Session Information
09 SES 10 B, National and Regional Large-Scale Assessments: Methods and Findings (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
Because the findings of large-scale school assessments show pronounced differences in the competencies and achievements of students that are related to immigrant background, the question arises as to what contributes to the explanation of these differences. A variety of educational sociologists refer to Boudon’s (1974) distinction of primary and secondary effects of social stratification in order to disentangle the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and achievements in school theoretically and empirically. Primary effects refer to the relationship between SES and children’s educational achievements due to differences in parents’ resources (economic, cultural, and social). High-status parents are more likely to provide a stimulating environment for their offspring. Following Esser (2006), SES differences in educational achievements can be understood as a result of parental investments that differ by SES, because parents’ economic, cultural, and social resources are related to their socioeconomic status. Secondary effects operate through choices that families make within the educational system given the level of school performance. That is, high-status parents tend to opt more often for prestigious tracks in the educational system—independently of their children’s abilities.
In recent years, a growing number of researchers have expanded the theoretical concept of primary and secondary effects to elucidate educational disparities among immigrant families by differentiating between effects of social origin and effects of ethnic origin (van de Werfhorst & van Tubergen, 2007; Heath et al., 2008; Kristen & Dollmann, 2009, 2012). Ethnic primary effects can be subsumed as resources of immigrants that cannot be transferred or used in the country of destination. Mastery of the heritage language holds as a textbook example. Thus, the acquisition of resources that can be used in the country of destination—such as proficiency in the dominant language—is of major importance when considering primary effects of ethnic origin.
However, whereas inequalities in competencies and achievements with regard to immigrant background are well documented for students in German schools (e.g., Walter & Taskinen, 2007; Schwippert et al., 2007), studies that disentangle these differences in the competencies of children at Kindergarten age are rare. Using recent data of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we present first results on immigrant-specific differences in language competence and scientific literacy among 5-year-old children. Our basic research questions are: (1) How pronounced are the differences in language and science competencies at age 5 between native children and those with immigrant background, and (2) what factors explain the immigrant-specific differences in language and science competencies?
Following the theoretical work on primary effects of social origin and on primary effects of ethnic origin, our major hypotheses are: (1) Achievement gaps between immigrants and natives should be explained largely by differences in children’s social background characteristics, and (2), at least for certain immigrant groups, immigrant-specific primary effects (e.g., parents’ L2 use, generation status) should additionally affect competence disparities.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Boudon, R. (1974). Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality. Changing Prospects in Western Society. New York: Wiley & Sons. Esser, H. (2006). Migration, Language and Integration. AKI Research Review. Berlin: Programme on Intercultural Conflicts and Societal Integration (AKI), Social Science Research Center Berlin. Heath, A., & Birnbaum, Y. (2007). Explaining Ethnic Inequalities in Educational Attainment. Ethnicities, 7, 291-304. Kristen, C. & Dollmann, J. (2009). Sekundäre Effekte der ethnischen Herkunft? Kinder aus türkischen Familien am ersten Bildungsübergang. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, Sonderheft 12, 205-229. Kristen, C. & Dollmann, J. (2012). Migration und Schulerfolg: Zur Erklärung ungleicher Bildungsmuster. In: M. Matzner (Hrsg.), Handbuch Migration und Bildung. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz, 102-117. Schwippert, K.; Hornberg, S.; Freiberg, M.; & Stubbe, T. C. (2007). Lesekompetenzen von Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund im internationalen Vergleich. In: Bos, W.; Hornberg, S.; Arnold, K.-H., Faust, G.; Fried, L.; Lankes, E.-M.; Schwippert, K. & Valtin, R. (Hrsg.), IGLU 2006. Lesekompetenzen von Grundschulkindern im internationalen Vergleich. Müster: Waxmann, 249-268. van De Werfhorst, H.-G. & van Tubergen, F. (2007). Ethnicity, schooling, and merit in the Netherlands. Ethnicities, 7, 416–444. Walter, O. & Taskinen, P. (2007). Kompetenzen und bildungsrelevante Einstellungen von Jugendlichen mit Migrationshintergrund in Deutschland: Ein Vergleich mit ausgewählten OECD-Staaten. In: PISA Konsortium Deutschland (Hrsg.), PISA ’06. Die Ergebnisse der dritten internationalen Vergleichsstudie. Münster: Waxmann, 337-365.
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