Diversity among Bi-ethnic students and differences in educational outcomes and social functioning

Abstract

The number of bi-ethnic children is increasing. The focus of this study is on bi-ethnic students in the Netherlands with one parent with an ethnic majority background and one parent with an ethnic minority background. Most studies that have investigated educational outcomes and social functioning in school for biethnic students have not focused on the diversity within this group. In this study, we described the demographic, social and cultural diversity among bi-ethnic students and examined whether, in particular, ethnic background and gender of the migrant parent were related to the educational outcomes and social functioning of bi-ethnic students. Data on a total of 653 sixth grade bi-ethnic students (age 11-12) in primary education of the national Dutch cohort study ) were used in this study. To analyse the relationship between the ethnic background and gender of the migrant parent and the educational outcomes and social functioning among For reasons of clarity, we did not include full tables of the models. These data are available from the first author, upon request. bi-ethnic students, multivariate multilevel analyses were performed. The research findings indicate that bi-ethnic students differ demographically, socially and culturally in a manner dependent on ethnic background and gender of the migrant parent. We also found that the ethnic background and the gender of the migrant parent were related to cognitive outcomes, social-emotional functioning and citizenship competences. When trying to understand and support bi-ethnic students, we must consider the diversity among them.

Quality of group interaction, ethnic group composition, and individual mathematical learning gains

“…Limited language proficiency in the national language partially explains lower academic performances of non-native students as compared to their native peers OECD 2010). In the current article, the term native refers to students whose parents are both of Dutch origin (i.e., non-migrant; those who speak Dutch as a native language), whereas nonnative designates those students of whom at least one of his or her parents were born in other, often non-Western European countries (i.e., first or second generation migrants; those who speak Dutch as a minority language; Karssen et al 2017). Oortwijn et al (2005) found that non-native students' lack of proficiency in the national language is especially detrimental for their performance on contextualized mathematics tasks when compared to native students.…”