Mind the gap: Examining migrant-native disparities in reading performance and subjective wellbeing among 15-year-old students in different education systems

Contemporary European and North American societies have experienced changing demographics due to migration. School classrooms reflect this dynamic. To-date, few studies have examined migration effects on both reading skills and subjective wellbeing from an international comparative perspective. Using the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) dataset, this paper addresses the issue by examining migrant-native gaps in reading, happiness, and life satisfaction among 15-year-old students in four education models. Regression results illustrate that migrant students in general tend to experience a double inequality: they have lower reading performance and report lower life satisfaction when compared to native students (although in some cases they report higher happiness levels). However, such effects are also context-dependent. While a migration background has significant negative effects on students’ reading in Germanic and Nordic schools, its negative effects in Anglo-Saxon systems are above all manifested in students’ level of life satisfaction. In addition, compared to first-generation migrants, being of second generation is positively associated with reading performance in all education models, with the strongest effect in the Nordic countries. Such positive generation effects are statistically insignificant, on the other hand, on students’ wellbeing. Other individual factors such as socio-economic status and gender present mixed correlations with reading and wellbeing. Such findings invite scholars and practitioners to reflect, through the prism of migration, on how reading proficiency and wellbeing can differ in diverse educational approaches, and correspondingly seek context-specific intervention measures.