Do immigrants succeed? Evidence from Italy and France based on Pisa 2006

This paper uses data from PISA 2006 on science, mathematics and reading to analyseimmigrant school gaps – negative difference between immigrants’ and natives’ scores - and thestructural features of educational systems in two adjacent countries, Italy and France, with similarmigration inflows and with similar schooling institutions, based on tracking. Our results show thattracking and school specific programs matter; in both countries, the school system upholds aseparation between students with different backgrounds and ethnicities. Residential segregation ordiscrimination seem also to be at work, especially in France. Given the existing school model, ateaching support in mathematics and science in France and in reading in Italy would help immigrantstudents to converge to natives’ standards