Migrants at School: Educational Inequality and Social Interaction in the UK and Germany

Horst Entorf and Eirini Tatsi ()
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Eirini Tatsi: Goethe University Frankfurt

No 4175, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We test potential social costs of educational inequality by analysing the influence of spatial and social segregation on educational achievements. In particular, based on recent PISA data sets from the UK and Germany, we investigate whether good neighbourhoods with a relatively high stock of social capital lead to larger 'social multipliers' than neighbourhoods with low social capital. Estimated 'social multipliers' are higher for the German early tracking schooling system than for comprehensive schools in the UK. After aggregating data and employing the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, the results suggest that the educational gap between natives and migrants is mainly due to the 'endowment effect' provided by the socioeconomic background of parents and cultural capital at home. Some adverse 'integration effects' do exist for female migrants in Germany who lose ground on other groups.

Keywords: peer effects; identification; social interaction; reflection problem; empirical analysis; education; migrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J15 J18 O15 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eec, nep-hrm, nep-mig, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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