The End of Compulsory School for Migrants: One More Year for Low-Track Students

Abstract

SummaryIntegration of migrants into the host country depends on many factors. Using a typology based on different forms of capital (financial and human, social, and political), we focus on migrant integration into the Swiss schooling system, as expressed by their track choice at the upper-secondary level. In particular, we examine whether school transitions of children from certain migrant communities are negatively affected by a lack of social capital. To do so, we estimate a reduced-form multinomial logit, using longitudinal data from the Canton of Geneva (Switzerland), for the period [1990][1991][1992][1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007]. While differing substantially between high-track and low-track students, results confirm our expectations: first, social capital matters independently of human and financial capital; second, while affecting all students, the impact of a lack of social capital is higher on high-track students. However, the accumulation of social capital, trough experience inside the schooling system, plays generally a greater role for low-track students, but results differ when several profiles of students are considered. In particular, among low-track male students, recent migrants are disadvantaged, compared to natives and first-wave migrants, as they are, ceteris paribus, more often oriented toward non-certifying remedial education. For both types of students, nationality dummies remain significant, suggesting that other factors are at play, such as cultural orientation towards effort or reception of a particular community in the destination country. Finally, structural compositions of middle schools explain almost all the remaining differences between schools (i.e. school effects), once individual and familial characteristics have been considered: while sharing the same school, low-track and high-track students face different socioeconomic and sociodemographic external effects on their transition probabilities. Keywords RésuméDans la plupart des pays occidentaux, l'augmentation de l'hétérogénéité de la population ne va pas sans poser de problèmes. En particulier, la manière dont les enfants de migrants sont intégrés dans le système scolaire présente un certain nombre de défis pour les pays d'accueil.Dans cet article, nous examinons l'intégration scolaire des enfants migrants en nous focalisant sur leurs choix d'orientation à la fin de l'école obligatoire (cycle d'orientation). Nous empruntons le cadre théorique de Bourdieux (1986) et Coleman (1988, qui ajoutent aux formes classiques de capital (financier et humain) une troisième dimension : le capital social. Dans le contexte spécifique de la migration, Rumbaut (1998) nous offre une typologie des ressources et vulnérabilités associées à chaque immigrant. Celles-ci s'articulent autour de trois points : les ressources associées à la classe sociale (le capital financier et humain), le statut légal dans le pays d'accueil (le capital politique) et le réseau social, la structure et la cohés...