The Influence of indigenous and New Immigrant Student Composition on School Learning Achievements

• Main Authors: Chih-Hsiang Hu, 胡志翔
• Other Authors: Chunn-Ying Lin
• Format: Others
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/78sv78

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 教育與潛能開發學系 === 105 === Abstract Studies in the United States found that in schools where the majority of students are of African American ethnicity, parents generally hold low educational expectation towards their kids, students themselves also have low self-expectation about learning, and the learning climate is poor, which all leads to a low academic achievement among students. In Taiwan, it’s pretty common that students with ethnic minority backgrounds, including indigenous peoples and new immigrants, mostly live in non-metropolitan areas and go to rural and remote schools. Once the percentage of ethnic minority students in schools is greater, will the learning climate become poorer and will it result in overall lower academic achievements among students, as it is similarly shown in American schools with African American students as the majority? Or instead, in schools with higher ethnic minority student numbers, students would be still determined to learn, and it is due to the lack of educational resources that they have poorer academic achievements; and a poorer learning climate in schools is not necessarily the contributing culprit for poor achievements. While the abovementioned research question is important and worth investigating, there are no pertinent studies aiming to answer this question. Based on this research background, the purpose of this research aims to investigate the aforementioned research question by adopting the large sample survey data of elementary school students. The research result shows that if more ethnic minority students are staying in the same schools, and students have lower family socioeconomic status and fewer educational resources in the family and in schools, the overall academic achievements among students are in turn lower. The main reason why school students have lower academic achievements is the high percentage of ethnic minority students with poor family socioeconomic status and fewer educational resources. Although learning climate and educational expectation both are contributing factors for academic achievements, schools with a high ethnic minority student percentage are not necessarily all having an unfavorable learning climate. This research shows that the major factor that influences academic achievements is still the impact brought about by the family socioeconomic status.