Dr. Özge Bilgili, Theme Leader for Integration, Social Cohesion and Transnationalism Research, has been selected for the OECD’s Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship for 2017.
During the project period at the Directorate for Education and Skills in Paris, she will focus on migrant children’s educational achievement and socio-cultural integration.
Specifically, she will examine the questions of migration by comparing first and second generation immigrant students with their non-immigrant peers in the PISA 2015 database, identifying effective policies and comparing education systems.
Fellowship in detail
The increasing share of children within the current migration flows induced mainly by conflict has led to the revival of discussions regarding the integration of foreign-born children in their new homes. Considering the likelihood of these young migrants to settle permanently in destination countries, it is indispensable to revisit the various policy perspectives on their educational achievement and long-term socio-cultural integration.
There is a lack of internationally comparable quantitative research that takes into consideration migrant students’ educational achievement simultaneously with their acculturation, feelings of belonging, and attitude towards school. In this research, the objective is to fill this gap in the literature and develop a multi-dimensional approach to assess the well-being of children with a migration background. Such an analysis can provide nuanced evidence on foreign-born children’s integration and inform the education policies that seek to respond immediately to the urgent needs of the new arrivals. By applying a holistic understanding of integration, education policies can go beyond targeting solely skills performance and have a wider impact on students’ life to help them integrate socio-culturally in the long run.
In this project, based on the PISA 2015 database and cross-classified multi-level analysis, Dr Bilgili will compare first and second generation immigrant students with their non-immigrant peers. The core analytical part of the research will focus on a) migration related factors (age at migration, host country and heritage language use); b) schooling experiences (pre-school attendance, gap period); and c) language and teaching support use, while controlling for background characteristics and embedding students in schools and their origin and destination countries.
In the second part of the research, building upon the challenges with regards to immigrant students’ integration, Dr. Bilgili will conduct an in-depth analysis of current targeted policies and programmes at local and national levels in destination countries with increased first and/or second generation immigrants, diverse migration histories and policy approaches (e.g., Canada, Spain, Germany). She will then discuss the most effective ways in which education systems can support the multi-dimensional integration of students with a migration background.
See the OECD news item for more details.