With recent increases in international migration, some political and academic narratives argue for limiting migration because of possible negative effects on the host country. Among other outcomes, these groups argue that immigrant students have an impact on education, negatively affecting native-born students’ academic performance. The authors contextualize the relationship between immigrant status and academic achievement by considering a macro social setting: country-level foreign-born population. The authors examine achievement from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment in 41 high-income countries. The authors use within- and cross-level interactions to examine (1) the relationship between immigrant status and academic achievement, (2) the moderating effect of student socioeconomic status on achievement, and (3) how country-level foreign-born population affects both immigrant and native-born students’ performance. The findings indicate that immigrant students perform similarly to native-born students when considering other contextual factors, with socioeconomic status moderating the effect of immigrant status. Furthermore, all students, immigrant and nonimmigrant students alike, benefit academically from more immigration.

Foreign-born Population and Academic Achievement The recent rise of national populism in the United States and Europe (e.g., the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, and the European Union crisis) has to a large extent been driven by political agendas promising to limit or decrease immigration (Morgan and Lee 2017; Noack 2017; Tartar 2017). In American politics, this anti-immigration narrative has been heavily influenced by conservative think tanks, which have called for restrictions on immigration primarily on the basis of arguments that immigrants cause cultural and economic strain for host nations (Camarota 2006, 2007; Wax and Richwine 2017). This perceived strain extends to a number of important domestic institutions, including education systems. Critics of immigration assume that immigrant students are draining educational resources and therefore negatively affecting native-born student achievement (Camarota 2006). But is this true? Given the restrictive immigration policies critics justify with these claims, such as family separation and border walls, it is important to know how high levels of immigration actually affect student performance in host countries. However, there is limited research examining these assertions that immigrants have a negative impact on education in host countries, and results from this limited research are mixed, clouding the issue. In this article, we use cross-national data from 41 countries to examine the perceived costs of the “strain” immigrant populations have on students in host countries. We test the validity of these claims in the context of education by examining mathematics achievement from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 41 high-income countries. We assess how immigrant status influences academic achievement at the individual student level, as well as whether measures at the macro social level, such as foreign-born population, are associated with academic achievement for immigrants and native-born students, when accounting for additional student- and school-level factors. Do immigrant students exhibit more positive educational outcomes in countries with large numbers of immigrants, or do they excel in countries with larger numbers of native-born students? Are native-born students negatively affected by higher immigration, as some narratives suggest? Answers to these questions would help shed light on whether immigration causes strain to host countries and, as a result, whether restrictive immigration policies are necessary or are political pandering.

Conclusions A goal of our analysis was to examine the validity of claims regarding the negative influence of immigrants on nonimmigrant individuals by examining how macro factors play a role in student achievement. Considering our findings, current sociopolitical narratives suggesting that international immigrants are hurting the destination countries are erroneous and misleading. Native-born students actually benefit from a higher proportion of immigrants (Pipovarova and Powers 2018), a finding now extended from single-country contexts in Scandinavia with generous social democracies and welfare systems (Brandén et al. 2018; Fekjær and Birkelund 2007; Hermansen and Birkelund 2015; Pipovarova and Powers 2018) to 41 wealthy countries around the world that represent a variety of political, social, and educational systems. The models we use here could be used to ask similar questions about the relationships between immigration and other important outcomes, including crime, job markets, economic growth, and health services. In addition, our models suggest the value of a more nuanced approach to understanding relationships between immigration and host country outcomes. For example, future research could explore how country of origin may be linked to educational attainment or how length of stay for immigrants may moderate the effect of language spoken in the home on achievement. Considering the observed correlation between language spoken in the home and achievement, future research could explore the possibility that coethnic communities moderate the effect of speaking a different language. It is also possible that the language variable is partially capturing a racial/ethnic component in certain contexts (but not in others), and future research should consider examining the role of language spoken in the home across different contexts, as this variable could theoretically be a placeholder for divergent concepts across countries. For example, it is possible that the language spoken in the home variable is partially capturing race/ethnicity for Hispanics in the United States but that it fails to do so in other contexts. It is possible that language variables may be a reflection of immigrant selectivity or country of origin in other countries. Consequently, a cross-national analysis focusing on language spoken in the home may contribute to our understanding of the complex interaction between immigration, selectivity, and language barriers. Furthermore, qualitative analyses could supplement this research by examining how the immigrant experience may affect achievement and therefore explore the mechanisms that may explain why second-generation immigrants do not translate resources into higher achievement at the same rate as other groups. For example, Syrian students with refugee status or Central American students seeking asylum in the United States are likely facing additional traumatic circumstances that might affect their school performance. Qualitative analyses could also explore mechanisms that may explain why native-born students benefit academically from higher immigration rates. Finally, one notable weakness in the PISA data is the lack of measures on educational systems or philosophies. For example, looking at the mission statement of Finland’s national office of education, a country that scores quite well on PISA (OECD 2018) reveals a systemic interest in building an equitable educational system (Korpela 2014), while looking at a similar mission statement from the U.S. Department of Education (2018) reveals an emphasis on academic excellence and equal access. We acknowledge that our inability to assess cultural differences both in approaches to education and in the ways arguments about immigration are used to advance other political agendas may mask additional ways in which immigration patterns and policies may be tied to educational outcomes for native-born and immigrant students alike. Still, our findings provide robust evidence for the idea that country-level immigration patterns are at worst not damaging native-born students’ educational prospects and at best that native-born and immigrant students alike benefit from more generous immigration policies. In this article, we sought to explore the question of whether immigration is detrimental to host countries, particularly in education. Contrary to what a faction of current political narratives suggests, contexts with high proportions of immigrants exhibit higher achievement, both for immigrants and for nonimmigrants. With these findings in mind, policy makers should consider the positive economic, cultural, and social aspects of a strong immigrant population when drafting or evaluating immigration procedures. Considering the benefits associated with higher immigration both for immigrant and nonimmigrant students alike, it is likely that individuals reap other benefits from contexts with high immigration.

Appendix. Standard Errors and Sample Sizes. View larger version

ORCID iD

Florencia Silveira https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6776-5006

1

See Table 1 for a list of countries. We exclude the United Arab Emirates from our sample, despite their high-income status, because of missing data on key country-level measures. Additionally, we exclude Qatar from our analysis because it is an extreme outlier. Qatar is an unusual country in terms of migration demographics as well as policy; 94% of its workforce is composed of immigrants, and there are no visa restrictions for more than 80 countries (Chappell 2017).