Heritage-bilingualism and educational achievement among second-generation immigrants: Are all school subjects equal?

Abstract

Many second-generation immigrant (SGI) students are heritage-bilinguals whose mother tongue is not their school's instructional language. Adopting sociological and psycholinguistic perspectives, we examined the differences in achievement in various school subjects between SGI heritage-bilingual students and their non-immigrant background (NIB) heritage-monolingual peers in Israel. Most of the SGI students were from highly educated families. Based on Israel's national matriculation database, the study revealed that compared to NIB students, SGI students achieved lower scores in heavy-verbal subjects and Mathematics. However, controlling for academic proficiency in the instructional language reduced or eliminated these differences. Conversely, in a foreign language, SGI students achieved higher scores. These findings have practical implications for educational policy. First, even SGI students from educated families have linguistic disadvantages requiring intervention. Second, their advantage in foreign languages suggests that SGI students develop better meta-linguistic competence, highlighting the benefits of preserving their heritage language.