Immigration continues to be a key, and divisive issue in Europe. With increased levels of migration, the provision of an inclusive education to children with a migrant background will increasingly be a key policy issue in many European countries, with potentially significant implications for those children and society.

While there is evidence of higher achievement and well-being among native students in Spain (Rodriguez et al., 2020), recent PISA results show that when students’ socio-economic status and language spoken at home is accounted for, overall achievement does not differ significantly between students with a migrant background and native students, and has not changed significantly since 2018 (OECD, 2023b).

While schools play a crucial role in student achievement, they also play a significant role in students’ overall well-being. In this context, it is important that the well-being of students with a migrant background is examined to determine how these students fare in relation to their peers, as well-being is significant in its own right, but also can influence a student’s academic achievement. There is evidence of lower levels of life satisfaction, a key aspect of well-being, among immigrant students (Liebkind & JasinskajaLahti, 2000; Neto, 2001), so there is a need for further research into the well-being of immigrant students, particularly in relation to other aspects of well-being.

As well as assessing student achievement in mathematics and science (and reading in the case of PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) both gather a range of background information from students, including data in relation to perceived well-being, which presents an opportunity to examine changes in the well-being of immigrant students during a time of increasing migration. Sense of belonging to school is one of the key elements of student well-being as conceptualised by PISA (OECD, 2023a), and is evaluated by both studies. Another important aspect of well-being that is common to both studies is feeling safe (Mullis & Martin, 2017; OECD, 2023a).

Using the PISA definition of immigrant student status as first-generation (student and parents(s) born outside study country); second-generation (student born in study country and parents(s) born outside study country); and non-immigrant (at least one parent born in the study country), this study will use measures of sense of belonging and feeling safe to compare the well-being of immigrant students relative to their peers in five European countries at two different time points during a period of relatively high migration.

The theoretical framework underpinning this study is Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). While the model originally focussed on the role of their environment in a child’s development, the revised model posits “proximal processes” as drivers of development and is made up of four main elements, process, person, context, and time, which are interlinked and interact with each other, and influence a child’s development to varying degrees. The framework recognises the role of institutions and structures in enabling or limiting a child’s development and opportunities.

This study consists of analysis of TIMSS 2019 (Grade 8) and PISA 2022 data. PISA and TIMSS student questionnaires gather a range of contextual information in relation to students’ lives, including family background and well-being data. This includes data as to whether students and their parent(s) were born in the study country, which in the case of PISA is combined an index on immigrant background identifying students as first-generation, second-generation and non-immigrant. It is proposed to create an equivalent index using TIMSS 2019 data to allow comparisons of the well-being of students of different immigrant backgrounds across TIMSS 2019 and PISA 2022. Both studies ask students to what extent they agree with statements about belonging in school (TIMSS: I feel like I belong at this school; PISA: I feel like I belong at school). In addition, both studies gather data on the extent to which students feel safe in school. TIMSS asks students to what extent they agree with the statement I feel safe when I am at school. In the case of PISA, students are asked to what extent they agree with the statements I feel safe in my classrooms at school and I feel safe in other places at school (e.g. corridors, toilets, schoolyard, sports field, etc.). It is proposed to combine PISA data on these items to create an index of feeling at safe school for comparison with TIMSS. The study will compare students in five countries: Finland, France, Ireland, Norway and Portugal. The criteria for country selection was European countries that participated in TIMSS 2019 (Grade 8) and PISA 2022, which had the highest levels of increases in the proportion of immigrant students between PISA 2018 and PISA 2022. The proportion of immigrant students in Ireland showed a decrease of half a percentage point between these cycles of PISA, but was included as it is of national interest to the study team. The study will examine differences in well-being, in particular sense of belonging and feeling safe at school, between first-generation, second-generation and non-immigrant students over time in the five study countries. In addition, the relationship between immigrant status and sense of belonging and feeling safe will be analysed, as will the relationship between immigrant well-being and achievement before and after other factors such as socio-economic status, language spoken in the home and length of time in the study country are controlled for.

Initial analysis comparing students born outside the respective study countries with those born in the study countries indicate that there appears to be a change in aspects of student well-being and differences between immigrant and non-immigrant students. For example, while there was a large difference between non-immigrant and immigrant students in Ireland in TIMSS 2019 in agreeing that they felt they belong, in PISA 2022 there was little difference in their reports of feeling they belong at school (81% vs 71% in 2019 compared to 71% vs 71% native and immigrant respectively). Another aspect of well-being where there are indications of changing perceptions is in relation to how safe students feel at school. In TIMSS 2019 students were asked if they 'felt safe at school' and two similar questions in PISA 2022 were ‘I feel safe in my classrooms at school’ and ‘I feel safe in other places at school’. In Portugal in 2019, 86% of students born in the country reported that they felt safe at school compared to 76% of immigrant students who reported that they felt safe at school, a difference of nearly 10%. However, in 2022, 97% of native students and 92% of immigrant students agreed that they felt safe in the classroom (a four percentage point difference), with a four percentage point difference in those agreeing that they ‘feel safe in other places at school’ (96% non-immigrant students compared to 92% immigrant students). By comparing students across the two studies according to the PISA definition of immigrant status this paper will further explore the changes in student perceptions of aspects of their well-being across the countries selected, and whether differences between different groups are changing, which could have significant policy implications in relation to the provision of inclusive education to immigrant students.

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