Rethinking the “Asian advantage”: socioeconomic rather than ethnic school composition affects HSC mathematics outcomes in New South Wales

Debates about the so-called “Asian educational advantage” require clarity on how the ethnic and socioeconomic makeup of schools affects student achievement. Using administrative data from the 2017 Higher School Certificate (HSC) cohort in New South Wales, two-level regression models differentiate between the effects of students’ personal backgrounds and those of the schools they attend. Indicators of ethnicity include the languages spoken at home by students and their parents, as well as students’ country of birth. The analysis demonstrates that students in schools with higher proportions of East-Asia-born peers tend to perform better in advanced HSC mathematics courses. However, this apparent ethnic advantage vanishes in schools with student populations of similar socioeconomic profiles. The findings illustrate that schools’ more advantaged socioeconomic compositions explain the higher performance often attributed to ethnically “Asian” schools. Potential implications of confounding school ethnic and socioeconomic profiles are discussed.