Migrants in Education – what factors are important? A study of European Countries participating in PIRLS2006

This report on migrant students overall reading ability is part of a larger project on migrants in education. Within the same project a parallel report focuses on what matters for migrant students’ overall mathematical ability. Both reports address 4th grade migrant students achievement in European countries. The present report makes use of the IEA study PIRLS2006. The parallel report on migrant students overall mathematical ability makes use of the IEA study TIMSS2007. This report focuses on 13 European countries participating in PIRLS2006 and who met the criteria of at least 3 percent migrant students in their samples. The analyses performed demonstrate that although a larger impact is found for various factors at the individual student level, factors at the level of classroom and school have an impact as well on migrant students overall reading ability. The study argues the importance of acknowledging the difference within the migrant student group where special analyses are performed for 1st and 2nd generation migrant students. The findings are discussed in terms of possible policy implications.JRC.G.3-Econometrics and applied statistic