Can digital technologies help reduce the immigrant-native educational achievement gap?

This report analyses the use of digital technologies by immigrant students and examine whether digital technologies play a role in the existent immigrant-native educational achievement gap and whether they could contribute to its reduction. PISA 2015 data are used for this purpose. We find evidence that ICT-related policies have the potential to decrease immigrant-native achievement gap, among which those targeting the use of ICT seem the most promising. In particular, our findings purport that the immigrants' achievement could be improved by a more intense use of ICT at home for schoolwork and for general purposes. At school, the evidence indicates that immigrant students may be overusing ICT at school for educational purposes, suggesting that the use of ICT by immigrants needs to be balanced with other face-to-face interactions and support. There are significant cross-country differences in our results, which should be taken into account to guide policy actions.