The children of immigrants encounter host-society educational systems: Mexicans in the U.S. and North Africans in France

Mexicans in the US and North Africans in France represent the largest immigrant populations in these two countries whose incorporation can be viewed as problematic. This holds not just for the immigrant generation but for the second generation, now quite numerous, as well.

For the children of these immigrants, there is a high degree of commonality in their starting positions and in their outcomes, at least as of the moment when they leave the school system: They are the children of immigrant parents who have themselves very low levels of education, and they enter complex educational systems in economically advanced societies, where labor market position is determined largely by educational credentials and experiences.

This paper attempts to identify the key aspects in the school systems that determine these outcomes and to ascertain the points of similarity and difference between them.

The French system is more explicitly articulated than the U.S. one and contains more branches once the secondary level is reached. The French system also offers a much wider array of credentials, many of which are linked fairly explicitly to labor-market outcomes (this characteristic is quite modern, a product of the social planning of the post-World War II period) (Tanguy, 1991). Access to university education has been quite selective until the recent reform aiming to democratize the system; however, access remains more selective than is true in the U.S.


The Children of Immigrants in Schools