The Education of Migrants and Their Children Across the Life Course

Abstract

Pillar 4 of the German National Education Panel Study addresses migrants’ and their descendants’ acquisition of education across the life course. Apart from documenting the evolution of ethnic educational inequalities throughout the educational career by focusing on different origin groups and distinct indicators of educational success, we seek to uncover the origins of these disparities. Beyond the mechanisms associated with social inequalities, Pillar 4 aims to disentangle those processes that impact particularly on immigrants and their children and to assess their empirical relevance. We apply the prominent distinction between primary and secondary effects to students of immigrant origin and then link this distinction to a general resources framework that we further adapt for migrants. This leads to the crucial debate within integration research on whether the resources and opportunities available within the migrant group foster educational success. One stream within this debate refers to the contested question whether proficiency in the language of the country of origin influences competence development in the country of residence. Another important stream concerns the role of ethnic networks and social capital for educational success. We discuss the mechanisms predicting either beneficial, neutral, or harmful effects and present available empirical evidence. Based on this account, we highlight the analysis potential of the data gathered in Pillar 4.