Academic performance of immigrant vs native students in Singapore schools using PISA 2012

Background: Existing evidence shows that in most countries there is an immigrant student disadvantage in educational performance when compared to native students. A small number of countries, with Singapore one of them, practice selective immigration policies (selecting a more educated-more skilled group of immigrants). The hypothesis is that in such countries one will not find an immigrant disadvantage after controlling for all possible determinants of educational achievement. Data and Methods: Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 was used and hierarchical model regressions were run using mixed regression estimation in STATA and a variety of controls. Results: First and second generation immigrant students in Singapore outperform their native counterparts in Mathematics and Reading achievement. Conclusions: This paper contributes to the body of work on immigrant-native differences in educational achievement. The findings are somewhat surprising, since one would expect no significant differences, once various student, family, and school characteristics are controlled for.Bachelor of Art