The educational progress of Mainland Chinese immigrant students in Hong Kong

Abstract

Immigrant children's educational assimilation has been a concern to policymakers in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has received continuous immigration from Mainland China. This chapter examines the academic progress of Mainland Chinese immigrant students in Hong Kong's junior secondary schools from Form 1 (7th grade) to Form 3 (9th grade). Our database is the Medium of Instruction Longitudinal Survey (MOILS) that tracks a cohort of junior secondary students in 1999–2000 from a representative sample of all Hong Kong secondary schools. We find that Mainland students start out in Form 1 at a higher level of achievement than do native Hong Kong students in all academic subjects except the English language. They attain greater subsequent achievement gains than do native students in most subjects. Even though they do not catch up with native students in the English language, they narrow the nativity gap over time. Mainland students’ high performance cannot be explained by their low socioeconomic backgrounds, or the poor- and low-achieving schools they attend. School type and age moderate the nativity-achievement relationship. Schools with low-ability students are more effective than are schools with higher-ability students in promoting Mainland students’ achievement. Older Mainland students show greater academic progress than do younger students regardless of nativity. The implications of these Hong Kong results for the United States and international studies on immigrant children's academic assimilation are discussed.

Citation

Pong, S.-l. and Kwong Tsang, W. (2010), "The educational progress of Mainland Chinese immigrant students in Hong Kong", Hannum, E., Park, H. and Goto Butler, Y. (Ed.) Globalization, Changing Demographics, and Educational Challenges in East Asia (Research in the Sociology of Education, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 201-230. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3539(2010)0000017010