Culture, identity, belonging, and school success

The big puzzle of inequality in education is not that children of immigrant parents with low levels of formal education do not succeed in school; this is the expected outcome. More interesting is why some of these children succeed against all odds, or how what Bourdieu (1990) called cultural reproduction can be disrupted (Cooper et al., Chapter 5). Some researchers have looked at parental, school, and teacher factors, while others have emphasized systemic institutional educational factors. Much less attention is spent on the impact of factors like culture, belonging, identity, and future orientation. Culture, both working‐class culture and the culture migrants bring with them, is often regarded as impeding success when the implicit (and often explicit) goal of schooling is cultural assimilation. In this volume, however, the authors examine, with different types of often long‐running ethnographic research, how immigrant cultures can be a resource or under which conditions they can become one

How key transitions influence school and labour market careers of descendants of Moroccan and Turkish migrants in the Netherlands

Most educational research examines school outcomes at certain stages or at the final stage of the school career. This article looks at the entire school career and the transition to the labour market. It focuses on key transitions to identify the educational institutional arrangements that either help or hinder school and labour market success among the most disadvantaged groups in the Netherlands: young people of Moroccan and Turkish descent. The Dutch educational system is one of the most complicated school systems in Europe. Consequently, parents and children have to make many ‘choices’ when navigating it. Many of these key ‘choice’ moments are selection points, either because they are not real choices but dependent upon a teacher’s recommendation or because parents and pupils need a great deal of information about the school system in order to make a choice. This usually results in inequalities for the most disadvantaged groups. Because selection is disguised as ‘choices’, the structural inequalities of the Dutch school system are not usually perceived as blocking mechanisms for disadvantaged students

Super-diversity vs. assimilation: how complex diversity in majority–minority cities challenges the assumptions of assimilation

International migration changed large West European cities dramatically. In only two generations’ time, their ethnic make-up is turned upside down. Cities like Amsterdam and Brussels now are majority–minority cities: the old majority group became a minority. This new reality asks for an up-to-date perspective on assimilation and integration. In this article, I will show why grand theories like segmented and new assimilation theory no longer suffice in tackling that new reality of large cities, and I will question critically whether using the perspective of super-diversity is more pertinent for our analyses. Children of immigrants nowadays no longer integrate into the majority group, but into a large amalgam of ethnic groups. Next to the diversification of ethnic groups, we see diversification within ethnic groups in the second and third generations. I will focus on intergenerational social mobility patterns given that they are key to existing grand theories of assimilation. I will argue that super-diversity theory can only partially show us the way. To further build an alternative theoretical perspective, we also need to borrow from the intersectional approach and the integration context theory

Reflection on the Education of Refugee Children: Beyond Reification and Emergency

Introductio

Negotiating the Progressive Paradox: Middle‐Class Parents in Majority-Minority Primary Schools in Amsterdam

Across Western Europe, progressive issues take centre stage within integration debates and discourse. This article addresses the paradox middle‐class progressives get caught up in when arguing for openness towards diversity, while also expecting adaptation to the progressive "modern" norm on sexuality, especially from Muslim Others. Going beyond existing literature, this article demonstrates the understudied manifestations of this paradox in everyday life, within a diverse majority–minority primary school context in Amsterdam. Taking sex education as a case, the authors reveal three different approaches - confrontational, continued discussion, and compromise - with which middle‐class parents without a migration background negotiate difference, each emphasizing different aspects of the paradox. The results show how, despite being a local numerical minority, progressive parents still enact their power position at large arguing for (gradual) adaptation to "modernity." However, some parents provide solutions to difference that move away from consensus and envision a future that allows for multiple norms to exist

Editorial: Navigating Social Boundaries and Belonging: People Without Migration Background in Majority-Minority Cities

This editorial introduces the articles in this thematic issue, which revolves around the ERC Advanced research project Becoming a Minority (BaM), carried out between 2018 and 2023. The aim of the project was to understand how people without a migration background think about and live in diversity. Through this aim, the BaM project has tried to advance our thinking about the concept of integration

Defining Swedishness: When Swedes Without a Migration Background Are a Local Numerical Minority

In this study, we examine how people without a migration background living in majority-minority neighbourhoods in Malmö, Sweden, define national identity in daily life. This setting provides a look into the intersection between the dominant position these people occupy in the Swedish national context and the confrontation with ethnic diversity as a result of becoming a local numerical minority. We address articulations of what being Swedish means in interviews with 22 Swedes without a migration background. We find that people mostly reproduce the national identity discourse that is nationally dominant. Most people explicitly articulate an achievable national identity, presenting Swedishness as accessible to everyone, in line with how Swedish integration policy is framed, and the current dominant political discourse. However, when talking about Swedishness as an identity and an attribute, the Swedishness of Swedes without a migration background is taken for granted, which indicates that despite changing local hierarchies, the establishment of the Swede without a migration background as the dominant Swede remains unchallenged. Swedishness might be achievable, but only because the dominant Swede defines it as such. Nonetheless, some respondents engage critically and reflectively with their own position of power as the nationally dominant group. This discourse is mostly expressed by raising the issue of white privilege and acknowledging it as a hindrance to the social positioning of people with a migration background in Swedish society. This reflexivity might be a result of confrontation with diversity and becoming a minority

The ability to deal with difference:Turkish-Dutch professionals as go-betweens in the education sector

Based on sixteen semi-structured interviews, this article examines how second-generation Turkish-Dutch education professionals experience their professional position in the ethnically homogeneous upper echelons of the Dutch education sector. The analysis shows that second-generation education professionals, being newcomers to higher-level positions in the sector, have to engage with diverse cultural repertoires at work. Instead of being stuck in-between these repertoires, second-generation education professionals actively “go-between” repertoires, employing their ability to deal with difference. In the increasingly super-diverse Dutch classrooms, this “go-between” attitude functions as a second-generation advantage and is conceptually better suited than in-betweenness to describe the position of second-generation professionals

Being an Ethnic Minority: Belonging Uncertainty of People Without a Migration Background

We delve into the implications of the national ethnic majority being a minority in local settings by examining their daily experiences when they find themselves outnumbered by other ethnic groups in their neighbourhood. Drawing on the theory of "belonging uncertainty," this article explores the variety of ways in which people without a migration background cope with such situations. Belonging uncertainty is the feeling that "people like me do not belong here." Based on in‐depth interviews (n = 20) conducted in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods in Vienna, we argue that the experience of belonging uncertainty results in two different coping strategies: avoidance of spaces numerically dominated by another ethnic group or learning to overcome belonging uncertainty. Some people without a migration background often perceive spaces where another ethnicity is the numerical majority as exclusionary, even if they are not explicitly excluded, and accordingly, they avoid such contexts. Others develop strategies that allow them to establish a feeling of belonging in spaces where they initially experienced belonging uncertainty. As such, some individuals overcome the feeling of belonging uncertainty

Natuurlijk helpen ze hun neefje op school

__Abstract__ Negen van de tien allochtone studenten helpen jongere kinderen bij hun huiswerk. Ze weten hoe ze zelf hebben moeten ploeteren