Do migrant-native achievement gaps narrow? Evidence over the school career

The integration of foreign origin students in host countries' educational systems has mostly been studied based on cross-sectional data. In contrast, I use data from a national longitudinal education study to calculate achievement gaps in vocabulary, reading and math tests for foreign origin relative to native students over the school career in Germany for the years 2010 to 2018. In line with previous research, the raw gaps are substantial and can be explained to one to two thirds by school characteristics and the socio-economic background of the child. Taking a longitudinal perspective reveals that both raw and conditional gaps slightly decrease over several parts of the school career. However, the unexplained part of the decomposed gaps tends to increase as children grow older. The findings demonstrate that initial disadvantages of foreign origin students reduce rather than accumulate, but partly prevail until the end of school.