PISA Under Examination: Petra Stanat's Keynote Speech

Petra Stanat gave a keynote speech entitled, "Conditions of Immigrant Students' Educational Success -- Evidence from PISA."

The notes from the speech:

Preliminary remarks on PISA:

• neither all good nor all bad
• has strengths and limitations
• can answer some questions but is silent on others
• one piece of the puzzle of evidence-based educational policy and practice
• strengths and limitations regarding immigrant students

Starting points:

• issue of immigrants
• schools a central role in integration
• immigrant students lag behind others
• potential of PISA: How successful are immigrant students in school? What determines their achievement?
• limitations of PISA: What can be done to improve the situation?

Immigrants in Germany:

• temporary immigrants post-World War II: "guest workers," asylum, refugees -- expected to return home
• ethnic Germans from USSR and Eastern Europe: granted citizenship
• no good data on immigration of that time
• 2000: accepted that Germany is a country of immigrants
• PISA: 22% of students have an immigrant background, e.g. Turkey, Eastern Europe, other (52%)

How successful are immigrants in school?

• immigrants not as academically successful: vocational school 44% non-German, Gymnasium 14% non-German
• tracking patterns? Does it discriminate against immigrants? Differences in achievement -- specifically with German language skills
• determinants of educational success of immigrants: national/societal level, system level, school type - which track?, community level, school level, classroom level, teacher level, student and family level
  

What determines immigrant students' success?

• do students who live and learn in segregated settings achieve less than those in an integrated environment? More influence from students of lower socio-economic status, except Turkish students, especially in schools with over 40% Turkish students
• reading literacy effects (immigration) biggest influence of another language at home. First vs. Second generation -- improvement in all groups except for students of Turkish or Italian background

What can be done to improve immigrant student achievement?

• bilingual support: immersion vs. transitional programs. Explicit approach: summer camp settings, focus on form, grammar lessons. Implicit approach: drama lessons. The explicit group performed better, but not in a statistically significant manner.

Conclusions

• studies like PISA provide important comparative information on the situation of immigrant students
• data like this can help identify determinants of success at this level
• immigrants need targeted second-language support
• interventions should be clearly defined and start early
• more research is needed