A quantitative synthesis of the immigrant achievement gap across OECD countries

Anabelle Andon,Christopher G Thompson,Betsy J Becker

doi:10.1186/s40536-014-0007-2

Abstract

While existing evidence strongly suggests that immigrant students underperform relative to their native counterparts on measures of mathematics, science, and reading, country-level analyses assessing the homogeneity of the immigrant achievement gap across different factors have not been systematically conducted. Beyond finding a statistically significant average achievement gap, existing findings show considerable variation. The goal of this quantitative synthesis was to analyze effect sizes which compared immigrants to natives on international mathematics, reading, and science examinations. We used data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). We investigated whether the achievement gap is larger in some content areas than others (among mathematics, science, and reading), across the different types of tests (PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS), across academic grades and age, and whether it has changed across time. Standardized mean differences between immigrant and native students were obtained using data from 2000 to 2009 for current Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Statistically significant weighted mean effect sizes favored native test takers in mathematics , reading , and science . Effects of moderators differed across content areas. Our analyses have the potential to contribute to the literature about how variation in the immigrant achievement gap relates to different national-level factors.

Highlights

Immigration has gained increasing attention worldwide in recent years
We investigated whether the immigrant achievement gap has changed across time in the past decade, considering that most existing studies have only employed the 2000 and 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data
One of the aims of this quantitative synthesis was to examine the extent of the homogeneity of the immigrant achievement gap from a macro-level perspective

Summary

Introduction

It has steadily increased in the past five decades, primarily in developed countries (OECD 2010a) This is especially true for traditional countries of immigration, or those largely defined by a history of settlement through immigration (Buchmann & Parrado 2006) – the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and more recently countries such as Germany. In these countries, the stock of the population that is foreign-born has steadily increased since the beginning of the past decade (OECD 2010b). Beyond finding a statistically significant average achievement gap, existing findings show considerable variation The goal of this quantitative synthesis was to analyze effect sizes which compared immigrants to natives on international mathematics, reading, and science examinations. The successful integration of immigrants is essential for the maintenance of a stable society, which cannot properly function when large minority groups such as immigrants live in a permanent marginal situation (Christensen 2004)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion