Comments on:
”Educating Children of Immigrants:
Closing the Gap in Norwegian
Schools”
The Nordic Economic Policy Review Conference 2011
Lena Nekby
Department of Economics, Stockholm University,
SULCIS and IZA Research Fellow
General Comments:
• Very much enjoyed reading this paper!
• Important and increasingly timely issue.
• Authors approach the question of immigrantnative education gaps from a number of
perspectives and provide new and policy relevant
information.
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
The Norwegian school system?
• The study needs to provide more information on
the Norwegian school system and how it
influences the choice of and the possibility to
attend secondary school:
– School choice (neighborhood? free choice?)
– Entrance requirements/eligibility?
– Enrollment and type of program
(academic/vocational/preperatory)?
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
Secondary school choice?
• Neighborhood or free choice within a defined
regional area?
– If most students attend neighborhood schools, risk
that immigrant students, due to housing segregation,
attend schools with a higher proportion of immigrant
students
• High immigrant concentration in schools found to
have a negative effect on educational outcomes
(especially first generation immigrant students)
(Jensen & Würtz Rasmussen (2008); Szulkin & Jonsson (2007))
– Free choice may lead to increased segregation in
several dimensions:
• Mixed evidence on outcomes, but definitely
larger variation in outcomes across schools
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
• Ethnic concentration not problematic!
– Both ethnic size and ethnic capital has a positive
effect on compulsory school GPA (Åslund, Edin, Fredriksson &
Grönqvist; 2011)
• Especially for disadvantaged students
• School and housing segregation can be
important factors in:
– Explaining education gaps between natives and
(first generation) immigrants
– Explaining why parental education influences
educational outcomes differentially
• But the association is complex!
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
Eligibility for secondary school
education?
• In 2007/2008: Students with immigrant
backgrounds in Sweden were considerably less
likely to qualify for national secondary school
programs than children with Swedish
backgrounds (23% vs. 9%) (OECD, 2010).
– Students who do not qualify for national programs
end up in individual programs (preparatory
programs) with much higher drop-out rates (as high
as 75% in one survey) (Statistics Sweden, 2007).
– Students in individual programs have a higher
proportion of interruptions/postponements (27.9%)
than pupils in national programs (3.3%) (Skolverket, 2006).
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
First and second order choice of
secondary school enrollment:
– First order choice: To enroll (or not) in secondary
school:
• Controlling for grades/incompletes, some
indication that students with non-European
backgrounds are less likely to (immediately)
enroll in secondary school than native students
(Jonsson & Rudolphi, 2011).
– Second order choice: vocational or academic
tracks?
• At given levels of performance, students with
non-European backgrounds have a higher
propensity to choose academic over vocational
tracks (Jonsson & Rudolphi, 2011).
– This is true across the grade distribution!
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
How does it look in Norway?
• What happens to students in Norway with
incomplete or low grades?
– Do results indicating lower secondary school
completion partially reflect lower enrollment rates to
start with?
• Do immigrant students study in more
challenging academic tracks in secondary school,
all else equal (grades)?
– Weak performance but high aspirations?
• How does school/neighborhood segregation tie
into the results?
• Effect of 1994 school reform?
Other comments:
• What is the scope for a second chance?
– Adult education programs?
– Higher age at immigration detrimental for
educational outcomes but in the long run this group
(in Sweden) catches up in terms of final educational
attainment (Böhlmark, 2009)
– Too soon to tell?
• On the other hand, these same immigrants
continue to face long term income gaps
• Is it possible to compare parental education
between immigrants and natives?
– Register data for natives
– Survey data for (many) immigrants
– Mechanisms behind this differential effect?
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
Smaller comments to the authors:
• Table 2 & 3 by gender?
• Parental education measured by highest
obtained degree within the family.
–
–
It would be interesting to see if spread in education
between parents matters?
It would also be interesting to see if parental
education has a differential impact depending on
who has the highest obtained degree (mother or
father).
• Why do foreign born girls catch up but not
foreign born boys (Table 5)?
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
• To what degree is figure 2 due to changing
composition of immigrant groups over time?
• How are mixed backgrounds (one parent born in
Norway, one parent born abroad) dealt with?
• Immigrant children even those arriving at
relatively early ages have an education gap to
native children
–
–
How much does this have to do with early
childhood education? In particular day-care?
In Sweden, newly arrived immigrants with children
get full parental leave benefits for all children under
the age of 7 (at minimum level).
• Newly arrived female immigrants stay at home
and keep their children out of daycare?
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
– Fredriksson et al. (2010) have a study suggesting
that participation in daycare decreased differences
in language ability between immigrants and natives.
• Parental average earnings calculated over a tenyear period.
– But earnings profiles are likely to differ between
immigrants and natives for a number of reasons
(age compostion, unemployment, educ-occ
matching, discrimination (wage and employment)
etc. May also be a larger spread in earnings
between parents across the groups.
– What are we trying to measure with income? What
are the mechanisms behind differential effects on
child outcomes?
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University
• Separate, in Figure 6 and 7, between children to
immigrants born abroad and born in Norway?
• Show the distribution of parental education when
missing education is not included (missing
category is unclear: illiterates? immigrants not
yet caught in surveys to measure education?)
• To what degree are grades in compulsory school
compensatory? Is it possible to check using
comparison to national tests?
• Policy implications:
– Measures to compensate for lower parental
influence on outcomes (homework centers, longer
school opening hours, greater focus on early
childhood education, greater provision of mother
language support in homework, homework tutorials
for parents)
2011-10-24
/ Lena Nekby, Stockholm University