Abstract

The increase in migration in Chile has posed significant challenges to its education system, especially for basic education. These new students face difficulties and situations of exclusion that can affect their success or failure in the system, reflected in their academic performance. The objective of this paper was to characterize the academic performance in mathematics of immigrant students based on their immigration status and their sociodemographic, psychosocial, and family characteristics. For this, a quantitative methodology was used that considered all 8th grade students in the Metropolitan Region (Chile) who took the SIMCE national test (System for the Measurement of the Quality of Education) during 2017. An analysis was carried out a descriptive and bivariate level using contingency tables and comparison of means. The results show a new migratory status of the students, referred to here as the “new generation”, made up of boys, girls and adolescents born in another country, with both Chilean parents or with a Chilean mother and a foreign father. This new generation is characterized, among other aspects, by obtaining the highest performance in mathematics, belonging to a high socioeconomic level, and attending private establishments. The relationship between migrant status and performance is significant, with differences in mathematics performance of migrant students based on their immigration status and their sociodemographic, psychosocial, and family characteristics.