Subjective well‐being and school outcomes among children of immigrants and natives in Italy

Abstract

Children of immigrants are generally disadvantaged in terms of educational outcomes in most European countries and this remains true even after controlling for their socio-economic status.Factors affecting the long-term educational careers among children of immigrants and natives have been broadly investigated in the literature, although limited attention has been paid so far to the role of subjective well-being in this context.In this paper we aim to fill this gap by analyzing how subjective well-being in the school and family context is related to objective school outcomes of immigrant and native children residing in Italy, after controlling for several relevant socio-demographic factors.We use rich and unique data from the "Integration of the Second Generation" survey carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in 2015, that has not been used to analyse this relationship so far. The national representative sample includes 68,127 students interviewed in both lower and upper secondary schools. Around 47% of them are immigrant children without Italian citizenship.Our results show that subjective well-being is positively correlated with school performance, but well-being at school is much more important for immigrant students' achievements, as compared to their native peers, especially in the lower secondary school. The same result does not hold for wellbeing in the family domain.

Las desigualdades del alumnado extranjero en la educación obligatoria española. Una visión crítica desde la teoría del cuidado

“…Eso influye en su autoconcepto, regulación y cumplimiento académico, sentido de pertenencia al centro escolar y confianza en la educación. El bienestar subjetivo del alumnado en el centro está positivamente correlacionado con el rendimiento escolar (Ambrosetti et al, 2023).…”

Cross-cultural connections: School climate and equity in Germany, Italy, Latvia, and the United States.

“…In Italy, the discussion on the academic performance of immigrant children has recently emerged due to their increasing numbers over the past two decades. In the 2018/2019 academic year, 10% of total students were of immigrant origin, of which 64.5% were second-generation immigrants, that is, born in Italy to non-Italian parents (Ministero dell’Istruzione, 2020, cited in Ambrosetti et al, 2023). The INVALSI test results (INVALSI, 2022) highlight that not only first-generation foreign students but also second-generation ones score lower in Italian and math tests compared to students of Italian origin.…”

“…Italy, due to its relatively recent experience with immigration, lags behind in implementing strategies to close the educational gap for disadvantaged students with immigrant backgrounds. Ambrosetti et al (2023) examined the relationship between SWB in school and family contexts and the academic performance of immigrant and native children in Italy, controlling for various sociodemographic factors. They find a positive correlation between SWB and school performance.…”