For many migrant families, education represents the key to a better future for their children. Yet, in many Western countries, children of migrants often start school with a learning disadvantage compared to their native-born peers. While schools are expected to foster integration and equal opportunities, do they actually help close these learning gaps—or do they widen them?
Giampiero Passaretta from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Jan Skopek from Trinity College Dublin analyzed this question by focusing on the impact of first-grade schooling on learning differences between native-born children and second-generation migrants in Germany. Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), they assessed the effect of schooling on children from different backgrounds, including those from Western countries, the former Soviet Union (FSU), and non-Western countries (such as Turkey).
Instead of simply tracking students’ progress over the school year—shaped by both school and non-school factors—the study applied a Differential Exposure Approach (DEA). This method isolates the effect of school exposure by comparing children who have spent different amounts of time in school but are the same age at the time of testing. By focusing only on learning that occurs because of school exposure, the researchers could determine whether schooling helps close or widen migrant-native learning gaps.
The findings challenge the idea that schools function as engines of integration in two key ways. First, no migrant group benefited more from schooling than native-born children, meaning school exposure did not reduce migrant-native learning gaps. Second, among migrant groups, those who started with the greatest disadvantage—children from non-Western backgrounds—benefited the least, while those from FSU backgrounds gained the most. This means that schooling not only failed to close the gaps with natives but also deepened disparities between migrant groups.
These results raise important questions about how schools serve children from diverse backgrounds. If children from non-Western migrant families—who often face the greatest disadvantages at home—gain the least from schooling, the education system may not be providing the support they need to catch up. This issue is especially pressing in Germany, where schools are seeing an increasing number of migrant children, including refugees from conflicts such as the war in Ukraine.
A previous study by the same authors found that German schools did not reduce learning gaps by socioeconomic background either. Their latest findings suggest a similar pattern for migrant-native disparities—schools may not be helping disadvantaged groups catch up. Education is often seen as a great equalizer, but these results suggest that without targeted support, schools may fail to fulfill that role. If policymakers want education to drive integration and opportunity, they must rethink how schools support the students who need it most.