Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

Educational Pathways and Academic Performance of Youth of Immigrant Origin: Comparing Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver

May 2009

This new report jointly funded by CCL and Citizenship and Immigration Canada examines and compares the educational pathways and the academic performance of immigrant students attending high schools in Canada’s three major immigrant destinations, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, who do not speak the majority language of the school at home (e.g., non-French speakers in French-language Montreal schools and non-English speakers in English-language Toronto and Vancouver schools).

The cohorts (groups of students) entered high school in 1999 in Montreal and Vancouver, and in 2000 in Toronto. All were expected to graduate in 2004. The target group consists of non-French speaking students in French-language Montreal schools and non-English speaking students in English-language Toronto and Vancouver schools (also the ‘ESL’ or English-Second-Language group). The comparison group consists of French-speaking students in French-language Montreal schools and English-speaking students in English-language Toronto and Vancouver schools.

Highlights of Findings

1. Students who do not speak the majority language of the school at home (e.g., non-French speakers in French-language Montreal schools and non-English speakers in English-language Toronto and Vancouver schools), whether defined by language used at home or place of birth, clearly exhibit less positive features than the comparison group (e.g., French speakers in French-language Montreal schools and English speakers in English-language Toronto and Vancouver schools) in terms of their socio-demographic profiles, the schooling processes they went through, and the characteristics of the schools they attended.
   
   
2. Considering the risk factors listed above, educational outcomes of non-French speaking students in Montreal and non-English speaking students in Toronto and Vancouver) are better than expected. In some sites, graduation rates, performance in various subjects, and participation in selective or university-bound courses are slightly higher in the target group than in the comparison group.
   
   
3. Nevertheless, this overall positive result masks major differences between groups, whether linguistic or region of birth subgroups. In the specific case of linguistic subgroups, a rather-consistent hierarchy across sites emerges with, on the one hand, the highly-achieving Chinese speakers and on the other hand, Spanish and Creole speakers.
   
   
4. Some interesting and largely unexplained differences were also found between the same groups in different cities (for example, Vietnamese speakers in Montreal and Vancouver), between the three cities, both for the target and comparison groups (Montreal exhibiting a clearly more negative profile than the two other cities), as well as between schools with similar intake of target group students.
   
   
5. Although not as strong as the fact of belonging to a specific linguistic subgroup, the impact of gender, of various schooling process variables, as well as of attendance of a private school (in the two sites where it was available), was as expected, especially regarding graduation. Boys entering a public high school one year or several years late, who changed schools often, and who still needed ESL or linguistic support are clearly at a disadvantage.
   
   
6. Other variables did not show the expected impact, whether based on the literature or public perception. Socio-economic factors (e.g., median family income, attendance of a school identified as educationally challenged) were most often non-significant in the three sites, which would tend to confirm that cultural capital among immigrant families is less linked to their actual socio-economic position than for the general population.