Ethnicity, schooling, and merit in the Netherlands

We examine to what extent ethnicity affects academic ability measured in the first year of secondary school and secondary school type in the Netherlands. We focus on second-generation immigrants. The empirical results indicate that academic ability (both in mathematics and language) is not affected by ethnicity, independent of parents' occupation, education, and resources. On a bi-variate level, children of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands are found relatively often in lower tracks in secondary school. This relationship is fully driven by social class and merit, operationaliz... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Werfhorst, Herman G. van de
Tubergen, Frank van
Dokumenttyp: journal article
Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
Schlagwörter: Sociology & anthropology / Social sciences / sociology / anthropology / Primary education (elementary education) / Sozialwissenschaften / Soziologie / Primar- und Elementarbildung / Anthropologie / education / ethnic minorities / meritocracy / social class / Migration / Sociology of Migration / Primary Education Sector / Sociology of Education / Bildungs- und Erziehungssoziologie / Bildungswesen Primarbereich
Sprache: unknown
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29185050
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/23057

We examine to what extent ethnicity affects academic ability measured in the first year of secondary school and secondary school type in the Netherlands. We focus on second-generation immigrants. The empirical results indicate that academic ability (both in mathematics and language) is not affected by ethnicity, independent of parents' occupation, education, and resources. On a bi-variate level, children of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands are found relatively often in lower tracks in secondary school. This relationship is fully driven by social class and merit, operationalized as including ability and effort. Moreover, children of Turkish, Surinamese and Antillean migrants are, relative to Dutch children from similar backgrounds and merit, more often found in higher tracks in secondary school. However, given the very skewed distribution of educational attainment of immigrants, it is questionable whether `class versus ethnicity models' can accurately compare achievements of native and immigrant children in the Netherlands.