IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v37y2004i1p53-77.html

Adaptation and inequality: children of immigrants in Canadian schools

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Worswick

Abstract

Children of immigrant parents have comparable test scores in reading and mathematics to those of the children of the Canadian born. Children of immigrant parents whose mother tongue is neither English nor French have low performance in vocabulary before age six but performance in mathematics and reading that is comparable to that of the children of Canadian-born parents by age fourteen. The 10th percentile of the vocabulary distribution is lower for children of immigrant parents whose mother tongue is neither English nor French than for children of Canadian-born parents. However, this difference is not present in reading and mathematics test scores.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Worswick, 2004. "Adaptation and inequality: children of immigrants in Canadian schools," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(1), pages 53-77, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:37:y:2004:i:1:p:53-77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3696098
    Download Restriction: only available to JSTOR subscribers
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ryan Bacic & Angela Zheng, 2022. "Income-Achievement Gaps in Canada," Department of Economics Working Papers 2022-04, McMaster University.
    2. Bo Hou & James Nazroo & John Wright & Mark Mon-Williams & Kate E. Pickett, 2025. "Immigrant Generation, Ethnicity, and Early-life Education Outcomes: Evidence from the Born in Bradford Family Cohort Study," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 18(1), pages 273-294, February.
    3. Sweetman, A. & van Ours, J.C., 2014. "Immigration : What About the Children and Grandchildren?," Other publications TiSEM cc9b5625-5c92-41b6-a1a4-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Dehong Luo & Jing Gong, 2022. "Effects of Home Language and Socioeconomic Status on Modern Standard Written Chinese Literacy," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, November.
    5. Casey Warman & Matthew D. Webb & Christopher Worswick, 2019. "Immigrant category of admission and the earnings of adults and children: how far does the apple fall?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 53-112, January.
    6. Abdurrahman Aydemir & Wen-Hao Chen & Miles Corak, 2013. "Intergenerational Education Mobility among the Children of Canadian Immigrants," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39(s1), pages 107-122, May.
    7. Chen, Wen-Hao & Aydemir, Abdurrahman & Corak, Miles, 2005. "Mobilite intergenerationnelle des gains chez les enfants des immigrants au Canada," Direction des études analytiques : documents de recherche 2005267f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.
    8. James Ted McDonald & Christopher Worswick, 2013. "Intergenerational Implications of Immigration Policy on Apprenticeship Training and the Educational Distribution in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39(s1), pages 165-185, May.
    9. McDonald, James Ted & Worswick, Christopher, 2011. "Incidence and Returns to Apprenticeship Training in Canada: the Role of Family Background and Immigrant Status," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2011-3, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 27 Jan 2011.
    10. Abdurrahman Aydemir & Wen-Hao Chen & Miles Corak, 2009. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility among the Children of Canadian Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 377-397, May.
    11. Risa HAGIWARA & Yang LIU, 2020. "The Disparity in High School Enrollment between Native and Immigrant Children in Japan," Discussion papers 20016, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. David A. Green & Christopher Worswick, 2017. "Canadian economics research on immigration through the lens of theories of justice," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1262-1303, December.
    13. Kucera, Miroslav, 2008. "The Educational Attainment of Second Generation Immigrants in Canada: Analysis based on the General Social Survey," MPRA Paper 14036, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Marina Gindelsky, 2019. "Testing the acculturation of the 1.5 generation in the United States: Is there a “critical” age of migration?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 31-65, March.
    15. Miles Corak, 2016. "`Inequality is the root of social evil,' or Maybe Not? Two Stories about Inequality and Public Policy," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 42(4), pages 367-414, December.
    16. Böhlmark, Anders, 2008. "Age at immigration and school performance: A siblings analysis using swedish register data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1366-1387, December.
    17. Risa Hagiwara & Yang Liu, 2023. "Disparity in high school enrollment between native and immigrant children in Japan," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 25-50, March.
    18. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:37:y:2004:i:1:p:53-77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.