Universidad Complutense de Madrid
e-mail: hpan@ucm.es
The Academic Performance of the Chinese Origin Students in Secondary Education in Spain: they are not just “model minority”.
Academic performance is considered as a predictor of educational attainment that presents performance outcomes and indicates the extent to which an individual has achieved in educational settings (Steinmayr et al., 2014). It is one of the most studied topics regarding the understanding of the possible gap that exists between immigrant and non–immigrant students. PISA results consistently show that in most OECD countries, the first-generation immigrant students perform worse academically than native students, while the second generation’s academic performance is in the middle of first-generation and nonimmigrant students. Such performance gap has been observed in Spain as well – the first-generation of immigrants’ academic performance is worse than that of natives, while the difference between the second-generation and natives is not significant (González-Betancort & López-Puig, 2008; Calero et al., 2009; Cordero et al., 2013).
Regarding the students of Chinese origin in Spain, their academic performance has not been studied as a specific research subject. Nevertheless, given the size of their population in Spain – the third largest among foreign students, it is worthwhile to understand their academic performance, explore the factors that influence it, as well as the difficulties they may encounter, so that solutions can be found in a timely manner and provide them with necessary help. Thus, this study aims to explore the academic performance of the Chinese origin students in the secondary education in Spain, starting from the impact of linguistic competency, change of educational system, as well as intrinsic factors such as self-efficacy and educational aspirations.
Participants of 42 Chinese origin students who were studying in secondary education in Madrid were interviewed. According to the interview analysis, the following results were found: 1) the lack of academic language skills is the key obstacle that affects the academic performance. The language the students of Chinese origin use at home has no influence on their academic performance. 2) the self-efficacy puts effects on these students academic performance through goal setting, understanding of the importance of academic achievement and education, their perception of their parents’ expectation, as well as students’ perception of their teachers’ expectation towards them. 3) poor academic performance can affect students’ decision making about whether to continue the post-secondary education.
Bio:
Hui Pan is a PhD candidate in the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Her study focuses on the educational integration of students of Chinese origin in compulsory education.