Educational disadvantages of newcomers

The project aims to uncover the primary explanations behind the educational disadvantages faced by ‘newcomers’ or 1st generation migrant students. Understanding why pupils with a migration background lag behind is crucial because educational disadvantages may significantly affect students’ long-term outcomes and integration into society. In this project, our primary focus is on how school inputs, particularly teachers and classroom composition affect student performance  in primary and secondary schools. Our main research questions are:

• How does the exposure to the larger share of teachers with similar migration background affect student performance? (Sub-project I)
• Do migrant students affect performance of natives? (Sub-project II)
• Are the differences in teacher track recommendation between migrant and native students? How does the teacher track recommendations influence student’s secondary school track placements? (Sub-project III)

In cooperation with Inspectorate of Education, researchers from Education Lab conduct the analysis of the effects of teachers with similar migration background, ethnic classroom composition and teacher bias in track recommendations between migrant and native students on student performance and track placement. For these analyses, we exploit data on primary and secondary school students from Dutch National Cohort on Education (NCO) and LVS data.

To estimate the effect of share of teachers with similar migration background on student performance in primary school by comparing same-school students across different cohorts. For secondary schools, we leverage the advantage of observing the same student across multiple subjects, allowing us to evaluate the effect of teachers with similar migration backgrounds by comparing the same students in different subjects. Similarly, we exploit within-school, across-cohort, and within-student variation in the share of migrant students to identify the effects of migrant peers on the performance of native students in primary and secondary schools, respectively.

In the third sub-project, we use linear regression and instrumental variable approach to estimate the unconditional and conditional gap in teacher track recommendations between students with and without migration backgrounds.

The results of the first sub-project indicate that non-Western teachers enhance the performance of students with similar migration backgrounds in both primary and secondary school. With Western teachers, we find positive effects only in secondary schools. Moreover, the effects of teacher-student matching based on migration background are more pronounced in urban schools. Findings from secondary schools suggest that the effects are more substantial for the pre-university track than for lower tracks.

Preliminary results of the second sub-project indicate that the effects of migrant peers on the performance of native students are, on average, small negative or insignificant, we further explore how different groups of migrant peers influence performance of native students. We differentiate migrant peers by country of origin, generation, migration status (migrant versus refugees), and duration of stay. We find that the exposure to a larger share of the 1st generation non-Western migrant peers in urban schools decrease the performance of natives in reading, although math scores remain unaffected. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is more considerable for girls and students of low-educated parents; there is no difference between students from top and bottom income quantile. These findings underscore the importance of tailoring educational policies to address the specific needs of student groups that might have adverse effects on the academic outcomes of native peers.

The preliminary results of the third sub-project suggest that unconditional gap in teacher track recommendation is against students with migration background, however, after controlling for test scores, the gap reverses the sign – students with migration background are more likely than native students to obtain pre-university track recommendation. This finding may suggest that teachers overcompensate for language skill disadvantage of migrant students when making recommendations. Adjusting for potential measurement errors in test scores enlarges this gap.

The findings of our research projects will be presented on BIBB-IAB-ROA Workshop, ESPE 2024 and ERSA 2024 conferences. We expect to publish our research projects as three working papers and submit then to academic journals by the end of the year.