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Immigration and student achievement in Spain: evidence from PISA

Author

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  • Natalia Zinovyeva
  • Florentino Felgueroso
  • Pablo Vazquez

Abstract

This paper provides the first evidence on the dynamics of immigrant students’ achievement following their migration to Spain. Using the data from 2003, 2006 and 2009 wave of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we show that immigrant students tend to perform significantly worse than native students, but that their performance improves with time spent in Spain. Among immigrants, Latin Americans enjoy an initial linguistic advantage, which, however, does not help them to catch up faster. The rate of improvement is such that students who stay almost all their lives in Spain still perform worse than natives in all domains analyzed by PISA. To better understand this achievement gap, we decompose it into parts attributable to school quality and to family characteristics. We observe that most of the gap is explained by individual and family characteristics and that less than 15 % of it can be attributed to differential school attendance. Overall, the evidence suggests that policies that do not target the learning environment in disadvantaged families are likely to have a limited impact on the native-immigrant achievement gap. Copyright The Author(s) 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Natalia Zinovyeva & Florentino Felgueroso & Pablo Vazquez, 2014. "Immigration and student achievement in Spain: evidence from PISA," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 25-60, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:25-60
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-013-0101-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Álvaro Choi & María Gil & Mauro Mediavilla & Javier Valbuena, 2018. "The Evolution of Educational Inequalities in Spain: Dynamic Evidence from Repeated Cross-Sections," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 853-872, August.
    2. Cathles, Alison & Ou, Dongshu & Sasso, Simone & Setrana, Mary & van Veen, Tom, 2021. "Where do you come from, where do you go? Assessing skills gaps and labour market outcomes for young adults with different immigration backgrounds," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Jaime Fierro & Sònia Parella & Berta Güell & Alisa Petroff, 2022. "Educational Achievement Among Children of Latin American Immigrants in Spain," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1921-1940, December.
    4. Calero, Jorge & Escardíbul, J. Oriol, 2016. "Proceso educativo y resultados del alumnado nativo y de origen inmigrante en España. Un análisis basado en PISA-2012/Educational Process and Native and Immigrant Students? Results. An Analysis Based o," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 34, pages 413-438, Mayo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School achievement; PISA data; Immigration; Spain; I21; J15;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

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