Comparing apples with apples? How ethnolinguistic and immigration status differentiates university admissions in Toronto and Sydney

Abstract

Historically, a scarcity of comprehensive longitudinal microdata has affected comparative research on the interplay between self-identified race, immigrant status, and educational attainment. Thus, this study utilizes ethnic capital theory and harmonized data from Toronto, Canada, and Sydney, Australia, to scrutinize the success of ethnolinguistically diverse immigrants in accessing university education. While students from certain East Asian countries enter universities at higher rates in both cities, dissecting the intricacies of ethnic capital's operation proves challenging. Notably, first- and second-generation migrants who speak Chinese, Japanese, or Korean outdo their peers in university admissions by a larger margin in Toronto than in Sydney. However, the shortcomings of the administrative data in Toronto and the survey data in Sydney limit how we can interpret this finding. We postulate expanding existing data collections to enable insightful research on how the educational trajectories of Canadian students compare to those elsewhere with respect to immigration experiences, race, and ethnicity.