Does Prior Achievement Matter? Early Tracking and Immigrant Children in Europe.

Educational tracking is one of the institutional barriers to more equitable societies. Students with a modest social origin and/or an immigration background are underrepresented in the academic programs of secondary schools that would make them eligible later to access tertiary education. Literature on whether track placement reflects a student's aptitude remains largely scarce. We aim to contribute to this research strand and analyze the role of achievement prior to tracking on the odds of placement in an academic program among immigrant students and native peers with a similar level of academic ability. While the overall results suggest no disadvantage among immigrant students, the results by ethnicity and geographic region of origin reveal a large ethnic penalty for those of African, Turkish, Middle Eastern, or South European background. Our paper highlights the pertinence of students' origin on educational trajectories and the persisting bias in tracking policy in European school systems.