Abstract
ABSTRACTThis study examines the relation between the proportion of co-ethnics in school and adolescents’ problem behaviour in school (e.g. skipping class and arguing with teachers) and whether friendship patterns are underlying this relationship. We use data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries on ±16,000 students in England, Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden and find that children display less problem behaviour when the proportion of co-ethnics in school is higher. This relationship is mediated by the characteristics of the friends that students have: the proportion of co-ethnics in school positively relates to students’ proportion of in-school friends and co-ethnic friends in class, which are in turn negatively associated with problem behaviour in school. The strength and significance of these paths depend on students’ ethnicity and country of residence. Implications of this study are discussed in the conclusion.
Highlights
The effect of a school’s ethnic composition on students’ school outcomes has received considerable attention in the scientific as well as the political debate
We find a significant negative relationship between the extent to which a student is surrounded by co-ethnics in school and problem behaviour in school (H1)
We find that a student who is surrounded by more co-ethnics in school has a higher proportion of co-ethnic friendships: a one-standard-deviation increase in the proportion of co-ethnics in school is associated with a 0.784 standard deviation increase in the proportion of co-ethnic friendships (H2)
Summary
The effect of a school’s ethnic composition on students’ school outcomes has received considerable attention in the scientific as well as the political debate Most of these studies have focused on the effect of the ethnic composition of schools on school performance, such as standardised test scores (Bankston and Caldas 1996; Driessen 2002) and grades (Szulkin and Jonsson 2007). This line of research has shown that especially for ethnic minority students, the proportion of ethnic minorities in school tends to have a detrimental effect on cognitive school outcomes (Hallinan 1998; Thijs and Verkuyten 2014) and thereby calls for the ethnic integration of schools. This association has been found for ethnic minority students as well as for ethnic majority students (Benner and Crosnoe 2011; Georgiades, Boyle, and Fife 2013)
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