Students with an immigrant background in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area: Evidence at the municipal, school, and class levels

Abstract

This paper focuses on the territorial distribution of students, in Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), with an immigrant background enrolling in the 3rd cycle of basic education in Portugal and on the differences in the academic performance of students attending the last year of this cycle, considering their birthplace. Differences are examined by estimating several linear regression models using as dependent variable two performance indicators – students’ results in the 9th grade national exams in the Maths and Portuguese Language subjects; and a binary indicator of a successful academic record during the 3rd cycle. The results confirm significant differences in the students’ school performance depending on their birthplace: students from Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) have the most significant differences compared to students from Portugal. A substantial part of these differences is already present at the end of the 2nd cycle, and subsist when accounting for students’ socioeconomic characteristics. Our results show that a considerable part of the differences is explained by factors inherent to the school and the class, and not so much to the municipality, which might reveals the existence of some types of segregation experienced by these students, either at intra-municipal