Does the language spoken at home matter for the education, wellbeing, and sense of belonging of the children of immigrants?

Abstract

Educational disadvantages of children of immigrants have been linked to speaking a language other than that of school instruction at home. Yet both theory and previous research suggests that the continued use of the language of (parental) origin can be beneficial for children of immigrants. We used data from a subset of countries in the 2018 Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) and analysed reading test scores, educational expectations, sense of belonging at school, and subjective wellbeing, paying attention to appropriate measurement of language use. Our results suggest that the language used at home is not systematically associated with subjective wellbeing or educational expectations. In a few countries, switching the home language to that of the destination country is associated with an increased sense of belonging and higher reading scores. We discuss these results with reference to ethnic boundary making and responding to the needs of linguistically diverse students.

Keywords: language spoken at home; children of immigrants; learning outcomes; belonging