Calling into question the link between educational achievement and migrant background

Abstract

In EU societies, the role that immigrants’ children play in the educational system is fiercely debated. There exists a consensus that immigrants’ children show, on average, lower educational performances than children of natives in all EU states, regardless of grade level, type of school, age, etc. This awareness has led to the perception that the concentration of immigrants’ children negatively affects overall school educational performances. This note aims to disentangle the link between educational performance and migration background showing how the reality is much more complex. Specifically, two questions are answered. First, given that immigrants’ children represent a heterogeneous group in terms of parents’ origin, age at arrival, etc., does a multicultural background bring any kind of advantage to school performance compared with a “mono-cultural” one? Second, what is the effect of attending schools with a high percentage of immigrants’ children in terms of average school performance, once controlled for school socio-economic resources?