OECD Thematic Review on Migrant Education

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• OECD Thematic Review on Migrant Education

Miho Taguma (Project manager, Education and
Training Policy Division, OECD) EU Year of
Intercultural Dialogue - Conference on
Intercultural Education Dublin, 1 October 2008
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Agenda

• Brief information
• Analytical approach
• Preliminary findings
• Implications for policy makers and practitioners
  with respect to intercultural education

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Brief Information

• Projects overarching question
• What policies will promote successful education
  outcomes of first and second generation migrants?
• Focus Access, Participation, Student Performance
• Scope Pre-school, primary and secondary (and
  transition to higher education)
• Review countries Austria, Denmark, Ireland, the
  Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden (as of 17
  September 2008)
• Working methods Desk-based research (Literature
  review, statistical analysis, mapping exercise)
  and country visits
• Timeline
• January 2008- December 2009

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Analytical approach

• Non-education outcomes
• Employment rates
• Wage rates
• Juvenile delinquency rates
• Health indicators

• Education outcomes
• Access indicators
• Participation indicators
• Student performance indicators

• 
  
• 
  Contextual factors
• Legal
• Cultural
• Political

• Factors
• Student factors/ parent factors
• School factors/ community factors
• System factors

• Policies
• Education policies
• Non-education policies

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International PerspectivePreliminary findings
on contexts
Note Data - PISA 2006 (Weighted) Native 50411
(94.4) 2nd-generation 567 (1.1) 1st-generation
2400 (4.5)
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Q What are the immigrant students shares in
school across countries? ()
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Q How have the shares of immigrant students in
schools changed in recent years? ()
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Q How different are immigrant students from
their native peers by their parents occupational
status? The Difference of Parents Occupational
Status between Immigrant and Native Students

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Q Are immigrant students evenly distributed
across schools within a country?
Note Index of inclusion provides a measure of
segregation or self-segregation by students
migrant status, in which one can identify the
distributional features of immigrant students
between schools. The larger the index value, the
less schools are segregated by students
immigrant status. That is, the index zero means a
totally segregated system, while the index one
stands for a perfect inclusive system in which
the distribution of immigrant students is the
same in every school.
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Q Are immigrant students evenly enrolled by
SES? Mean SES of Schools
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Q Are immigrant students evenly enrolled by
school performance? Mean School Achievement
Scores
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Preliminary findings on student performance
(reading scores)
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Q Do first generation immigrant students perform
as well as their native peers? Mean School
Achievement Scores
Source OECD, PISA 2006
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Q Do immigrant students have the same
performance variance as their native peers? Range
of Reading Scores between Lowest 10 and Highest
10 Performers
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Q Do immigrant students face the same level of
risk of not reaching proficiency Level 1 as their
native peers? Percentage of Students Below
Proficiency Level 1
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Q Do immigrant students from different countries
of origin perform differently? Reading
Performance of Different Origin Groups
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Q Has first-generation immigrants educational
performance changed over the last six
years? Reading Performance Trends of
First-Generation Immigrants
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Preliminary findings on factors that may
influence student performance
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What matters? What are the implications for
Intercultural Education
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Q Does language matter? If yes, to what extent?
The Effect of Speaking a Foreign Language at
Home on Reading Performance
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Q How much can Language and SES explain the
achievement gap? The effect of being an immigrant
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Q Does ability grouping at school matter? If
yes, to what extent?
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Q Does pre-school experience matter? The effect
of Participation in Pre-Primary Education on
Reading Performance (2003)
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Agenda

• Brief information
• Analytical approach
• Preliminary findings
• Implications for policy makers and practitioners
  with respect to intercultural education

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Preliminary findings on policy options
concerning intercultural education
work-in-progress Some relevant results from a
mapping exercise of existing policy suggestions
and other country experience
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Policy options that may influence studentlevel
factors
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Language matters. Provide systematic language
support for both children and their parents.

• Provide an early start in language learning
• Integrate language and content learning
• Encourage schools to offer special language
  programmes (but encourage transition to
  mainstream classes after one year)
• Provide special resources (financial or
  additional teachers) to schools with high
  proportions of immigrants who need language
  support
• Make language support systemic with clearly
  defined goals and standards
• Improve access to learning in mother language
• Train teachers in second language acquisition

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SES matters. Effectively mitigate the negative
impact of low SES.

• Offer direct financial support to low SES
  families (e.g. compensatory school fees or free
  lunches)
• Provide support to students from low SES family
  in order to stimulate learning at home (better
  use of libraries, homework centres, etc.)
• Offer adult language training
• Offer adult basic education targeting for
  low-educated, low skilled and unemployed
  immigrants and offer educational leave for
  parents
• Promote the practice of recognising foreign
  qualifications and prior learning for adult
  immigrants
• Cooperate with other ministries that are
  responsible for integrating immigrants into the
  labour market and society at large (as immigrant
  adults may represent parents of immigrant
  students) such as ministry of labour, ministry of
  integration, ministry of justice, etc.

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Policy options that may influence
school/communitylevel factors
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First school experience matters. Provide an
effective induction/integration programme into
school and into society at large.

• Provide language learning opportunities (even
  outside school) for immigrants and their children
  as well as language services (translated
  materials, interpreters) for new comers
• Integrate training on social values of the host
  country in the induction programmes
• Provide information about education systems and
  other learning opportunities in the country
• Ensure systems and practices that determine the
  appropriate level/grade of schooling for
  children Design assessment criteria and
  procedures carefully to assign students to
  special education schools (if a country has
  distinct programmes for comprehensive and special
  education schools.)
• Extend support measures beyond the initial
  settlement phase
• Encourage community to be involved as sources of
  advice to new comers
• For adult immigrants - Provide language and
  cultural training for parents (employment
  training, adult language training, adult basic
  education, vocational training, recognition of
  prior learning, etc) and ensure that such
  programmes are flexible for working immigrant
  parents provide information prior to arrival to
  help their integration

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Schools matter. Make school culture more
responsive to linguistic and cultural diversity

• Mainstream intercultural education into school
  curriculum as a way not only to help immigrants
  to adopt to the host culture but also to raise
  awareness of the receiving end (peers and
  teachers)
• Adopt curriculum to respond to the linguistic
  and cultural diversity
• Train school leaders
• Integrate elements and symbols of the cultures
  of immigrant students in school life and school
  materials
• Provide more learning opportunities (homework
  centres, after-school classes, summer schools,
  remedial courses, language supplementary courses,
  etc) to those who are in need, especially those
  who lack parental support at home and who lag
  behind in studies and ensure that information
  about such opportunities will reach them.
• Offer guidance and counselling, mentoring in
  general, and ethnic mentoring
• Encourage to increase the number of programmes
  for talented immigrant students
• Encourage schools to share knowledge, experience
  and resources (teachers and materials, etc).

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Teachers matter. Make the teaching workforce
responsive to linguistic and cultural diversity.

• Design teacher education/ training programmes so
  that teachcers can
• Solve problems of explicit/implicit racism -
  peers
• Manage classroom and deal with cultural
  conflicts peers
• Take a supportive and mentors role
• Have high expectations for students regardless
  of their backgrounds
• Adopt their teaching methods to better meet the
  needs of the students
• Motivate those students who are in a vulnerable
  situation
• 2. Hire more teachers with immigrant backgrounds
• 3. Provide additional teachers to work with
  immigrant students or students at risk in general

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Segregation in school may have negative effects.
Effectively mitigate the negative impact of
segregation and/or self-segregation

• Set integrated education as an explicit policy
  goal
• Take a prevention strategy towards segregation,
  especially if a country is newly experiencing
  large-scale migration inflow
• Encourage schools, especially advantaged
  schools, to take affirmative actions to integrate
  immigrant students into schools
• Encourage schools to network and cooperate to
  spread immigrant students to avoid concentration
• Communicate with authorities that are in charge
  of housing policies
• Encourage schools to carefully design mixed group
  classes in mainstream education with a limited
  number of immigrant students
• Ensure students do not feel segregated by
  teachers and their peers

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Family and community involvement matter. Ensure
family and community involvement.

• For schools to outreach parents proactively, get
  them engaged in students learning, and increase
  family expectations and family support
• Mobilise the ethnic community (such as by having
  a liaison coordinator from the same ethnic
  backgrounds as the immigrant children and
  parents, and by identifying role models from
  the community)
• For communities to share responsibilities with
  school to offer more learning opportunities
  outside the classroom (listed above)
• For communities to share responsibilities with
  school to offer guidance and counselling,
  mentoring in general, and ethnic mentoring.

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Policy options that may influence systemlevel
factors
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Participation in ECEC matters. Provide effective
and quality early childhood education and care

• Consider an appropriate age to start
  pre-schooling
• Ensure learning of the host language
• Ensure learning of the native language
• Ensure parental involvement
• Reconsider the allocation of funding across
  different levels of education

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• Next steps in Ireland
• Fact-finding visit in December 2008
• Policy review visit in 2009
• Delivery of draft country-specific policy
  recommendations within 4 months after the policy
  review visit
• Policy makers and practitioners are actors of
  policy review in this project.

Thank you. www.oecd.org/edu/migration
Miho.taguma_at_oecd.org