Migration background

opportunity of school choice needs to be further investigated and can be achieved by registry-based educational research.

The Swedish Education Act stipulates that preschool is equivalent when all children are offered a preschool experience of high quality. The Swedish Research Council217 has noted that the concept of equivalence does not mean ‘the same preschool for all’; instead it should be based on an analysis of how children from different backgrounds can achieve their potential in the preschool.

The report included 58 Swedish, Scandinavian, and international studies from the ERIC, ERC, and NB-ECEC databases. The studies were categorised by content into four main areas, and indicators of equivalence were designed and reported in matrices. The importance of preschool for children’s learning and development in the short and long term has been verified in several studies. It has been particularly emphasised in international research that preschool of high quality is especially important for children in deprived living areas, for vulnerable children, and children from minority groups. The conditions surrounding the pedagogical relationships may support or hinder a high quality of the pedagogical relations. The presentation of the conditions has been structured in three main areas for preschool equivalency: 1. Preschool staff education and competence; 2. Preschool staff working conditions –staff–child ratio, group sizes, salary, planning time and space; and 3. Access to preschool. Preschools have a greater opportunity to promote social equality for all children if they are set out in the wider social and societal context.

Question: Are there differences in school achievement between children living in families with and without migration background?

Table 8 provides data from PISA 2018 on equity related to immigrant background. Yes, there are inequalities here. Sweden had the highest prevalence of children with immigrant background, followed by Norway and Denmark. These figures are an underestimation, as newly arrived immigrants are excluded from the PISA study. The prevalence of immigrant background among socioeconomically disadvantaged students was much higher in all Nordic countries. Moreover, the difference in reading performance between nonimmigrant and immigrant students was large in all countries and

217 VR. (2015). En likvärdig förskola för alla barn – Innebörder och indikatorer [An equal pre-school for all –

Meanings and indicators]. Stockholm: Swedish Research Council. https://www.vr.se/download/18.2412c5311624176023d25a76/1555422970243/En-likvaerdigfoerskola_VR_2015.pdf