2012;Schneeweis, 2011). Moreover, Akresh and Akresh (2010) provide experimental evidence that foreign-born students have better test results when taking a test in their native language instead of the language of the host country.…”

Education of EU migrant children in EU Member States

“…Studies show that ethnic minority children and those who do not speak the language of instruction as their first language can progress and catch up to their peers in educational performance as they become increasingly proficient in their language (Dustmann et al 2012;De Paola & Brunello 2016;Janta & Harte 2016).…”