OECD Reviews of Migrant Education Immigrant Students at School Easing the Journey towards Integration

Hailed as a means to transform cultural norms and change lives, violence prevention programs signal a slow-rolling policy revolution that has reached nearly two-thirds of young people in the United States today. Max A. Greenberg takes us inside the booming market forprogramming and onto the asphalt campuses of Los Angeles where these programs areimplemented, many just one hour a week for 12 weeks. He spotlights how these ephemeral programs, built on troves of risk data, are disconnected from the lived experiences of the young people they were created to support. Going beyond the narrow stories told about at-risk youth through data and in policy, Greenberg sketches a vivid portrait of young men and women coming of age and forming relationships in a world of abidingharm and fleeting, fragmented support.At the same time, Greenberg maps the minefield of historical and structural inequalities that program facilitators must navigate to build meaningful connections with the youth they serve. Taken together, these programs shape the stories and politics of a generation and reveal how social policy can go wrong when it ignores the lives of young people. How school systems respond to immigration has an enormous impact on the economic and social well-being of all members of the communities they serve, whether they have an immigrant background or not. Immigrant Students at School: Easing the Journey towards Integration reveals some of the difficulties immigrant students encounter - and some of the contributions they offer - as they settle into their new communities and new schools. Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicate that students with an immigrant background tend to perform worse in school than students without an immigrant background. Several factors are associated with this disparity, including the concentration of disadvantage in the schools immigrant students attend, language barriers and certain school policies, like grade repetition and tracking, that can hinder immigrant students' progress through school. But successful integration is measured in more than academic achievement; immigrant students' well-being and hopes for the future are just as telling. This report examines not only immigrant students' aspirations and sense of belonging at school, but also recent trends in Europeans' receptiveness to welcoming immigrants into their own countries - the context that could make all the difference in how well immigrant students integrate into their new communities. The report includes a special section on refugees and education, and an extensive discussion on education policy responses to immigration Foreword Executive summary Editorial Chapter 1. Recent trends in immigration and education Chapter 2. Immigrant students' performance and sense of belonging at school Chapter 3. Attitudes towards immigrants Chapter 4. Factors linked to low performance among immigrant students Chapter 5. Aspirations of immigrant parents and children Chapter 6. Education policies to help integrate immigrant students Annex A