Abstract
In this paper, we identify reasons for the high school achievement of some migrant children, in spite of the language barriers faced by themselves and their parents. We explore the literature to determine the factors used to overcome such barriers, particularly those beyond social economic status (SES) and other largely inherited factors that remain a common focus of migration and school effectiveness literature. We identify the need to pay greater attention to non-conventional factors, such as aspirations, expectations and creativities. We also examine school effectiveness literature in South Africa, arguably a typical case of a developing country, and note that much of the literature centres on analysis and lamentation of physical and human resource constraints, instead of experimenting on non-conventional factors.
Highlights
This paper asks why some migrant children around the globe perform well at school despite the predictable difficulties of navigating a new culture and language, often with constrained social and economic resources
This is followed by an overview of why migrant children achieve, and the factors we choose to investigate in greater detail, namely various language interventions; parental involvement in terms of parental expectations, other ways parents facilitate the home learning environment; parental-school interactions, and school outreach programmes to maintain engagement
This paper asks whether language ability is key to scholarly success and examines this factor in relation to the pockets of academic success that occur among migrant children
Summary
This paper asks why some migrant children around the globe perform well at school despite the predictable difficulties of navigating a new culture and language, often with constrained social and economic resources. Our main finding points to a need for schools and parents to pay greater attention to non-conventional factors, such as aspirations, expectations and creativities, in order to improve learning outcomes We establish this through an extensive review of international migration literature. This paper is organised as follows: it starts with a brief review of the migration literature on the role of language in children’s scholarly success This is followed by an overview of why migrant children achieve (or not), and the factors we choose to investigate in greater detail, namely various language interventions; parental involvement in terms of parental expectations, other ways parents facilitate the home learning environment; parental-school interactions, and school outreach programmes to maintain engagement. The article concludes by summarizing the findings and formulating the relevant implications
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