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England's strong performance of immigrant children in PISA

Christian Dustmann and Stephen Machin


England's strong performance at the latest PISA results has been widely put down to recent reforms. But that explanation ignores a striking finding: children from immigrant backgrounds outperformed their native-background peers. Christian Dustmann and Stephen Machin look into what led to this result.


29 September 2026


LSE British Politics


https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/englands-strong-performance-of-immigrant-children-in-pisa/

This Blog is published under the centre's Education programme.

This publication comes under the following theme: Determinants of school performance: Resources, pedagogy, workforce and peers, School performance: Institutional environment, Inequality and social mobility