Achievement Of Immigrant Students Research Articles

Evaluating the Influence of Instructional Approaches on the Mathematical Achievement of Immigrant Students

As a teacher, my experiences revealed that although most Iranian new immigrant high school students had an excellent mathematical background, they faced difficulties in learning math after relocating to a school in Vancouver, BC. There are several reasons for this, and this article focuses on one of those. I conducted two series of interviews with seven Iranian new immigrant high school students to collect data. They studied in a Canadian school and had also learned math in an Iranian high school. Participants pointed to different math teachers' methods as a reason why learning math in Canada differs from Iran. Canadian math teachers give students the authority to decide on how and when to finish their math work. These students are not familiar with this authority, and they do not know how to plan for their math education. They need support as they learn how to make decisions and be more autonomous.

Understanding the academic achievement of the first- and second-generation immigrant students: a multi-level analysis of PISA 2018 data

The present study explores the antecedents of first- and second-generation (1G and 2G) immigrant students’ academic performance using PISA 2018 data. The study draws on an international sample of 11,582 students from 534 schools in 20 countries and focuses on PISA schools that catered to a mix of 1G and 2G students. The study explores the role that student attributes, student-perceived peer and parental support, school provisions, and school equity-oriented policies have on immigrant student academic achievement. The analysis involved specifying three separate stepwise multi-level regression models for mathematics, science, and reading achievement. Findings suggested that, at the within-school level, perceived parental support and teacher enthusiasm and the adaption of instruction were associated with improved academic performance, while student experience of bullying was associated with more substantive negative academic outcomes. At the between-school level, the opportunity to participate in creative extracurricular activities was associated with improved academic performance. In contrast, a higher proportion of 1G students and the overall perceived level of bullying of immigrant students were associated with substantively negative academic outcomes between schools. Tests of moderation effects suggested that parental emotional support appeared to be of particular relevance to 1G students’ math and reading outcomes, while enhanced SES status appeared to be specifically relevant to improved science and reading outcomes for 1G students. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

An Examination of Family Cohesion and Self-Esteem as Mediators of Bilingualism and Reading Achievement among Second-Generation Immigrant Students

ABSTRACT Second-generation Latinx immigrant students in middle school and high school may experience language and reading barriers in education resulting from their cultural upbringing. This study examined the language and reading scores of 2,107 bilingual dominant second-generation Latinx youth participants enrolled in 8th and 9th grade in the states of California and Florida. Results showed that bilingual dominance in English and Spanish is positively related to reading achievement scores, even when controlling for demographic variables. This study also found evidence that family cohesion and self-esteem mediated the relationship between bilingual dominance and reading achievement scores. This study provides insight into future research on the reading achievement of second-generation Latinx immigrant students. Implications for school administrators and educators regarding reading and language achievement for second-generation immigrant students will be shared with recommendations.

Confronting the challenge of immigrant student underachievement: A comparative analysis of education policies and programs in Canada, New Zealand and England

Immigrant students consistently demonstrate a performance disadvantage when one considers their achievement against non-immigrant peers. These disadvantages vary across international jurisdictions, suggesting that education system level policies or programs may help to ameliorate or worsen these differences. Our work provides a synthesis of trends from education policies and programs that appear to be associated with more favourable immigrant student achievement outcomes, highlighting three international jurisdictions: Canada, New Zealand, and England. This comparative analysis identifies key features of these education systems that have been associated with the success of their immigrant students. We conclude with a critical view on simple policy borrowing and call for contextually responsive adaptation of promising policies and programs within distinct education systems.

Mainstream and immigrant students’ primary school mathematics achievement differences in European countries

The few studies on the achievement differences of mainstream and immigrant primary school students in large-scale assessments point to an achievement gap in many subject areas, with immigrant students trailing mainstream students. A recurrent methodological problem of these studies is that the two student groups do not come from comparable backgrounds. This study examined the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) math achievement of 4th grade mainstream and immigrant students in various European countries. Results showed that there was no systematic difference between first- and second-generation immigrants’ mathematics achievement levels. It was found that after statistically matching the background resources of the mainstream and immigrant students, both groups revealed comparable levels in mathematics. Finally, related to country characteristics that were associated with educational achievement, it was found that immigrant students in countries which had higher human development indicators showed higher educational performance.

Generational status, immigrant concentration and academic achievement: comparing first and second-generation immigrants with third-plus generation students

BackgroundImmigrants and their children are the fastest-growing demographic group in the United States, and schools are often the first social institution young immigrants engage with on a sustained basis. As such, the academic achievement of immigrant students can be viewed as an indicator of their incorporation and a predictor of educational and employment outcomes in adulthood. In this study, we examined the factors associated with differences in mathematics achievement between first, second, and third-plus generation students in the US.MethodsWe analyzed the data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. Our analytic sample included 3700 15 year-old students attending US public and private schools. We used information on students’ background and school characteristics from the student and school questionnaires. We used multiple linear regression models to predict mathematics achievement. To address the sampling design of PISA and the use of plausible values we fitted the models using the IDB Analyzer.ResultsOur analysis shows that the families and schools of second-generation students are more similar to their first-generation than their third-plus generation peers. Once we control for student background characteristics and school contextual factors, the achievement gap between first-generation students and their second and third-plus generation peers disappears. Our results suggest that what we observed as generational differences in achievement are more likely to be gender, racial, and socioeconomic gaps.ConclusionsOur findings imply that student background and school contextual factors counteract some of the disadvantages that first-generation students face in the US. Our results also support existing evidence about the second-generation advantage in academic achievement. Taken together, these findings suggest that mathematics achievement can be addressed by policies and practices that support all students alongside policies and practices that target immigrant students.

Raising the achievement of immigrant students: Towards a multi-layered framework for enhanced student outcomes

Results of international achievement surveys such as the Programme in International Student Assessment have consistently reported an achievement gap between immigrant and non-immigrant student populations around the world. This paper unpacks this persistent achievement gap by examining key characteristics that influence the performance of first- and second-generation immigrant students as well as the policies and practices that are associated with enhanced educational outcomes. A multi-layered framework is proposed to help policymakers juxtapose key characteristics of their immigrant students’ achievement against individual, family, school, community, and host society characteristics and policies. The discussion also underscores the importance of connecting this multi-layered framework with other important sectors within governments such as those responsible for the economy, health, social protection, and immigration. This paper also examines limitations with current large-scale data sets and the implications for research and policy analysis.

Educating for Inclusion: Community Building Through Mentorship and Citizenship

Schools are powerful instruments of socialization. Societal conditions due in part to demographic shifts and immigration require the adoption of initiatives to address educational equity. Community building may enhance the inclusion of those who experience pedagogical silencing in all levels of schooling. Both mentoring and citizenship education share the goal of community building through relationship development. The intersection of mentoring and citizenship behaviour is discussed in the context of three studies: the University of Central Lancashire's peer mentoring scheme, Florida's HOMES project to enhance immigrant student achievement, and the CASA Latina ESL study of community building in the classroom and student empowerment. The overarching theme of this paper is examining the value of community building via mentoring and citizenship development to promote educational equity.

Using multilevel regression to examine hierarchical data: investigating differences in reading performance between immigrant and native-born children / El uso de la regresión multinivel en el examen de datos jerárquicos: un estudio sobre las diferencias existentes en el rendimiento en la lectura entre niños de origen inmigrante y niños nativos

A persistent problem in examining culture and education is the entanglement of individual and group aspects of norms, beliefs and behaviour. The challenge often concerns the proper specification and testing of theories about how such group and individual processes work with methods that can address the complexity of hierarchical data sets. Multilevel modelling is an attractive analytic approach for studying individual and group processes in educational settings because it facilitates the incorporation of substantive theory about how such processes work within the clustered sampling schemes typical of educational data. In this article, we illustrate how to incorporate two-level multilevel regression modelling into an example investigation of the reading achievement of immigrant students who receive English language services versus their native-born peers who do not receive these services. We conclude with a few ways in which multilevel modelling can enhance the investigation of multilevel theories regarding how cultural and organizational processes work in educational research.

Une approche plurilingue pour faciliter l’inclusion scolaire : engagement et dynamique pédagogique

A multilingual approach to facilitating inclusion: Educational commitment and dynamics – In the school context, the first steps in the process of learning a foreign language require commitment and motivation on the part of the learner, as well as a commitment from the teacher to include all students. This raises questions about the inclusiveness of education and the educational achievement of multilingual and/or immigrant students in predominantly monolingual classes. The author draws on a corpus of research to explore a number of parameters involved in the implementation of a multilingual and inclusive approach. She links the foundations of a multilingual approach to the institutional framework and the positions of the actors in the didactic relationship, as well as in their relationship to languages. The article then gives an overview of the characteristics of the metacognitive strategies employed by multilingual learners and, in conclusion, proposes some innovative methods to go beyond the monolingual principles in learning and foster exchanges that are both multicultural and multilingual.

Achievement and Expectations of Immigrant, Second Generation, and Non-immigrant Black Students in U.S. Higher Education

Research on academic achievement contrasting Black immigrant, second generation, and non-immigrant students as distinct groups is surprisingly sparse in the higher education literature. This study examined Black immigrant and second generation undergraduates from Africa and the Caribbean and non-immigrant Black American undergraduates, using the contrasting lenses of segmented assimilation theory and cultural ecological theory. Results for academic achievement favored second generation students, consistent with cultural ecological theory, while findings concerning expectations were more consistent with segmented assimilation theory. However, findings were moderated by gender in complex ways. This research indicates the need for more comprehensive theories of immigrant student achievement and motivation that incorporate consideration of the context surrounding both emigration from the home country and immigration to the host country.

Homework Involvement and Academic Achievement of Native and Immigrant Students

Homework is a debated issue in society and its relationship with academic achievement has been deeply studied in the last years. Nowadays, schools are multicultural stages in which students from different cultures and ethnicities work together. In this sense, the present study aims to compare homework involvement and academic achievement in a sample of native and immigrant students, as well as to study immigrant students’ relationship between homework involvement and Math achievement. The sample included 1328 students, 10–16 years old from Spanish families (85.6%) or immigrant students or students of immigrant origin (14.4%) from South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The study was developed considering three informants: elementary and secondary students, their parents and their teachers. Results showed higher involvement in homework in native students than in immigrant. Between immigrants students, those who are more involved in homework have better academic achievement in Math at secondary grades. There weren’t found gender differences on homework involvement, but age differences were reported. Immigrant students are less involved in homework at secondary grades that students in elementary grades. The study highlights the relevance of homework involvement in academic achievement in immigrant students.

Educational Resilience and Academic Achievement of Immigrant Students From Ghana in an Urban School Environment

Educational resilience is often linked to educational success of various immigrant youth including Black immigrants despite the challenges they face. However, few studies have explored the factors that promote and/or constrain educational resilience and academic achievement of Black immigrants. To address this gap, the current article focuses on the educational resilience and academic achievement of Ghanaian-born immigrants ( N = 60) attending urban high schools in the United States. Results indicate that self-regulation, technology, religious faith, past experiences, parental support, resources, and safety issues played an important role. Implications and recommendations for educators and policymakers are discussed.

Does family language matter? The role of foreign language use and family social capital in the educational achievement of immigrant students in Germany

ABSTRACTThe role of ethnic resources in the educational success of immigrants is highly disputed. Combining arguments of segmented assimilation and Coleman's concept of family social capital, this study investigates whether speaking one's language of origin at home relates to achievement by facilitating the mobilization of resources or their transmission from parents to children. Mediating and moderating mechanisms are disentangled and empirically questioned in regression models that predict the mathematical competences of immigrant students from Turkey, Poland and the former Soviet Union. Based on data from the German National Educational Panel Study, the results contradict the assumption that foreign language use will contribute to education through mechanisms of social capital. Regardless of parental human capital or the group of origin, the language used at home does not affect the students’ learning when German language proficiency is accounted for.

Length of stay in the host country and educational achievement of immigrant students

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the gap in reading literacy of young immigrant children in Italy and examine if this gap is significantly influenced by pupils’ length of stay in Italy and country of origin. Design/methodology/approach – The author estimate a standard education production function where student test performance in language is modelled as a function of the native vs immigrant first- and second-generation status and a set of additional variables that control for students, schools and catchment area characteristics. In the analysis the author use the 2010-2011 school-year data for four stages of schooling: second and fifth grade/year of primary school, sixth grade of lower secondary school and tenth grade upper secondary school. Findings – Results confirm the presence of a significant gap between natives and immigrants students in school outcomes for all grades, with first-generation immigrants showing the largest gap. Further, comparing the results between first- and second...

Stereotype threat and the cognitive performance of adolescent immigrants: The role of cultural identity strength

In many world regions students with certain immigrant backgrounds underperform in educational settings. Theory and research suggest that this achievement gap could be partially explained by stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a detrimental psychological state that inhibits individuals who belong to a negatively stereotyped group at times of learning and performance. The aim of this work was to examine both the influence of students' residence culture identity strength and ethnic identity strength on their cognitive performance under threat. Two experimental studies, conducted in European secondary schools, are reported. Experiment 1 (N = 132) showed that in a situation of explicit stereotype threat, high identification of immigrants with their residence culture predicted better cognitive performance, independently of ethnic identity strength. Residence culture identity strength was unrelated to cognitive performance in a control condition or a more implicit threat condition. Experiment 2 (N = 152) included an experimental manipulation of residence culture identity strength. The results show that highlighting similarities with the residence culture (vs. highlighting differences) positively influences immigrant students' performance under threat. This research connects the stereotype threat framework with acculturation research, and points at ways to increase the educational achievement of immigrant students.

Length of Stay in the Host Country and Educational Achievement of Immigrant Students: The Italian Case

Using Italian data on language standardized tests for three different levels of schooling we investigate if the observed gap in educational attainments in 1st generation immigrants tends to lower the longer they stay in Italy, and if younger children tend to catch up faster than their older schoolmates. The analysis shows that the significant gap in language skills observed between 1st and 2nd generation immigrant students is mainly due to both the negative performance of immigrant children newly arrived in Italy, and the immigrant students' area of origin. Comparing the results across the different grades, we also find that this gap narrows at a different pace in the early or later years of an immigrant student's life. Overall, our results suggest the presence of a 'critical' age above which 1st generation immigrant students face a negative impact on their school performance, and that institutional and cultural factors play a role on immigrant language skills acquisition.

Comparing Supplementary Ethnic Schools and the Academic Achievement of Chinese Immigrant Students in Quebec and Flanders

Supplementary or extra-curricular ethnic schools have been neglected in the research literature, especially in non-English speaking contexts such as Quebec and Flanders. Yet they are important for understanding the influence of ethnic social structures on the educational integration and academic achievement of immigrant students. From a comparative perspective, this paper focuses on the response of Chinese language schools to the educational needs of Chinese youth. Data were collected through ethnographic observations in Chinese schools in Quebec and Flanders,1as well as in semi-structured interviews with students of Chinese origin, their parents, and school personnel. The findings demonstrate that the influence of ethnic social structures on the progression of minority/immigrant students through schooling is related to the particular profile of their ethnic community, as well as to the larger socio-economic and political environment of the host society.

FACTORS PREDICTING SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT OF IMMIGRANT AND NON-IMMIGRANT STUDENTS: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

This study, employing hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), sought to investigate the student-level and school-level factors associated with the science achievement of immigrant and non-immigrant students among a national sample of 22,646 students from 896 schools in Canada. While student background characteristics such as home language, family wealth, and socioeconomic status were significant predictors of science achievement for non-immigrant students, these factors were not significantly associated with immigrant student science achievement. Student attitudes, engagement, and motivation in science and information and communication technology familiarity were significant predictors of science achievement for both immigrant and non-immigrant students. Whereas teacher shortage was associated with science achievement for immigrant students, school size was associated with science achievement for non-immigrant students. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Problem solving and immigrant student mathematics and science achievement: Multination findings from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The present study investigates problem-solving skill alongside more widely recognized settlement and sociodemographic factors in first-generation (1G) and second-generation (2G) immigrant students' science and mathematics achievement. A total of 113,767 students (ages 15-16 years) from 17 countries were drawn from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data set. Multilevel hierarchical regression findings confirm that along with settlement and sociodemographic factors, problem-solving skill is a factor in immigrant students' achievement in mathematics and science--but that immigrant students scored lower in problem solving than nonimmigrant students. Settlement and sociodemographic factors relevant to achievement and problem-solving skill for immigrant students include socioeconomic status, language background, age of arrival, gender, and age--in addition to significant between-school and between-country effects. The variance explained by settlement and sociodemographic factors suggests it is not immigrant status per se that explains lower achievement and problem-solving skill (thus countering deficit perspectives), but various factors that are embedded in and associated with immigrant status that explain the bulk of such variance. Implications for educational and psychological research, practice, and policy are discussed.