Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S. Born Students

David Figlio, Paola Giuliano, Riccardo Marchingiglio (riccardo.marchingiglio@u.northwestern.edu), Umut Ozek and Paola Sapienza
Additional contact information
Riccardo Marchingiglio: Northwestern University
Umut Ozek: American Institutes for Research

No 14196, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the effect of exposure to immigrants on the educational outcomes of US-born students, using a unique dataset combining population-level birth and school records from Florida. This research question is complicated by substantial school selection of US-born students, especially among White and comparatively affluent students, in response to the presence of immigrant students in the school. We propose a new identification strategy to partial out the unobserved non-random selection into schools, and find that the presence of immigrant students has a positive effect on the academic achievement of US-born students, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Moreover, the presence of immigrants does not affect negatively the performance of affluent US-born students, who typically show a higher academic achievement compared to immigrant students. We provide suggestive evidence on potential channels.

Keywords: educational attainment; immigrant students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 79 pages
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ltv, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Review of Economic Studies, 2024, 91 (2), 972–1006,

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Related works:
Journal Article: Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S.-Born Students (2024)
Working Paper: Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S. Born Students (2021)
Working Paper: Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S. Born Students (2021)
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