2007 - Does the Ethnic Composition of Upper Secondary Schools Influence Educational Achievement and Attainment? A Multilevel Analysis of the Norwegian Case

Attribution: Fekhaer, Silje, & Birkelund, Gunn
Researchers: Gunn BirkelundSilje Fekhaer
University Affiliation: Univeristy of Oslo
Email: g.e.birkelund@sosgeo.uio.no; silje.bringsrud.fekjaer@phs.no
Research Question:
The contextual effects of ethnic minorities in schools on the educational outcome of the students attending these schools.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: European Sociological Review
Journal Entry: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 309-323
Year: 2007
Findings:
  • Little evidence of a negative effect of ethnic composition. On the contrary, when control for academic composition of the schools, find small, but positive, effects of attending a school with many minority students.
  • The positive affect of ethnic composition that we find among the majority and second generation minorities does not yield for first generation minorities.
  • Students from schools with a high proportion of ethnic minorities do not have a lower educational achievement than other students. Although there is a high correlation between ethnic composition and academic composition, we do not find that the (non-significant) effect of ethnic composition diminish when we control for the academic composition of the schools, rather contrary, it increases and becomes positive.
  • Students from schools with a high proportion of ethnic minorities do not seek higher education to a lower degree. The effect of ethnic composition does not change as expected when we control for academic composition, however, it becomes positive and significant.
  • The effect of ethnic composition on students’ educational attainment does not differ for minority and majority students.
  • When we control for academic composition we find small, but positive, effects of ethnic composition. This result comprises both majority students and second generation minority students. Among the first generation minorities we find a negative effect of ethnic composition on educational achievement, but no effect on educational attainment.
Keywords: Academic AchievementEthnicityImmigrantsRegions: InternationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:Non-vocational students upper secondary schools
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Data information of all students who have completed non-vocational (academic tracks) in upper secondary school in Oslo in the years 2001-2003 (approximately 5,500 students).
  • Study distinguishes between first and second generation minorities.
  • Register-data from Statistics Norway and higher educational institutions in Norway.
  • DV: Student’s grades (educational achievement) and their subsequent educational choices (educational attainment).
  • IV: Individuals’ educational choices, grades and ethnic and socio-economic composition, school characteristics (ethnic composition, academic composition (proportion of students who have at least one parent with academic education among the students who graduate from non-vocational tracks in a school in the same year), individual characteristics (individual ethnicity, parents’ education).
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts