Factors relating to the school performance of ten year old and fourteen year old students from non English speaking backgrounds

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Melbourne, 1978This study sought to examine factors relating to the school performance of students from non English speaking backgrounds residing in Australia. Groups of ten year old and fourteen year old migrant students were selected from students surveyed in the 'Australian Studies in School Performance' (A.C.E.R., 1975). These subsamples represented thirteen per cent of ten year old and ten per cent of fourteen year old Australian students, many of whom were found to encounter educational difficulties. Eight per cent of migrant students were identified as not understanding English sufficiently well to cope with normal classroom lessons and one third needed remedial assistance with reading or number work. Migrant students experiencing difficulties were not restricted to those born overseas, as the majority of the migrant subsamples were students born in Australia. Several factors appeared to relate to the lower level of performance of migrant students with the most important being an environmental press for the use of English. At 10 year of age this press for the use of English was predominantly centred in the home, where a number of factors appeared to contribute, such as the English language skills of the parents and the frequency of receiving an English newspaper in the home. At 14 years of age the press for the use of English appeared to shift toward the use of English by the peer group. Other influences in performance were the ethnic origin of the family and the birth!, ace of the student, whilst surprisingly the length of residence in Australia did not appear to influence performance. Not all migrant students however were disadvantaged. Students from Northern European backgrounds performed as well as, and sometimes better than Australian students, whilst on the other hand, students from Southern European backgrounds appeared more seriously disadvantaged. This highlights the problem of investigating the performance of the migrant group as a whole