Lost in Translation: Reading Performance and Math Performance of Second-Generation Immigrant Children in Italy

This paper explores the effect of language proficiency on Math achievement for ten-year-old second-generation immigrant children in Italian primary schools. Using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the heterogeneity in birthdates and the variation in linguistic distances, we find that these children face a trade-off between learning Italian and learning Math. As suggested by the linguistics literature, we provide evidence that this result arises from the existence of a proficiency threshold that must be crossed to understand the classes. We confirm that the trade-off arises when proficiency is below the threshold commonly adopted to indicate a sufficient command of the Italian language. We also introduce an intuitive model of the learning process that provides theoretical foundations for our results and a unified framework for interpreting the mixed findings in the literature. Finally, we point out that, when a threshold must be crossed, marginal improvements are ineffective, rendering the proficiency gap permanent and fostering social exclusion and inequality.