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According to Robert Putnam (2007) ethnic diversity in cities and neighborhoods does not lead to an increase of trust and social capital as previously predicted by intergroup contact theory (Pettigrew, 1998); instead it triggers a reaction of hunkering down that leads to a decrease in trust and social capital of both in-group and out-groups. But what happens if we focus on youngsters that are growing up in a multi-ethnic metropole, that are considering ethnic diversity as a something "normal", and that are bridging their ethnic differences by sharing a common street culture and language? In this article we use data about 905 pupils, 41 classes and 11 schools in a European metropole to confirm the hypothesis that in this specific context ethnic diversity in classrooms does lead to positive effects on educational performance.

In this paper, we analyse the gender differences between the educational performance of 15-year-old children of migrants from specific regions of origin countries living in different destination countries with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 wave. We study whether this gender difference of migrant pupils deviates from the gender difference between the native pupils in their destination country. We analyse the educational performance of 16,612 daughters and 16,804 sons of migrants in destination countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. We distinguish 62 origin countries and 12 origin areas in 30 destination countries. Female migrant pupils have both higher reading and math scores than comparable male migrant pupils, and these gender differences among migrant pupils are larger than among comparable native pupils. Parental socioeconomic background has an equal effect on the educational performance of daughters of migrants and on that of sons of migrants. The variation in educational performance by region of origin is, however, not clearly related to the poverty or traditionalism of regions.

Living in a single-parent family is negatively related with children's educational performance compared to living with 2 biological parents. In this article, we aim to find out to what extent the context of the school's share of single-parent families affects this negative relationship. We use pooled data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that is, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 and 2003, which contain information on 209,300 students at 11,887 schools in 25 countries. We found that attending a school with more children from single-parent families affects the educational performance of all children negatively, but it particularly harms children from single-mother families. Furthermore, we have indications that in countries in which the number of single-parent families is higher, the negative effect of attending a school with a higher share of single-parent families decreases, except for the US.

Background: Earlier studies using a double perspective (destination & origin) indicate that several macro-characteristics of both destination and origin countries affect the educational performance of migrant children. This paper explores the extent to which educational system features of destination and origin countries can explain these differences in educational achievement of migrant children, next to these macro-characteristics. Methods: Using data from the 2006 PISA survey, we performed cross-classified multilevel analysis on the science performance of 9.279 15-year-old migrant children, originating from 35 different countries, living in 16 Western countries of destination. We take into account a number of educational system characteristics of the countries of destination and origin, in order to measure the importance of differentiation, standardization, and the availability of resources. Results: We show that differences in educational achievement between migrants cannot be fully attributed to individual characteristics or macro-characteristics. Educational system characteristics of countries of destination and origin are also meaningful. At the origin level, the length of compulsory education positively influences educational performance. This is especially the case for migrant pupils who attended education in their countries of origin. We show also that at the destination level, a high student-teacher ratio in primary education positively affects migrant pupil's scientific performance. Moreover, migrant children with low educated parents do not perform less in highly stratified systems and even perform better in moderately differentiated systems than they do in comprehensive one. But migrant children with highly educated parents perform worse in highly and moderately stratified systems. Conclusion: This study underscores the importance of educational system features as an explanation of differences in educational achievement across different origin groups and across migrants living in different destination countries. Although individual level characteristics account for the largest educational achievement differences, educational system characteristics have an effect on top of these individual level characteristics and the average educational performance in their countries of origin. Differences in educational systems contribute to explaining the effects of economic and political macro-characteristics of the countries of origin on the educational performance of migrant children in destination countries.

This paper aims to explain the high scores of 15-year-old native pupils in The Netherlands and Flanders by comparing them with the scores of pupils in countries with the same highly stratified educational system: Wallonia, the German "Lander," the Swiss German cantons, and Austria. We use the data from the Programme for International Pupil Assessment (PISA) 2006 together with the specific PISA data of Germany and Switzerland. We apply a multilevel model that takes into account the individual-, curriculum-, and system-level features in these highly stratified educational systems. The high scores of the Dutch pupils can be explained by the size of The Netherlands' vocational sector. The high Flemish scores can be partly explained by the high curriculum mobility. Central exit exams are not a good explanation of the high Dutch scores. Despite being limited to highly stratified systems, we still find educational policies and arrangements to have significant effects on the educational performance of pupils. (Contains 22 notes and 5 tables.)

The main research question of this article is concerned with the combined estimation of the effects of educational systems, school composition, track level, and country of origin on the educational achievement of 15-year-old migrant students. The authors focus specifically on the effects of socioeconomic and ethnic background on achievement scores and the extent to which these effects are affected by characteristics of the school, track, or educational system in which these students are enrolled. In doing so, they examine the "sorting" mechanisms of schools and tracks in highly stratified, moderately stratified, and comprehensive education systems. They use data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wave. Compared with previous research in this area, the article's main contribution is in explicitly including the tracks-within-school level as a separate unit of analysis, which leads to less biased results concerning the effects of educational system characteristics. The results highlight the importance of including factors of track level and school composition in the debate surrounding educational inequality of opportunity for students in different education contexts. The findings clearly indicate that analyses of the effects of educational system characteristics are flawed if the analysis only uses a country level and a student level and ignores the tracks-within-school-level characteristics. From a policy perspective, the most important finding is that educational systems are neither uniformly "good" nor uniformly "bad", but they can result in different consequences for different migrant groups. Some migrant groups are better off in comprehensive systems, while others are better off in moderately stratified systems. (Contains 10 tables and 17 notes.)

The gross differences in scholastic achievement among public, private government-dependent, and private independent schools in 22 countries are analyzed with Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 data. In a multilevel approach, the authors estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools, and students' and principals' perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of their gross differences in scholastic achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government dependent and independent. But pupils at private government-dependent schools have a higher net educational achievement than do comparable pupils at public schools with the same social composition. The explanation of these remaining net differences in scholastic achievement seems to be their better school climate. These net differences in scholastic achievement between public and private school sectors are equal across nations, despite historical differences of educational systems. (Contains 5 tables and 10 notes.)

Levels and Dronkers (2006) showed that educational achievement differs between immigrant students from different regions of origin (Latin America, Northern Africa, and Western Asia). This follow-up paper establishes whether these differences in educational achievement between immigrant students from different regions of origin can be explained by school segregation, whether along ethnic or socioeconomic lines. Ethnic and socioeconomic school segregation have a negative influence on the scholastic achievement of all students, although the impact of socioeconomic school segregation is greater than that of ethnic school segregation. Ethnic school segregation affects the scholastic outcomes of native and immigrant students from some regions of origin more than those of immigrant students from other regions. The analysis shows that neither ethnic, nor socioeconomic, school segregation explains the lower mathematics achievement of immigrant students from Latin America, Northern Africa, and Western Asia. (Contains 4 tables and 19 notes.)

This article examines the effect of the ethnic composition on school performances in secondary education for Turkish students, using both cross-national and Swiss national PISA 2009 data. At the school level our results show no effect of the proportion of natives or the proportion of coethnics and a negative association between ethnic diversity (we employ a residualized score of diversity on the proportion of migrants) and math performances. Consequently, we find no evidence for social capital advantages and an indication of barriers. Finally, we find no association between social capital variables on national or educational system level and math performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of the ethnic composition in the school class on school performance in primary education, using COOL 2008 data for The Netherlands. We make an important distinction between theproportionof migrant children and thediversitywith regard to the different ethnic groups in a school class. Due to the strong correlation between these 2 variables, we employ a residualized score of diversity on the proportion of migrants. The diversity indicator, which indicates the level of diversity given a particular share of migrant children, is negatively related to reading comprehension in Grade 8. For other grade years, we find little support for negative effects of diversity net of the share of migrants in a class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of international data shows that ethnic diversity in secondary schools resets in negative effects with respect to educational performance of pupils (Dronkers, 2010). In this article we use data about 905 pupils, 41 classes and 11 schools in the city of Rotterdam to confirm the hypothesis that - in the context of a multi-ethnic big city - ethnic diversity in classrooms can also have positive effects on educational performance. This conclusion coincides with the prediction of Putman (2007) that in the long run ethnic diversity in cities will no longer trigger a reaction of hunkering down that leads to a decrease in trust and social capital of both in-group and out- groups. For youngsters growing up in the multi-ethnic big city of Rotterdam, who consider ethnic diversity as a something "normal", and who bridge their ethnic differences by sharing a common street culture and language, this prediction has become reality. This results in a positive effect of ethnic diversity in dassrooms on the educational achievements of pupils. INSET: The positive effects of ethnic diversity in classrooms.... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denominational schooling makes up an important part of European educational systems. Given its specificity, denominational schooling can be expected to place a greater weight on values teaching and moral education. It also may be more successful in creating a warm and caring atmosphere, thus helping students to better emotionally connect to the school community. We compare public and publicly supported private (as a proxy to denominational) schools on 2 dimensions, namely the emotional integration with the rest of the school community and the concern and feelings of responsibility towards the environment. Except for Austria, Belgium, and Spain, no evidence could be found that the type of the school has any impact on the reported psychological adaptation to the school. In these 3 countries, publicly supported private schools tend to be more successful in integrating their students. Also, students in public and private dependent schools were equally environment oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Mostly due to the lack of suitable data, cross-national research on the integration of migrant pupils is still scarce. We aim to fill this gap by addressing the question of the extent to which native and first- and second-generation migrants from various regions of origin, living in thirteen different countries of destination, differ in their scholastic ability. Using the PISA 2003 data, we focus primarily on the impact of origin and destination effects on the scholastic achievement of migrants. The results indicate that family characteristics and origin and destination effects can offer a significant contribution to the explanation of difference in scholastic knowledge between natives and first- and second-generation migrants. However, certain primary origin and destination effects, as well as interactions between these and family characteristics, remain significant and substantive after controlling for family characteristics, suggesting serious integration problems in the case of migrants from a few regions of origin in some European countries of destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the question whether pupils from the lower social strata perform better in private government-dependent schools than in public or private-independent schools, using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 data on European high schools. In the 1980s, Coleman and Hoffer (1987) found in the USA that the performance of these pupils was better at religious schools than at comparable public schools. Dronkers and Robert (2003) found in PISA data for 19 comparable countries that private government-dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools, also after controlling for characteristics of pupils and parents and the social composition of the school. The main explanation appeared to be a better school climate in private government-dependent schools. Private independent schools were less effective than comparable public schools, but only after controlling for the social composition of the school. As a follow-up we now investigate, again with the PISA data of these 19 countries, whether this positive effect of private government-dependent schools differs between pupils from different strata. We use various indicators to measure social strata: social, cultural, and economic. We expect that the thesis of Coleman and Hoffer does hold for private government-dependent schools because in these 19 countries they are mostly religious schools, which have more opportunities to form functional communities and create social capital. But for private independent schools, which because of their commercial foundation are less often functional communities, this relation is not expected to hold. However, the results show that public and private schools have mostly the same effects for the same kind of pupils and thus mostly do not favor one kind of pupils above another kind of pupils. But private government-dependent schools are slightly more effective for pupils with less cultural capital and private independent schools are also more effective for pupils from large families or low status families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the gap in math and science achievement of third- and fourth-graders who live with a single parent versus those who live with two parents in 11 countries. The United States and New Zealand rank last among the countries we compare in terms of the equality of achievement between children from single-parent families and those from two-parent homes. Following a multilevel analysis, we find single parenthood to be less detrimental when family policies equalize resources between single- and two-parent families. In addition, the single- and two-parent achievement gap is greater in countries where single-parent families are more prevalent. We conclude that national family policies can offset the negative academic outcomes of single parenthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

in order to test the suggested decline of the family we compare sibling resemblance in the life-chances of five Hungarian cohorts born during the twentieth century. Similar studies in Germany and the Netherlands show less sibling resemblance in younger cohorts. However, one might argue that this trend towards the decline of sibling resemblance cannot be found in societies with a communist regime. A consequence of the communist regime is an increase in the importance of the family as the most important means of improving one!s life-chances, because the other non-political institutions have been destroyed or are dominated by the party. The most important conclusion in this analysis of sibling resemblance in educational attainment, occupational prestige, and wealth in Hungary during the communist regime is that this resemblance did not decrease in younger birth cohorts, contrary to results from analyses on changes occurring over time in sibling resemblance in Western European societies. The slowly declining effect of father's educational attainment and wealth is less than might be predicted on the basis of theories on modernization or state socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]