Equity in Education?
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EQUITY IN EDUCATION? A comparative analysis of educational outcomes among refugee children in the Nordic countries Andrea Dunlavy, Christopher Jamil de Montgomery, Thomas Lorentzen, Maili Malin & Anders Hjern CAGE PROJECT REPORT 1 EQUITY IN EDUCATION? Authors & Data Analysts Andrea Dunlavy, Researcher Centre for Health Equity Studies Department of Public Health Sciences Stockholm University, Sweden Anders Hjern, Professor Centre for Health Equity Studies Karolinska Institutet/Stockholm University, Sweden Lisa Berg, Researcher Centre for Health Equity Studies Department of Public Health Sciences Stockholm University, Sweden Karl Gauffin, Post-doc Centre for Health Equity Studies Department of Public Health Sciences Stockholm University, Sweden Christopher Jamil de Montgomery, Post-doc Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity and Health (MESU) Department of Public Health Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Thomas Lorentzen, Professor Department of Sociology, University of Bergen/ Department of Health-, Social- and Welfare Studies, University of South-Eastern Norway, Porsgrunn, Norway Maili Malin, Senior Researcher Migration Institute of Finland, Turku, Finland Correspondence to: Andrea Dunlavy Centre for Health Equity Studies Department of Public Health Sciences Stockholm University, Sweden [email protected] 2 EQUITY IN EDUCATION? A comparative analysis of educational outcomes among refugee children in the Nordic countries Andrea Dunlavy, Christopher Jamil de Montgomery, Thomas Lorentzen, Maili Malin & Anders Hjern EQUITY IN EDUCATION? Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................... 6 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................ 7 Similarities between countries ............................................................................................................................. 7 Age matters .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Country of origin matters ............................................................................................................................ 8 Differences between countries ............................................................................................................................. 8 Policy Implications ................................................................................................................................................ 8 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 11 1.1 Migration in the Nordic region ..................................................................................................................... 11 1.2 The importance of education for integration .............................................................................................. 12 1.3 Aims and research questions ........................................................................................................................ 14 A note on terminology .......................................................................................................................................... 15 2. Background ................................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Educational outcomes in migrant-origin children ...................................................................................... 16 2.2 Educational systems in the Nordic countries .............................................................................................. 17 2.3 Additional educational determinants among migrant-origin children ..................................................... 20 Migration policy context ............................................................................................................................ 20 Pre-migration contexts and post-migration stressors ............................................................................ 21 Age at migration ......................................................................................................................................... 21 3. Methods........................................................................................................................................................................... 23 3.1 Data and study populations .......................................................................................................................... 23 3.2 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 25 4. Results ............................................................................................................................................................................. 26 Composition of study populations ............................................................................................................ 26 Refugee children and the children of refugee immigrants by country of origin ................................... 27 Year of arrival among refugee children .................................................................................................... 28 4.1 Educational outcomes among migrant-origin children in the Nordic countries ...................................... 29 School performance in compulsory education ........................................................................................ 29 Upper secondary school drop-outs .......................................................................................................... 33 Upper secondary school educational attainment .................................................................................... 34 Academic and vocational upper secondary school educational programs ........................................... 36 Higher educational attainment ................................................................................................................. 39 5. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................................................... 41 4 EQUITY IN EDUCATION? Compulsory school performance in refugees ......................................................................................... 41 Compulsory school performance in the children of refugee- and non-refugee immigrants ............... 42 Upper secondary dropout in refugee students ....................................................................................... 43 Upper secondary dropout in non- refugee students ............................................................................... 44 Upper secondary education attainment .................................................................................................. 45 Academic and vocational upper secondary education programs ......................................................... 45 Higher education attainment .................................................................................................................... 46 Strengths and Limitations ................................................................................................................................... 46 Concluding remarks ............................................................................................................................................ 48 6. References ........................................................................................................................................................ 50 7. Appendix......................................................................................................................................................................... 55 5 EQUITY IN EDUCATION? Acknowledgements This report was written for the Nordic Research Council (NordForsk) project “Coming of Age in Exile” (CAGE). The au- thors would like to thank NordForsk for the opportunity to research this im- portant topic. We are grateful for the comments on the first draft of this report by the members of the Swedish reference group of the CAGE project: Donya Azimi, Sara Thalberg, Åsa Heimer, Daniel Hed- lund, Monica Brendler-Lindqvist, Sofie Bäärnhielm, Magdalena Bjerneld and Ul- rika Jepson Wigg. We are similarly grate- ful to Lisa Berg, Karl Gauffin, and Sol Juárez for their contributions and feed- back on the report. Andrea Dunlavy & Anders Hjern 6 EQUITY IN EDUCATION? Executive Summary Similarities between countries The overall results showed that to vary- This report assesses educational out- ing degrees, the Nordic educational sys- comes among refugee children in the tems have not been as successful in fos- Nordic region. The comparative results tering the educational achievements of presented in this report were derived refugee students as they have been for from joint efforts to harmonize register majority population students. Average data from Denmark, Finland, Norway, grades from compulsory school were and Sweden. The primary study popula- lower