Reducing the concentration of disadvantage in individual schools is thus a good first step towards helping immigrant students integrate successfully into school and, ultimately, society

How do immigrant students fare in disadvantaged schools? PISA in focus 22

Immigrant students often have to overcome multiple barriers at once in order to succeed at school.

• Across most OECD countries, poor performance among immigrant students relative
to other students is strongly related to social disadvantage at school, as reflected in
the proportion of students whose mothers have low levels of education.

• The concentration, in a school, of immigrant students or of those who do not speak
the language of instruction at home is not as strongly related to poor performance.

 When analysing student performance through this prism, poor student performance, particularly
among immigrant students, is most strongly related to the proportion of students in a school whose
mothers have low levels of education. This finding indicates that immigrant students – indeed all
students – face a major obstacle to success at school when they are concentrated in schools
attended by students who face similar socio-economic disadvantage.

 

La concentración de estudiantes inmigrantes en un mismo centro es un factor casi neutral en España en relación al rendimiento escolar.

Student performance is not necessarily hindered by the concentration of immigrants in a school or class. But the concentration of socio-economic disadvantage in a school is strongly associated with poor
student performance. Reducing the concentration of disadvantage in individual schools is thus a good first step towards helping immigrant students integrate successfully into school and, ultimately, society.