Effects of socioeconomic status and language use on academic language proficiency in children with a migration background: An evaluation using quantile regressions

Abstract

Academic language proficiency (ALP) is supposed to contribute to success across school subjects and to be a hurdle for students, in particular for those from families with a migration background. The present study investigated the effects of language use (i.e., use of the majority and/or a minority language) at home and at free time as well as of families’ socioeconomic status (SES) on ALP. We used quantile regression and OLS regression approaches to examine the joint contributions of these factors for three facets of ALP in German primary school students with a migration background (N = 1,629). Results underline the role of SES across the whole distribution of the three ALP facets, whereas the role of majority language use differed between the three facets. Furthermore, interaction effects between SES and majority language use at home were observed mainly at high quantiles showing that the positive effect of using the majority language at home increases with higher SES particularly in students with higher ALP. The results are discussed in light of theoretical approaches on the role of SES and language use for ALP of students with a migration background.