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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1431289

Equitable Education for Migrant Students? Investigating the Educational Success of Newly Arrived Migrants in Flanders

Provisionally accepted
Shauny Seynhaeve Shauny Seynhaeve 1*Marieke Vanbuel Marieke Vanbuel 1Dimokritos Kavadias Dimokritos Kavadias 2Bart Deygers Bart Deygers 1
  • 1 Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
  • 2 Vrije University Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, Belgium

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Previous research has uncovered various inequalities for students in education systems worldwide. In particular, students with a migration background are disadvantaged, but previous research has primarily focused on students with a migration background in general, or native students in general, without examining differences within those groups. This monolithic approach makes it difficult to assess the extent to of differences among students within and across these groups. Using administrative data from the Flemish Department of Education and Training (2009-2019) on 45731 students across 670 schools, this study examines NAMS' passing and dropout rates in Flemish secondary education in comparison to the outcomes of their peers without a (recent) migration background. Data included demographic background variables, educational trajectory variables and indicators of educational outcomes. A crossclassified multilevel regression analysis showed that, after controlling for background variables, NAMS still show higher probabilities of failing a year and of dropping out. Moreover, the impact of SES is stronger for native students than for NAMS. These results provide a comprehensive view of NAMS' educational success by comparing them to diverse groups of mainstream students, and by investigating factors that contribute to these outcomes.

    Keywords: newly arrived adolescents, migrant students, Equity, Passing, dropout, SES

    Received: 16 May 2024; Accepted: 20 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Seynhaeve, Vanbuel, Kavadias and Deygers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shauny Seynhaeve, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, East Flanders, Belgium

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.