School engagement

Ethnic differences

Asian secondary students were more likely to report that they like school than young people from any other ethnic group.

53.2 percent of Asian secondary students reported that they like school. This compares to 46.9 percent for Pacific students, and 44. 6 percent for Europeans. Just over a third of Māori secondary students said that they like school (34 percent).

Proportion of secondary students who like school “a lot” or “a bit”, by ethnicity, 2001
Ethnic group Proportion (%) who like school
  (95% CI)
New Zealand European 45
  (42-47)
Māori 34
  (30-38)
Pacific 47
  (39, 55)
Asian 53
  (43, 63)
Other 44
  (35, 52)

Source: Youth2000 Survey.

Note: “95%CI” (95 percent confidence interval) signifies that there is a 95 percent chance that the true value falls within this range. If the respective confidence intervals (in brackets) do not overlap, the difference between rates is likely to be statistically significant.

Notes

We encourage you to be cautious about drawing conclusions from comparisons between ethnic groups. Apparent differences (in unadjusted data) between ethnic groups can often be explained by factors other than ethnicity per se, such as the different age, sex, geographical and socioeconomic distributions of different ethnic populations. In addition, datasets vary in the way that they collect and record ethnicity data.