Adaptation and Inequality: Children of Immigrants in Canadian Schools

Abstract

Children of immigrant parents have comparable test scores in reading and mathematics to those of the children of the Canadian born. Children of immigrant parents whose mother tongue is neither English nor French have low performance in vocabulary before age six but performance in mathematics and reading that is comparable to that of the children of Canadian-born parents by age fourteen. The 10th percentile of the vocabulary distribution is lower for children of immigrant parents whose mother tongue is neither English nor French than for children of Canadian-born parents. However, this difference is not present in reading and mathematics test scores.

JEL Classification: J150, I210