Mediating Inequality: Educational Performance, Choice and Incorporation

Christopher Smith, Lund University
Kirk A. Scott, Lund University
Jonas Helgertz, Lund University

This project asks if school performance of second generation immigrants in Sweden is influenced by family incorporation experiences. The project uses data from the Swedish Interdisciplinary Panel (SIP), which provides immigration and demographic information on the entire Swedish population born between 1973-1993. The SIP is combined with the Swedish Multigenerational Register, allowing us to link family members. Focusing on performance at the time of the transition from primary to upper-secondary school at age 16, we conduct regression analyses on measures of school performance, namely average grades and passing the minimum number of classes to enroll in an upper-secondary school program, controlling for country of origin and family incorporation experiences. Using parent identifiers, the same models are reanalyzed using family fixed-effects, providing a way at controlling for the role of genetic variation while highlighting the effects of incorporation on education performance and choice among second generation immigrants