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Immigrants in the Educational System in Spain: Who Persists?

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Abstract

Educational attainment in one’s youth generally leads to a more successful transition to adulthood. However, the number of years that youth spend in the educational system is affected by personal characteristics and social context. For immigrants who arrive in a country as children, one of these variables is national or geographical origin, which influences the type of adjustment challenges they must face. Receiving countries must make a major effort to integrate this student population into their educational systems, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that equal opportunities are available to all. The present study analyses the educational trajectory of young people (aged 15–34) in Catalonia (Northeast Spain) and the relationship between the desired and actual level of education attained. Kaplan–Meier and Cox models (survival analysis) were fitted to assess the influence of different variables in explaining the time spent in the education system. After controlling for personal, parental and contextual factors, we found that Moroccan youth have a higher risk of abandoning their studies, and therefore attain a lower educational level. However, Latin-American populations are more likely to feel dissatisfied with the level achieved.

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Notes

  1. Although we consider this expression to be incorrect in the sense that the immigrants’ descendants are not immigrants, by definition, we adopt it here because it is widely used in the literature on migrations.

  2. European Commission (2015), Youth Unemployment, http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/themes/21_youth_unemployment.pdf. Accessed 16 April 2015.

  3. The same author also questions the negative connotations of the concept and the association attributed to their age, proposing more precise indicators.

  4. Percentage of the population aged 18–24 with at most a lower secondary education and not in further education or training. Source: Eurostat, Basic figures on the EU (Summer 2013 edition).

  5. Data from the Department of Education, Generalitat de Catalunya.

  6. Enquesta a la Joventut de Catalunya de 2012 (EJ12) (http://benestar.gencat.cat/ca/ambits_tematics/joventut/observatori_catala_de_la_joventut/).

  7. Padrón Continuo de Habitantes (www.ine.es).

  8. This is the mandatory secondary education (Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria, ESO), normally completed by 16 years old.

  9. In the sample, 96.6 % of the young people born in the Maghreb, were born in Morocco.

  10. It has to be pointed out that the lack of significance observed for other African origins could be a consequence of the considerably smaller simple size of this category. Future research should focus more extensively on youth from other origins (also Asian countries) to be able to confirm the worst position already observed for Maghrebians.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Secretaria per a la Joventut, of the Generalitat de Catalunya, for providing us with the microdata file for the analysis and all the information needed about the survey. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments, which have improved the preliminary version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Derecho del Estado y Sociología, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Málaga, Campus de El Ejido, 6, 29071, Málaga, Spain

    Verónica de Miguel-Luken

  2. Departament de Geografia, Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Miguel Solana-Solana

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  1. Verónica de Miguel-Luken
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  2. Miguel Solana-Solana
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Correspondence to Verónica de Miguel-Luken.

Additional information

This work is part of the following research project ‘Geographic mobility and housing: Spain in an international perspective’ (CSO2013-45358-R) and ‘Family challenges at the beginning of the XXIst century: the impact of family individualization on culture, fertility and social welfare’ (CSO2013-46440-P), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

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de Miguel-Luken, V., Solana-Solana, M. Immigrants in the Educational System in Spain: Who Persists?. Soc Indic Res 132, 733–755 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1323-4

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