Immigrant concentration in schools: Consequences for native and migrant students

•Effect of the share of students with a migration background in school on educational outcomes•Variation between cohorts within schools•Outcomes: grade repetition and track attendance•Migrant students negatively affected•Native students not affected

In this paper, I study the impact of immigrant concentration in primary schools on educational outcomes of native and migrant students in a major Austrian city between 1980 and 2001. The outcome measures of interest are grade repetition in primary and secondary schools and track attendance after primary education. Using the variation in the fraction of migrant students among cohorts within schools, the analysis shows that native students are not affected by the share of migrant students. For students with a migration background, adverse effects are found for grade repetition and high track attendance. The higher the share of migrant peers is, the more likely migrant students repeat a grade and the less likely they attend high track schools. The negative spill-over effects for grade repetition are particularly strong between students from the same area of origin.