The educational attainment of the second generation in Germany : social origins and ethnic inequality

"With the German Microcensus we study the second generation's educational attainment in Germany focusing on the descendants of classic labour migrants. Our results show that educational outcomes in terms of attending or completing the highest schooling track leading to the Abitur considerably vary among different ethnic groups. Second generation young adults, in particular Turks and Italians, experience pronounced disadvantages in comparison to their German peers. The central question in this context is to what extent ethnic stratification in the German school system is related to educational and social background. Our findings suggest that ethnic disadvantages primarily result from social rather than from specific ethnic inequalities, since initial differences in the chances of attaining the Abitur disappear after considering educational and social origin, the only exception being Italian young adults." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))ausländische Kinder, zweite Generation, Schulleistung, Schulabschluss, soziale Herkunft - Auswirkungen, Bildungsniveau, ausländische Jugendliche, Abitur - Quote, ethnische Gruppe - Auswirkungen, Mikrozensus, Bildungschancengleichheit, Türke, Italiener, Benachteiligung, benachteiligte Jugendliche, Minderheiten, Jugoslawe, Grieche, Spanier, Portugiese, Einwanderer, geschlechtsspezifische Faktoren, Westdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

The educational attainment of the second generation in Germany

A B S T R AC T Using the German Microcensus, we study second-generation immigrants' educational attainment in Germany, focusing on the descendants of classic labour migrants. Our results show that educational outcomes in terms of attending or completing the highest schooling track leading to the Abitur vary considerably among different ethnic groups. Second-generation young adults, in particular Turks and Italians, experience pronounced disadvantages in comparison to their German peers. The central question in this context is to what extent ethnic stratification in the German school system is related to educational and social background. Our findings suggest that ethnic disadvantages primarily result from social rather than from specific ethnic inequalities, since initial differences in the chances of attaining the Abitur disappear after considering educational and social origin, the only exception being Italian young adults

The educational attainment of the second generation in Germany: social origins and ethnic inequality

Anhand von Daten aus dem deutschen Mikrozensus werden die Schulleistungen der zweiten Generation von Einwanderern in Deutschland untersucht. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf den Nachkommen der klassischen Gastarbeiter. Die Ergebnisse belegten, dass es beim Erreichen des höchsten Schulabschlusses, dem Abitur, große ethnische Differenzen gibt. Ausländische Jugendliche der zweiten Generation, vor allem Türken und Italiener, sind gegenüber gleichaltrigen Deutschen stark benachteiligt. Hieraus ergibt sich die zentrale Frage, inwieweit diese Unterschiede auf die soziale Herkunft zurückzuführen sind. Die Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, das ethnische Benachteiligungen in erster Linie auf soziale Ursachen, und nicht auf ethnische Ungleichheiten zurückzuführen sind. Eine Ausnahme bilden italienische Jugendliche. (IAB)"With the German Microcensus we study the second generation’s educational attainment in Germany focusing on the descendants of classic labour migrants. Our results show that educational outcomes in terms of attending or completing the highest schooling track leading to the Abitur considerably vary among different ethnic groups. Second generation young adults, in particular Turks and Italians, experience pronounced disadvantages in comparison to their German peers. The central question in this context is to what extent ethnic stratification in the German school system is related to educational and social background. Our findings suggest that ethnic disadvantages primarily result from social rather than from specific ethnic inequalities, since initial differences in the chances of attaining the Abitur disappear after considering educational and social origin, the only exception being Italian young adults." [author's abstract

Herkunftssprache als Ressource für den Schulerfolg? Das Beispiel türkischer Grundschulkinder

Der Beitrag ... geht der Frage nach, welche Rolle die Herkunftssprache für die strukturelle Integration von Kindern und Jugendlichen aus Zuwandererfamilien spielt. Im Zentrum steht die kontrovers diskutierte These, Bilingualität würde die schulischen Leistungen von Heranwachsenden positiv beeinflussen. Die Annahme, dass ein solcher Effekt bestehen könnte, wird aus kognitiven und kulturellen Perspektiven auf unterschiedliche Weise begründet. Anhand von Analysen einer Primärdatenerhebung in einer Stichprobe von Grundschulkindern türkischer Herkunft (n = 766), die eine Erfassung des Sprachstands in der Familien- und der Verkehrssprache anhand von C-Tests beinhaltete, wird gezeigt, dass mit einer besseren Kenntnis des Türkischen keine zusätzlichen - über die Deutschkenntnisse hinausgehenden - Vorteile für die Leistungen in unterschiedlichen Kompetenzbereichen verbunden sind. (DIPF/Orig.

Staatsbürgerschaft oder Migrationshintergrund? Ein Vergleich unterschiedlicher Operationalisierungsweisen am Beispiel der Bildungsbeteiligung

Bislang konnten die Folgen unterschiedlicher Operationalisierungen des Migrationshintergrunds im deutschen Kontext kaum abgeschätzt werden. Mit dem Mikrozensus 2005 eröffnet sich nun die Gelegenheit einer solchen Gegenüberstellung. Sie steht im Zentrum des Beitrags. Betrachtet werden unterschiedliche Strategien der Operationalisierung der Herkunft und des Generationenstatus. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass je nach Umsetzung abweichende Anteile von Personen mit Migrationshintergrund an der Gesamtbevölkerung identifiziert werden, wobei die Verzerrungen die jüngeren Altersgruppen in stärkerem Maße betreffen. Zudem ergeben sich für die einzelnen Herkunftsgruppen unterschiedliche Muster in der generationalen Zusammensetzung. In den multivariaten Analysen zur Bildungsbeteiligung lassen sich ebenfalls Unterschiede in den Befunden nachweisen. Hervorzuheben ist zum einen die gesonderte Identifizierung der Spätaussiedler, die zu veränderten Aussagen über das Abschneiden der russisch- und polnischstämmigen Befragten führt. Zum anderen erweist sich die Verknüpfung mit dem Generationenstatus als bedeutsam, weil sich hierüber die unterschiedlichen Bildungsmuster der ersten und zweiten Generation aufdecken lassen. Unberührt von der Art der Operationalisierung bleibt dagegen die Gültigkeit einer der Kernaussagen der bisherigen Forschung, wonach die bestehenden Bildungsdisparitäten zwischen der Bevölkerung mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund über die Berücksichtigung sozialer Herkunftsmerkmale aufgeklärt werden können und sich für bestimmte Gruppen in Vorteile umkehren.To date, it has been difficult to gauge and compare the effects of different operationalizations of immigrant origins in the German context. The 2005 microcensus provides an unprecedented opportunity to address this issue. In this paper, we first take a look at the typical operationalization of immigrant origins and generation status. Subsequently, we show that differing proportions of the total population can be identified as immigrants and their descendants depending on the operationalization used, whereby the greatest discrepancies are found in the younger age groups. Divergent findings also emerge when information on group membership is combined with information on generation status. Similar effects of different types of operationalization can be identified in multivariate analyses of educational attainment. Once ethnic German repatriates from Central and Eastern Europe (the so-called Spätaussiedler) are identified separately in the records, we observe changes in the findings for the remaining respondents from Russia and Poland. Generation status turns out to be important as well, since it reveals the contrasting educational patterns of the first and second generation. At the same time, one of the key messages of previous research is not affected by different types of operationalization: when considering characteristics of social background immigrants’ educational disadvantages disappear and sometimes initial disadvantages even turn into benefits

Non-native Accents among School Beginners and Teacher Expectations for Future Student Achievements

Based on sociological, economic, and social-psychological theories of discrimination and bias, this study addresses non-native accents among ethnic minority students as they begin school and explores effects of such accents on their teachers’ achievement expectations. Using a unique data set of first graders in Germany, the analysis reveals that a non-native accent is relevant to teachers’ expectations net of student skills, abilities, and other background variables. Associations are stronger in the language domain than in mathematics, indicating that teachers perceive accent-free speech as a language-learning requirement. However, residual influences of non-native accents on teacher expectations also exist in the math domain and persist even after prolonged periods of teacher-student interaction. Mechanisms of statistical discrimination and stereotype-based discrimination can partially explain these effects. However, the overall pattern of results suggests a stigmatization of non-native accents, potentially resulting from the activation of negative associations related to foreignness and disfluency.Peer Reviewe

Why We Should Care About Regional Origins: Educational Selectivity Among Refugees and Labor Migrants in Western Europe

Immigrant selectivity describes the notion that migrants are not a random sample of the population at origin, but differ in certain traits such as educational attainment from individuals who stay behind. In this article, we move away from group-level descriptions of educational selectivity and measure it as an individual's relative position in the age- and gender-specific educational distribution of the country of origin. We describe the extent of educational selectivity for a selection of Western European destinations as well as a selection of origin groups ranging from recent refugee to labor migrant populations. By contrasting refugees to labor migrants, we address longstanding assumptions about typical differences in the degree of selectivity between different types of immigrants. According to our findings, there are few and only minor differences between refugee and labor migrants. However, these differences vary; and there are labor migrant groups that score similar or lower on selectivity than do the refugees covered in this study. Selectivity differences between refugees and labor migrants therefore seem less prominent than arguments in the literature suggest. Another key finding is that every origin group is composed of varying proportions of positively and negatively selected individuals. In most cases, the origin groups cover the whole spectrum of selectivity, so that characterizing them as either predominantly positively or negatively selected does not seem adequate. Furthermore, we show that using country-level educational distributions as opposed to sub-national regional-level distributions can lead to inaccurate measurements of educational selectivity. This problem does not occur universally, but only under certain conditions. That is, when high levels of outmigration from sub-national regions in which economic opportunities are considerably above or below the country average, measurement inaccuracy exceeds ignorable levels. In instances where researchers are not able to use sub-national regional measures, we provide them with practical guidance in the form of pre-trained machine-learning tools to assess the direction and the extent of the measurement inaccuracy that results from relying on country-level as opposed to sub-national regional-level educational distributions