Research has shown that migrant students in Europe tend to perform below their native peers, as well as have shorter and less successful school careers (Teltemann & Schunck, 2016). Despite this, little is known about the school characteristics which make a difference for them (Reynolds & Neeleman, 2021). This historical gap in knowledge within the school effectiveness field is partially justified by the repeated empirical verification of the theories of social reproduction, posed by educational and social class sociologists for the first time six decades ago. Schools have been shown to mainly reproduce pre-existing inequalities by making everyone’s performance progress (or regress) at the same rate, regardless of student or school characteristics (Strand, 2016).

This, according to Strand, denies the existence of differential school effectiveness, and points to a need to shift focus from between-school differences to within-school processes, in the search for equity outcomes. I propose, following Seawright’s definition of ‘exceptional cases’ (2016), that the study of schools which go against the trend by either diminishing or increasing inequalities amongst their students is crucial. Studying such deviant cases allows us to formulate new hypothesis, and test others proposed by previous research, regarding the conditions for the occurrence of sustained change at the organizational and systemic levels (Ibid.).

This paper summarizes the preliminary results of an exploratory study on the mechanisms behind (empirically) rare instances of differential school effectiveness for migrant students. In primary schools where these students’ chances of succeeding are consistently higher than usual, what aspects of the school culture are behind this unexpected success?

Generally speaking, a continually improving school should have (i) a professional learning community committed to clear and common goal setting, strategy definition and monitoring of student success; (ii) involvement of all members of the school community in decision making; (iii) spaces for reflection; iv) adequate technical, material and human resources; (v) a combination of transformational and instructional leadership (Reynolds & Neeleman, 2021). For migrant students, there seems to be other factors to consider. They benefit particularly from the trust their teachers place on them as students (Dewulf, van Braak & Van Houtte, 2017). Additionally, some qualitative studies suggest that raising student voice, promoting increased parental involvement, having a stable school leadership that sees the value in and promotes initiatives geared towards teacher acquisition of intercultural skills are essential in diverse schools (Hajisoteriou, Karousiou  & Angelides, 2018).

Moreover, recent literature has placed emphasis on the impacts of different school approaches to diversity on migrant educational outcomes. Immigrants tend to experience more success and positive teacher relationships in schools with egalitarian or multiculturalist diversity approaches (Baysu et al., 2021; Celeste et al., 2019). This might be because assimilationist views create feelings of rejection and lower school belonging amongst migrant students, which are known to affect educational performance (Agirdag, Jordens & Van Houtte, 2014).

Little is still known about the conditions for developing multicultural sensibilities in diverse schools. There is some evidence suggesting that group threat theory might explain the lower resistance to these approaches in schools with a majority of immigrant students, and higher resistance in schools with a low immigrant intake (Strobbe et al., 2017). A school culture of openness to change, experimentation and reflection has also been put forward as an important factor (Van Der Wildt, Van Avermaet  & Van Houtte, 2017).

To identify the school-level causal factors of unexpected immigrant success, we chose a contextual and comparative mixed methods research approach. A comparative case study was conducted on two primary schools, located in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. First, official educational statistics (Directorate-General of Education and Science Statistics) pertaining to all students enrolled in primary schools between 2014 and 2018 were analysed, to account for the sustainability across time of school composition and outcomes. Cluster analysis was performed, and three types of schools with similar immigrant and socioeconomic intakes were identified: privileged, mixed, and underprivileged schools. To identify unusually (un)successful schools, two main indicators of student performance were analysed for all schools and compared to the average of their respective cluster: (i) overall rates of grade repetition; (ii) difference between grade repetition of immigrant and native students. Case selection followed the aforementioned principle of deviant case comparison (Seawright, 2016), forming an intentional sample of an underperforming school and an overperforming one. Several possible pairs were identified, where both schools had a student intake close to the average of their cluster, but student performance indicators deviated unexplainably from their cluster. Interviews were conducted with school leaderships, teachers, and community representatives from the two schools who agreed to participate in the case study (total n = 26, lasting an average of 55 minutes each). The interviews followed an intentionally ‘loose’ script, with the goal of prioritizing individuals’ own discourses regarding the school’s defining features and their experiences therein. The script contained multiple question prompts organized according to five aspects of school culture: school history and recent trends/events; strategic management; teachers and teacher work; strategies for learning; school climate. The interviews were recorded and transcribed with the individuals’ informed consent, and are currently being subject to content analysis.

Preliminary results of content analysis suggest that the general aspects pointed by school effectiveness literature to be markers of an improving school are also relevant when analysing children of immigrants’ school trajectories. Namely, the clearest differentiating aspect between the two schools was the stability of the leadership and their commitment to (i) create spaces for reflection and collaborative work amongst teachers and (ii) build a shared sense of mission that guides all decision-making processes and places student learning at the top. A review of more recent data, however, revealed that, in recent years, these schools have dramatically shifted their success markers. This is in line with the amply verified unsustainability of most school improvement efforts, and therefore leads us to shift our focus from explaining the school facts behind the success of migrants to explaining how a school declines in the promotion of equal ethnic opportunities. One possible explanation relates to the increasing proportion of immigrant students in the previously overperforming school, and its decrease in the underperforming one. The overperforming school might be reaching the threshold for the growth of majority group threat feelings amongst the teacher body, leading the school away from a colour-blind to a more assimilationist approach to diversity. Additionally, given the prevalence of students whose parents have a low educational level in the overperforming school, parental involvement in school processes is paramount, and the interviews revealed that this has been a neglected area in the school’s priorities prior to the pandemic. Finally, standards in the school are set assuming a low ability of most students to engage with challenging material, and there seems to be evidence of high levels of between-classroom socioeconomic segregation, which all together might increase teachers’ futility culture (Agirdag, van Houtte & van Avermaet, 2012).

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