Does Regional Ethnic Diversity Moderate the Negative Effect of School Ethnic Diversity on Educational Performance?

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Racial/Ethnic Disparities: The Role of Social Context

Abstract

This paper address the question whether ethnic diversity in school classes in the context of major cities and metropolises, where children from an early age grew up with the phenomenon of ethnic diversity, has a positive effect on the educational performance of migrant pupils, taking the ethnic composition of those classes into account? We use cross-national PISA 2006 data with 8,521 immigrant students, living in 15 Western destination countries, and all 72,329 native students in these 15 Western countries. We control for a large number of individual and school characteristics. Native students and students with an immigrant background have been analyzed separately, using a multilevel analysis with four levels: students, schools, regions and countries. We find that the effect of school ethnic diversity outside cities is quite negative on the educational performance of 15-year-old migrant and native pupils. In cities the effect of school ethnic diversity is smaller but still negative for both migrant and native pupils. But in large cities the effect of school ethnic diversity on educational performance is positive for both migrant and native pupils. This result fits with our hypothesis is that ethnic diversity in schools can have a positive effect on the educational performance of migrant students, but only in the context of a multi-ethnic metropolis. This result also supports the optimistic tone of the last section final section of Putnam’s article.

Authors

• Jaap Dronkers, Maastricht University

• Sjaak Braster, Erasmus University-Rotterdam