Migration has become a highly important political issue over the last decade. Reasons like war, political or religious persecution, political suppression, starvation or other menacing situations resulted in increasing numbers of refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2015) has reported that, for every year of the 21st century, about 40 million people could be considered ‘displaced people’, forced to flee from their homes. 2014 recorded an unprecedented growth in mass displacement, with an approximately three-fold increase in the numbers fleeing from conflicts. The globalization of labor markets has also resulted in employees moving with their families across borders in pursuit of work. The United Nations (2013) reported that, in 2013, about 231 million people could be classed as immigrants.

Migration always also affects educational systems. One of the major challenges in many countries is integrating students with migration backgrounds into regular education, seen as vital to ensure a smooth integration of these children into the wider society (Adams & Kirova, 2006). However, several studies have shown that migrant students are disadvantaged, which is for example reflected in their lower average achievement (e.g., OECD, 2006; Mullis, Martin, Kennedy, & Foy, 2007; Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr, & Losito, 2010; Hastedt, 2016), an aspect that will hinder their full integration in culture, society and labor markets in later life. Moreover, immigrants are often threatened with discrimination and/or excluded from full participation in several aspects of community life.^[1] To address these developments, the United Nations postulated education for human rights, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity as a particular goal within the Sustainable Development Goals framework.^[2] For school-aged children, contact with individuals not belonging to one’s own family or cultural group occurs primarily within the educational context. Therefore, studies conducted within this context can be a precious source for shading light onto interpersonal relations between members of different social and cultural groups.

Tolerance is key for any society, in order to protect human rights, provide all people a stable and prosperous environment, and to avoid social and political uproar, or the emergence of violence, that could seriously damage society. The contact hypothesis, introduced by Allport (1954) and extended by Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp (1997), Feddes, Noack, & Rutland (2009) and Thijs, & Verkuyten (2014), proposes that interpersonal contact between majority and minority group members can reduce prejudice and foster positive attitudes towards the other group. Empathy and perceptions of a common identity seem to mediate the effects of direct and “extended” contact (Dovidio, Johnson, Gaertner, Person, Saguy, & Ashburn-Nado, 2010). If these findings hold, it can be assumed that increasing percentages of migrant students comes generally along with increasing levels of positive attitudes towards immigrants, at least if immigrants populate all schools in an education system in similar amounts.

Research questions:

1)      What are global trends in proportions of immigrant students over the last twenty years?

2)      Are there changes in the achievement of immigrant students over time?

3)      Are there differences between natives and immigrants regarding their feelings of belonging to their closer and wider social environment, and their attitudes towards civics and citizenship values?

Are there changes in these attitudes over time?

[1] See statement of Navanethem Pillay (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2009. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/2009/hc_statement.shtml.

[2] http://www.globalgoals.org/global-goals/quality-education/

The analyses is based on data from 13 education systems participating in TIMSS 1995 and 2015 (grade eight, those who had at least 50 immigrants in both samples), and 13 education systems participating in ICCS 2009. These 13 countries were chosen because they can be considered for additional trend analysis since they also participate in ICCS 2016, and have enough immigrant students in their 2009 sample. Analysis with ICCS 2016 data will be added once this data becomes publicly available (Feb 2018). Students attending grade eight (or the equivalent grade in respective educational systems) are in scope of this research. We identified two groups of students for this research: students with both parents born within the country (further referred to as “natives”), and students with both parents born outside the country (further referred to as “immigrants”). Scales on mathematics achievement (derived from the TIMSS assessment) are used to identify achievement differences between the student groups of interest. This achievement scale has an international mean of 500 points and a standard deviation of 100 points. Variables and scales derived from the student questionnaires of ICCS are used to estimate differences in views, perceptions and attitudes of the student groups of interest. For detailed information on the variables used, please refer to Foy (2017) and Brese, Jung, Mirazchiyski, Schulz, & Zuehlke (2011). We accounted for the complex sample and assessment design by using sampling weights for the estimation of population parameters, and applying jackknife repeated replication and plausible values for the estimation of standard errors (Foy, 2017; Brese et al., 2011).

In this paper, potential challenges of increasing percentages of immigrant students in selected educational systems around the world will be uncovered. Schools in many countries are facing a growing diversity of their students. Immigrant students often lag behind their native peers regarding achievement, a well-known fact that was confirmed for about half of the countries included in this research. In few countries however, immigrant students outperform their native peers. Further, immigrant students often seem to have less trust in civics institutions and their personal ability to contribute to changes in the society. Schulz et al. (2010) reported on differences between eighth-grade native and immigrants students regarding their civic knowledge in 2009. On average, the difference amounted to 37 points (about one third of a standard deviation of this scale) in favor of native students, and was significant in 21 out of 28 countries who had relevant proportions of immigrant students. We will present trends in these achievement gaps in the final paper using ICCS 2016 data. Finally, overwhelmingly obvious is the finding that immigrants have less positive feelings towards the country they now live in than their native peers. On the other hand, native students support less often equal rights for all ethnic and racial groups, a fact that might be reflected in immigrants’ perceptions and attitudes mentioned before. These results underline the necessity to focus increasingly on efforts supporting the integration of students with migration backgrounds. In many countries, these students represent a significant and growing share of our young generation. Measures that support their full and equal integration into society will be a precondition for shaping or maintaining peaceful, liberal and prospering societies.

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