Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children

Abstract

We study the educational choices of children of immigrants in a tracked school system. We first show that immigrants in Italy enroll disproportionately into vocational high schools, as opposed to technical and academically-oriented high schools, compared to natives of similar ability. The gap is greater for male students and it mirrors an analogous differential in grade retention. We then estimate the impact of a large-scale, randomized intervention providing tutoring and career counseling to high-ability immigrant students. Male treated students increase their probability of enrolling into the high track to the same level of natives, also closing the gap in terms of grade retention. There are no significant effects on immigrant girls, who exhibit similar choices and performance as native ones in absence of the intervention. Increases in academic motivation and changes in teachers' recommendation regarding high school choice explain a sizable portion of the effect, while the effect of increases in cognitive skills is negligible. Finally, we find positive spillovers on immigrant classmates of treated students, while there is no effect on native classmates.

The effect of immigrant peers in vocational schools

“…However, our focus on these institutions is motivated by two types considerations. First, vocational schools are an ideal setting for studying immigrant peer effects because they attract not only high shares of immigrants (Carlana, La Ferrara and Pinotti, 2017) but also the lowest achieving natives, who are typically most affected by peer effects (Angrist and Lang, 2002). Second, by providing students not only with general knowledge and skills, but also with practice-oriented training to prepare them for particular occupations, they can be one of the most important policy tools available for combating youth unemployment (Eichhorst, 2015), which is a particularly pervasive issue especially in Southern European countries.…”

A culture of despair? Inequality and expectations of educational success

“…Similar evidence of expectations being associated with educational outcomes has been found by Papageorge et al (2016) who find that an increase in the expectations a teacher has that a student will complete college increases the probability of that student completing college. In a similar way, Carlana et al (2020) find that students subject to a psychological intervention that increased their educational aspirations were more likely to be recommended for and attend more demanding education programs.…”

“…Important policy implications can be drawn from these results. Carlana et al (2020) study psychological interventions that improve these students' aspirations. Following these students after treatment, they find that those with higher aspirations were more likely to be recommended for, and attend, more demanding educational programs, which may improve their long-run outcomes.…”

Self-perceptions about academic achievement: Evidence from Mexico City

“…The strong persistence of prior beliefs and the rather erratic updating behavior among low-SES individuals point toward the possible limitations of simple and costeffective ways of delivering information to this sub-population of students. Effectively undoing biases in subjective beliefs and realigning educational aspirations among disadvantaged students may require contemplating policy tools that provide more in-depth feedback such as tutoring and career counseling (see, e.g., Carlana et al [2017]).…”