Social Exclusion and School Achievement: Children of Immigrants and Children of Natives in Three European Countries

Abstract

Ethnic minorities in Europe show diverging patterns of educational success, but in most national contexts, migrants and children of immigrants have lower achievements in terms of grades than their majority peers. This study asks whether social exclusion in the classroom can contribute to explaining this pattern. While limited access to social resources is often assumed to be of significance for educational success, it has rarely been measured explicitly. In this study, social exclusion is measured accurately and on a large, cross-national scale, by using social network data from 731 classrooms in England, Germany, and Sweden (CILS4EU data). Results show that social exclusion is negatively associated with school grades, but this does not contribute much to understanding grade differences between children of immigrant and children of majority background.

The Social Pipeline: How Friend Influence and Peer Exposure Widen the STEM Gender Gap

“…Those decisions can have long-lasting effects on life outcomes, such as income and social status (Breen and Jonsson 2005). Therefore, many studies have attempted to investigate peer effects and social influence among adolescents in the school context (e.g., DeLay et al 2016; Legewie and DiPrete 2012; Raabe forthcoming).…”

Do Belonging and Social Exclusion at School Affect Structural Brain Development During Adolescence?

“…In contrast to belonging, social exclusion at school is characterized by feelings of being a loner and disliking school entirely (Ramm et al, 2006), and is often associated with repeated perceptions of rejection and ostracism (Baumeister & DeWall, 2005). It is well-known that social exclusion can generally have detrimental effects on the health and well-being of an individual (Arslan, 2018;Buckley et al, 2004;Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003;Walton & Cohen, 2011) and is associated with poor school performance (Arslan, 2016;Ladd, & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2016;Raabe, 2019). There is a high prevalence of peer stressors associated with exclusion (e.g., bullying and victimization) at school with a peak particularly in mid-adolescence (Quinlan et al, 2020;Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009).…”

The Effects of Peer Parental Education on Student Achievement in Urban China: The Disparities Between Migrants and Locals

“…In China, due to social exclusion and discrimination based on residence status, migrant children often have trouble getting along with local peers, and they create migrant enclaves by befriending other migrant peers (H. Wang et al, 2018). Moreover, since migrant parents have fewer connections with local parents and are less familiar with the educational system in the host cities (Liang & Chen, 2007), their children likely benefit less from existing parental networks (Raabe, 2018). Parents may also be less involved in their child's school-based activities and have fewer opportunities to get to know other parents if they are low-skilled workers who tend to have less flexible work schedules and work longer hours (Keung Wong et al, 2007).…”

“…School peer contexts are crucial for immigrant children's integration in both Western (Crosnoe & Turley, 2011) and East Asian countries (Kang, 2010). When school peers and/or teachers discriminate against or socially reject students due to their Kim et al status as newcomers and minorities (Kwong, 2011;Raabe, 2018), immigrant children may feel isolated and alienated. Under these circumstances, immigrant students likely have fewer positive social interactions with members of the dominant group compared with nonimmigrant students.…”