Paper for the international Metropolis Conference

 

22-26 November 2001 in Rotterdam

 

  

 

The accessibility of education for migrants' children of the Second Generation in the Netherlands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Maurice Crul

Institute of Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES)

University of Amsterdam (UvA)

Rokin 84

1012 KX Amsterdam

Crul@pscw.uva.nl

The accessibility of education for migrants' children of the Second Generation in the Netherlands.

 

 

'The area of migrant policy, in education and elsewhere, is vulnerable of wishful thinking, window dressing, political peptalk, all in all stocked in statements about tolerance, pluralism, integration. If these policies equate paper policies only, it is about areas somewhat remote from the practicalities of educating ethnic minority pupils' (Fase 1994: 92)

 

 

Introduction

 

Since long the educational attainment of pupils from migrant families has been a focus of anxiety and an important political issue in Western immigration countries. Parents are very conscious of the importance of the proper educational credentials for their children to get access to higher levels of education and training. In fact, as more and more children born in the immigration country enrol in secondary education, the group that is doing well in school and that will obtain the chance to follow higher vocational training and even go to university, is growing. However, it is to be expected that, also among the so-called second generation, there will remain a sizable group of young people that will not be able to make it in school. Although education policies for migrant pupils have been put into effect everywhere to provide equal educational opportunity for migrant groups, a large part of the ethnic minority pupils still does not achieve educational qualifications on a par with their Dutch peers. 

 

 

 Immigration history

 

After the Second World War The Netherlands received different waves of immigration. In the fifties as a result of the decolonisation process in Asia both Moluccans and repatriates from the new independent state Indonesia, former colony of The Netherlands, came over. This group is still the largest migrant group residing in the country. Most of them were civil servants employed by the Dutch colonial government. Today the first members of the third generation Dutch Eurasians are entering the labour market. The Dutch Eurasians are considered a completely assimilated group. Children of the present second generation are to be found among groups that came to the Netherlands in the late sixties and the beginning of the seventies. I will discuss the four largest second generation groups: the Turks, the Surinamese, the Moroccans and the Antilleans. This leaves out the smaller heterogeneous group of the South Europeans and even smaller groups of Chinese and Vietnamese. The oldest second generation children are now between twenty-five and thirty-five years old and are entering the labour market.

In the beginning of the sixties the first Turkish and Moroccan labour migrants came to the Nether­lands recruited by Dutch companies. At that time they were received with open arms. The Dutch textile industry and the metal industry had a big shortage of unskilled workers. In 1964 an official agreement on labour migration was signed with both Turkey and Morocco. Spontaneous migration through relatives and co-villagers followed which overtook the regular immigration at a certain point even in size. Most of the Turkish migrants in The Netherlands come from small villages in the central part of Turkey or the Black Sea coast. The Turkish migrants that come from the big cities (Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara) are a minority. In total, the Turkish population in the Netherlands adds up to 299.662 persons (Martens & Weijers 2000: 11). In the seventies an economic recession slowed down the demand for labour and resulted in an official stop to migration in 1974. Through chain migration, which was particularly strong among Turkish people, a considerable group of young Turkish men however still managed to come in to the country. After a while men started bringing over their spouses and children. An increase in migration in the eighties and nineties again came when the in between generation started to marry and most of them choose a spouse from Turkey (Hooghiemstra 1997). In general the first generation Turks that came before the 1980. s belong to the lowest strata of the Dutch society. In the rural area. s where most of them came from possibilities for schooling existed only on the level of primary schools. In general the first generation men only finished primary school and most women only went to school for a few years (Crul 1994).

The Moroccan population in The Netherlands is with 252.493 persons a bit smaller than the Turkish population (Martens & Weijers 2000:11). The Moroccan migration to the Netherlands resembles in many ways that of the Turks. They came in the same period of time, worked shoulder to shoulder with the Turkish men in the factories and often lived in the same neighbourhoods. Most migrants from Morocco came from the North of Morocco, from an area called the Rif. The high unemployment in this region was the main reason for the Moroccan government to focus recruitment especially on this area. Two thirds of the migrants in The Netherlands came from the Rif. Especially the people from the Rif area were for a long time reluctant to bring over their family to the Netherlands. In the end the separation however created more and more problems. On average Moroccan husband and wife were separated for nine years. Four years longer than Turkish families lived apart. This resulted in a rather considerable in between generation. In effect, many children spent the first years of their lives in Morocco and moved during school age to the Netherlands. Especially this group had a hard time adapting to their new surroundings. The level of schooling in Morocco at the time the first generation went to school was even lower than in Turkey. Especially in the Rif this was the case. As a result the majority of first generation women never received any formal education. Man often went to Koran school or attended primary school for a few years. Illiteracy among Moroccan woman is widespread and among men it is also common.

The other two large immigrant groups originate from the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean: Surinam and the Dutch Antilleans. The history of colonization of Surinam began with the peace of Breda in 1667, when the Dutch and the English exchanged New Amsterdam (New York) and Suriname. The Surinamese population is very diverse. The African slaves that were shipped to Suriname were to become the ancestors of the Creoles. After the abolition of slavery in 1863, people from British India were recruited to work on the plantations. A second group of immigrants, the Javanese came from the former Dutch East Indies. A large part (more than a third) of the Surinam population now lives in the Netherlands. With 296.984 persons the Surinamese population is one of the largest migrant communities in the Netherlands (Martens & Weijers 2000:11). The Surinamese migration to the Netherlands is intertwined with the colonial relation with The Netherlands. The first Surinamese migrants that came to the Netherlands were children of the elite who came to study in the Netherlands (van Amersfoort 1986). In the sixties the first guest workers from Suriname came to The Netherlands who only became a considerable group after the economic breakdown in Surinam in the early seventies. The biggest wave of migrants however came shortly before the independence of Surinam in 1975 (Van Niekerk 2000). With independence the Surinam population lost their Dutch citizenship and as a result many Surinamese decided to come to The Netherlands before it would be impossible to do so. Important to note is that these migrants came from all ethnic and social-economic strata of the Surinamese population.

The Dutch Antilleans, the other former colony, is a dispersed group of islands that is still constitutionally linked to The Netherlands. The Antilleans are the smallest migrant group I will discuss here. The Antilleans are a mixed population, both in terms of ethnic (Dutch, Sephardim Jews and blacks with slave-ancestors) and social economic background (Van Hulst 2000: 106). There are 99.130 Antilleans living in the Netherlands (Martens & Weijers 2000:11). In effect, a third of the total Antillean population now lives in The Netherlands. The Antillean migration followed a similar trajectory as the Surinamese. First students from elite families came to the Netherlands and in the seventies labour migrants followed through recruitment. After the closure of the two big oil refinery. s on the Antillean islands in the eighties many more labour migrants followed. The Antilleans are still Dutch citizens and free to move to the Netherlands. This sets them apart from the other three groups were migration is now only possible through family-formation. The most recent group of migrants from the islands consists of young unemployed males of the lower working class.

 

 

Presentation of the second generation

 

The Turkish second generation is with 124.433 persons the largest of the four groups under discussion here. The Moroccan second generation consists of a bit more than 100.000 persons (Martens & Weijers 2000: 14). The Moroccan and Turkish second generation form about 40 percent of the communities as a whole. The Moroccan and Turkish youth under fifteen is almost entirely born in the Netherlands. Only ten percent came at a later age. The breaking point seems to be around fifteen because in the age category between 15 and 30 only 23 percent of the Moroccan youth belongs to the second generation and 30 percent of the Turkish youth (Veenman 1999: 28).

The second generation within the Surinamese group consists of 105.000 persons (Martens & Weijers 2000: 14). Because of the migration history of the Surinamese the second generation can roughly be distinguished in two groups. Van Niekerk makes a distinction between the early second generation and the later second generation (Van Niekerk 2000). The early second generation is mostly children of well educated parents. They form the biggest part of the second generation shown in tables in the next paragraph. Almost half of the early second generation children are from mixed marriages. Mainly a Surinamese father and a Dutch mother (Van Heelsum 1997, 78).

The Antilleans form the smallest group under discussion here of which 35.862 belong to the second generation (Martens & Weijers 2000: 14). In comparison to the other three groups the second generation is smaller, both relatively and absolutely. This has to do with the ongoing migration. The second generation Antilleans can also more often be found in the older age-cohorts. Eleven percent of the second generation is older than thirty (Veenman 1999: 28). This early second generation has a big effect on the educational position. A bigger group, as can be seen in table 1, already finished higher education.

A very important aspect in relation to the position of the second generation is of course if both parents are migrants or if one of the parents is born in the Netherlands. The four groups differ a lot in this respect. Of the Moroccan children 93% of their parents are both Moroccan. For the Turkish children it is with 94,6% even higher. Almost half (45%) of the Surinamese children early second generation children are from mixed marriages. Mainly a Surinamese father and a Dutch mother . Three quarter of the Antillean children (74,6%) are from mixed marriages (Hooghiemstra 2000: 200). Children with one parent coming from Suriname or the Antilleans are also considered second generation Antilleans or Surinamese in research statistics. Because of these differences alone parents of the Caribbean second generation diver a lot from the Mediterranean parents of the second generation. But on top of this the Caribbean parents that came to the Netherlands are also more present in the whole spectrum of social-economic positions while the Mediterranean parents almost all have a very low social economic position. The colonial history of the Caribbean groups furthermore made it a lot easier for them to adapt to the Dutch society. The Dutch language and culture are more or less familiar to them. This gives the Caribbean second generation a far better starting position. In the next paragraphs it is therefore not so much the aim to show the far better position of the Caribbean second generation. This is not so surprising. More important is how big the differences are because of the different starting positions. The Moroccan and Turkish migration do resemble a lot. It is therefore interesting to look if the two groups differ in the second generation.

 

 

The position in education

 

In 1979, Netherlands Scientific Council for Government policy (WRR) advised the government to create a `minority policy. (Eldering 1997: 334). The council concluded that the migrants from former colonies and Mediterranean countries would settle permanently in the Netherlands. As a result the Dutch Ministry of Education launched a minorities policy aimed at combating the educational disadvantages of ethnic minority children. In 1985 the ethnic Priority Policy came into effect. The cornerstone in the policy is the extra financial injection schools with a high percentage of migrant pupils receive. Schools receive 1,9 times as much money for educating Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean pupils than for Dutch middle and upper class children. This means that so called . black. schools have a much higher budget to spend than so called . white. schools In primary school this extra money was mostly spend on forming smaller classes. Next to the money schools directly receive from the government extra money is available through the city council. Schools have to submit programs to the city council to claim money from these funds. This money is mostly spend on newly developed Dutch language programs (Tesser & Iedema 2001:154-167). In 1992 a committee of experts advised the minister of education to improve the Dutch second-language programs and to train teachers to work with these programs. Since then the teaching of Dutch as a second language has become a focal point of concern. It has to be said that most of the second generation children which are described in the tables below by than already left primary school.

In the Netherlands an impressive amount of research is carried to determine and explain the social economic position of migrants and their children. A number of surveys is designed to fulfill this last role. The most important survey to determine the position of migrants in education is the survey 'Ethnic mino­ri­ties, their positi­on in society and use of faculties' (SPVA). It is conducted every three to four years. The first survey that was conducted was in 1988. In the survey it is possible to take out the second generation because the age of arrival is known of both parents and children.[1] The position of the four largest migrant groups can be derived from this national survey. The survey of 1998 is the last survey so far.

To sketch the educational position of the second generation I will use two indicators for school results. First the school results in terms of obtained diplomas and secondly the drop-out rate among the second generation. The most important one is of course the level of the obtained diplomas. To get a good picture we will restrict ourselves to the age-category over fifteen who already left school.

 

Table 1: Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean second generation and native population in the age-category between 15-64 categorized by school diploma (1998) [2]

 

School diploma	Turkish  (N= 318)	Moroc. (N=173)	Surinam.(N=383)	Antill. (N=162)	Dutch
Primary School	34%	40%	16%	9%	18%
Lower Vocational Education (Vbo) or Lower General Secondary Education (Mavo)	37%	28%	29%	19%	28%
Middle Vocational Education (Mbo), Senior General Secondary Education (Havo), or Preparatory University Education (Vwo)	23%	27%	37%	43%	26%
College (Hbo) or university (WO)	5%	5%	17%	30%	28%

 

Source: spva-1998, iseo/eur.[3]    

 

 

The first thing that attracts our attention in table 1 is the extreme high percentage of the Turkish and Moroccan second generation that doesn. t have any school diploma at the level of secondary education. Almost a third of the Turkish and four out of ten Moroccan youngsters have closed off their school career without gaining any diploma. That is twice as much as is the case with Dutch children. More than a third of the Turkish second generation youngsters and a quarter of the Moroccan has obtained a school diploma at the lowest level in the educational system (Vbo or Mavo). A diploma on one of these two levels is not very conducive for entering a good job. A Mbo diploma is generally considered as a minimum level to make a good start on the labor market. The group of people with a Mbo/Havo/Vwo diploma consists mainly of persons with a Mbo diploma. Most people (more than ninety percent) with a Havo or Vwo diploma decide to enter into higher education while many persons with a Mbo diploma go and look for a job in the labour market. The percentages in row 2 and 3 are not very different for native youth compared to Moroccan and Turkish second generation youth. More striking is the small amount of Turkish and Moroccan second generation youth who finished higher education. Among Dutch the percentage is five times as high. On the one hand this is to be explained by the fact that there are twice as many native youngsters in the two main preparatory classes, Havo and Vwo and on the other hand the second generation is still young and is either still studying or has to go to higher education yet. The rising numbers of Moroccan and Turkish students in higher education show that the bulk of students has yet to arrive. Differences between the Moroccan and Turkish second generation are marginal. The Moroccan second generation seems to do slightly better.

The Surinamese early second generation do well in school. They only differ from the Dutch youth in the percentage of persons who obtained a diploma of higher education. This has to do mostly with the fact that the second generation is still young. The later second generation is over represented in the younger cohorts. Some backlash was expected because these children more often have parents from lower class background. So far however such draw back has not been found. On the contrary they seem to improve their position (Tesser & Iedema 2001: 122). The second generation Antilleans is even outperforming in comparison with the Dutch children (table 1 and 2). Because of the ongoing migration that predominantly exists of lower class groups it is expected that in the near future results may drop. However this hasn. t happen so far (Tesser & Iedema 2001: 122).

            Almost half of the Moroccan second generation youth which left school (40 percent) didn't finish any secondary education (see table 1). This percentage is not only very high but it also indicates a significant difference with the Turkish group, although their percentage is also high (34 percent). The youth that got hold of a diploma of one of the forms of secondary schooling and moved on to another form of education are not represented in table 1. They are presented in tables of children still at school. Because of the young age of most of the second generation youth the majority of them are still attending school. To distinguish how many youngsters leave school without diploma we have to look both at the persons who already left school and those who are still in school. I present the figures divided up by gender because of the big differences between girls and boys.

 

Table 2 Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean second generation and native youth in the age-category between 15-34 categorized by drop-out rate and gender (1998).

 

	Turkish	Moroccan	Surinamese	Antillean	Native
Man	17%	11%	10%	3%	6%
Woman	25%	13%	6%	6%	6%

 

Source: SPVA. 98, ISEO & SCP

 

If we compare table 1 with table 2 we now see that the Turkish second generation is doing worse than the Moroccan second generation. In the Turkish group 17 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women left school without a diploma! In the Moroccan group it is respectively eleven percent and thirteen percent. The children that stop with school often do so at a very early age. Some of them even stopped before the legally permitted age for leaving school (Tesser et al. 1996: 163). The Moroccan and Turkish youth that continue their study however stay in school relatively long, even longer than their Dutch peers (ibid: 75). Especially a lot of the Turkish second generation girls leave school without a diploma. In the next paragraph we will go into the reasons for this extreme high percentage.

A comparison between the first and the second generation can show us the degree of social mobility each group went through (see table 3).

 

Table 3: Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean first generation in the age category between 15-64 in relation to the second generation categorized by the school diploma (1998)

 

School diploma	Turkish  N=2538	Moroccan N=2030	Surinamese N=1984	Antillean N=981
Primary School	68% (-34%)	77% (-37%)	32% (-16%)	31%  (-22%)
VBO/MAVO	13% (+24%)	8%  (+20%)	32%  (-3%)	31%  (-12%)
MBO/HAVO/VWO	14% (+9%)	10%  (+17%)	22%  (+15%)	24%  (+19%)
HBO/WO	4%  (+1%)	4%   (+1%)	15%   (+2%)	13%  (+17%)

 

Bron: spva-1998, iseo/eur.         

 

The Moroccan second generation is represented 37 percent less in the category . only primary school. than the first generation. In other words, were the second generation scores 40 percent in primary school (see table 1) the score of the first generation is 77 percent. This shows again the very low educational position of the Turkish and Moroccan first generation. Therefore the enormous rise from the lowest level shouldn. t surprise us too much. The fact that the second generation had the opportunity to study already makes a big difference. At the same time the rise at the level of Mbo/Havo/Vwo is considerable. This shows that the social mobility compared too the first generation is substantial.[4] The increase for the Moroccan second generation is overall bigger than for the Turkish second generation.   

  

Explaining the educational position of Moroccan and Turkish second generation pupils and students

 

The position of the Surinamese en Antillean second generation shows that big initial differences with Dutch pupils and students disappear in the second generation. This is not the case for the Turkish and Moroccan second generation. The starting position is of crucial importance so it seems. The low social-economic position of the Turkish and Moroccan parents and the considerable cultural gap between their home country and the Netherlands are the most striking differences with The Surinamese and Antillean groups. We will use these two elements as a starting point in explaining the lacking behind of the Turkish and Moroccan second generation.

 

Social-economic position of the parents

 

While the parents of the Dutch children in the survey represent the whole spectrum of social economic positions the parents of the Moroccan and Turkish second generation form a very low homogeneous social economic group; as we have seen, the majority of the parents have only attended primary school or didn't follow any formal education (Crul 1994: 173). This means that in general Turkish and Moroccan parents are not able to help or advice their children in school. Because of language difficulties communication with teachers is also difficult (Crul 1999: 92,93). On top of this many parents are long term unemployed. About eighty percent of the Turkish and Moroccan male population over fifty are out of the labour market. The majority of second generation children grew up in a situation were their father was unemployed when they were going to secondary school. Of the Turkish households with children 42 percent have a very low income, of the Moroccan households 55 percent compared to 13 percent of the Dutch households with children (Martens & Weijers 2000: 73). 

In the publication Keren de kansen? (Veenman 1996: Are the tables turning in favour?) the low social economic position of the parents is taken into account in comparison with Dutch parents. The educational position of the second generation is measured and compared to the expected position.[5] The factors on which the expected position is predicted are age, gender, education of the parents and the available space per person in the house. The Moroccan second generation children in reality perform as is expected and 90 percent of the position of the Turkish second generation children is explained on basis of the above mentioned factors (Crul 2000a). When the social economic position of the parents is taken into account the educational position of the children of the Moroccan and Turkish second generation is not so much different from Dutch children with a similar background. The social economic position of the parents is so it seems a very important explanation of the disappointing school results of the second generation compared to native children. This conclusion however doesn. t shed much light on the mechanism that can explain the processes leading to this result. A low educational position for the Dutch parents means something completely different than it does for Moroccan or Turkish parents. They may have in common that they have problems in practically helping their children in school but in many other aspects they differ a lot. Dutch parents who have no school diploma had the chance to go to school but either they didn. t have the capacities or discipline to finish school or circumstances were extremely unfavorable for them. Dutch parents with no school diploma are a very specific group. Turkish and Moroccan parents who have no school diploma didn. t have the opportunity to study. Another important difference is that Turkish and Moroccan parents have problems with the Dutch language and are unknown to the Dutch school system. Moroccan and Turkish parents will also differ a lot from Dutch parents with no school diploma. s in their expectations of education and life aims for their children. In the following paragraphs we will briefly go into some of the mechanism involved.

 

Explanations in Primary School

The unsatisfactory results of Turkish and Moroccan children in primary school are, as shown in

research, primarily the result of  difficulties with the Dutch language. In the last year of primary

school the scores for Dutch language skills are comparable with that of native children two

years younger. (Tesser & Iedema 2001: 65). Research shows that the Dutch language

deficiencies are already evident when entering primary school. This can be explained out

the fact that at home Moroccan and, especially Turkish, children mostly speak their mother

tongue. The most important reason for this situation is the fact that first generation parents are

not able to speak Dutch very well. Moroccan children more often speak Dutch with their older

brothers and sisters. Moroccan and Turkish children are also under represented in pre-school

kindergarten. As a consequence, they often hardly speak any Dutch when entering primary

school. A Turkish boy explains:

 

         . Every migrant has a Dutch language deficit. If you talk Turkish at home you miss out on Dutch. Sometimes when I am home we talk Turkish for five hours in a row. This has to have an effect on your Dutch. When I went to primary school I couldn. t understand a word of Dutch. I spoke Turkish fluently.. (Crul 2000a: 82).

 

Especially in the seventies and also in the eighties many parents valued learning the mother

tong more than Dutch because of  the return plans most families still had. Parents often send

their children for one or two years to Turkey or Morocco to learn the language. About one in

eight second generation children spent a longer period in the home-country of their parents.

This interruption of the school career had a devastating effect on the end result in primary

school (Crul 2000a: 86,87). Almost all of these children got very low advices as regards the

most suitable secondary education.

The unchanged differences in language score between Dutch children and Moroccan and Turkish children at the beginning and the end of primary school show that school is not able to remedy the considerable arrears in any way. In recent literature the quality of schooling is discussed (Tesser & Iedema 2001: 98-114).  Moroccan and Turkish pupils more often go to lower quality primary schools than Dutch children. The quality differences are visible both in the results for language as for mathematic tests scores. The schools with many migrant children perform worse even when controlled for the social-economic position of the parents. The lower quality of the . migrant schools. is the result of the lower standards schools apply for migrant pupils. Schoolteachers by experience know that many migrant pupils can. t deal with the full study load Dutch pupils receive. They lower their standards. They loose also a lot of time helping individual pupils with language problems. The mechanisms involved have been reported by the educational board of inspectors who visit schools on a regular basis. The reports also revealed  that  . migrants school. often don. t use the right teaching methods given their pupil population. Among them are the inefficient use of learning strategies designed for pupils with problems learning Dutch as second language and extra counseling and guidance for individual pupils. This is the case in spite of the fact these schools receive a lot of extra money to develop such programs.

The . migrant schools. are primarily the result of the concentration of migrants living in certain neighborhoods. The Turkish and Moroccan second generation most often live in neighborhoods with few Dutch people. These are also the districts with the cheapest and therefore the most rundown housing. The Surinamese population also live concentrated but in general they live in better conditions. They live in the newer housing districts and therefore occupy better housing. This has mainly to do with the fact that they made better use of the possibility to get social housing than the Turkish and Moroccan population. They are also more willing to spend money on housing than Turks and Moroccans.[6] The Antilleans live least of the four migrant groups in neighborhoods with a high concentration of migrant inhabitants.

 

  

Table 4; Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antilleans second generation in the age category between 15-64 living in neighborhoods with different percentage of migrants.

 

Perc. migrants	Turkish	Moroccan	Surinamese	Antillean
0-10%	6%	6%	14%	22%
11-20%	32%	20%	24%	33%
21-30%	19%	30%	22%	19%
> 30%	44%	45%	40%	25%

 

Source: SPVA-. 98, ISEO & SCP; WMD 1998/CBS

 

The second generation we look at in this article (over fifteen) passed primary school in the eighties. To reconstruct the effect of concentration in primary school for the second generation in the age category over fifteen we have to go back to the situation in the eighties. In the early 1980s, primary schools in many working-class neighborhoods were transformed within a few years. time from predominantly ethnic Dutch in composition into schools with a majority of migrant pupils. This plunged the schools into a long-term crisis. Teachers complained in this period that it was almost impossible to teach well, because of the wide differentials between the children within each class in terms of age, language abilities and years educated in Dutch schools (De Jong 1986). Research among second generation children revealed that Turkish and Moroccan children who attended so-called `white schools. received much more individual attention than children in the so-called . migrant schools. . because in these schools ten or fifteen Turkish and Moroccan children in each class needed extra help (Crul 2000b:232-236). A Turkish father explains:

 

. The children all went to the same primary school, but the school changed dramatically in five years time. When the oldest in the family arrived, there were three migrant children in the school. With his youngest brother it was the other way round. In his class there were only two Dutch children. Because of this change the school changed a lot too. My oldest always received a lot of attention of the teachers. They stimulated him to improve his results. I as a parent also had good contact with the teachers. I really had the idea we worked together. But that all changed when the school changed.. (Crul 2000a: 89).

 

Amongst the migrant children who entered school many had just arrived in the Netherlands and had little knowledge of the language.  In addition, the children in schools with few migrant children had far more intensive language contacts with their ethnic Dutch schoolmates, since they did not belong to separate Turkish of Moroccan peer groups like many of those attending schools with large migrant populations (Crul 2000a).

 

Secondary school

The lower results of Turkish and Moroccan pupils in primary school result in a large stream of children going to the lowest level in secondary education (Vbo). In the nineties a big wave of Moroccan and Turkish pupils entered the Vbo, and within it the lowest-rated types such as mechanics for boys and textiles and care work for girls. Vbo is often described as the garbage can of the education system. It takes on all the children that failed in the higher streams, often because of behavioral problems and it is a refuge for newly arrived immigrant children over twelve who have their own specific problems. The school climate that is the result is little conducive to school performance. Many of the boys attending such schools have behavioral problems, and truancy and dropout rates are high. This problem behavior got some boys deeper and deeper into trouble outside school, too, and they ultimately became marginalized. The Vbo has because of this, especially in the big cities, a very bad reputation. Within the Dutch population only one in five children goes to the Vbo. Although boys are most discussed in relation to drop-out because of their visibility in the streets the figures show that girls drop-out in much larger numbers. Next to the school climate other mechanism must also be at work to explain differences in gender and differences between Turkish and Moroccan youth (see table 2).

         The Turkish second generation sticks out most negatively in large drop-outs rates. Especially the girls are dropping out of school in a large amount. Already in the first studies about Turkish girls this subject came up prominently. De Vries (1988) describes in her book . Eyes upon your back. how the strong social control within the Turkish community is frustrating the chances for girls to follow further education. The law on compulsory education is eluded frequently (ibid: 70). Lindo (1996) describes almost ten years later how Turkish parents try to keep an eye on their young adolescent daughters. Girls are often threatened with withdrawal from school if they have contact with boys. An early, often an arranged marriage, is seen as way out of the danger zone by the parents to guarantee the chastity of the daughter and maintaining the family honor. Marriage at a young age in most cases means the end of a school career. Although the attitude of parents is slowly changing still a big part of the girls drop out of school without diploma. A quarter of the second generation Turkish girls in the age between 15 and 34 leaves school without any diploma. Turkish second generation girls that have the capacities to follow further education at a high level report that they choose for a lower level because they now they are not allowed to prolong their study endlessly from their parents. Others stop their study although they could enter into higher education (Crul 2000a: 135-138). Within the Moroccan community education for girls is also contested, but this doesn. t lead to extreme drop-out figures. Drop-out among girls is as high as among boys. The flip-side of Turkish girls marrying young is Turkish boys marrying at a young age, stopping with their study to provide an income for their family. Especially boys who have a hard time studying or who display problematic behavior are pushed by their parents to marry and look for a job instead. The early, and partly arranged marriages, among Turkish second generation are an indication of a more traditional trajectory. This is backed by research in which more traditional attitudes and behavior in relation to the role of  man and woman in family formation among Turkish youth stick out (Dagevos 2001).[7] Turkish boys more often answer that the man should be the breadwinner and Turkish girls more often answer that they would stop working to look after the children (ibid: 52,53). Traditional lines of thinking are much more a live among Turkish youth than among Moroccan youth.

 

 

Discussion and debate

 

In the conclusion I want to focus on those issues that are most important in relation to the educational position of the second generation. I will link up policy practice or the lacking of policy practice to the educational position of the second generation. Banton (2001) in a recent article warns researchers to be cautious in taking over the national policy models in their analyses of the integration of migrants. In his comparison between France and Britain he found that the two countries although starting from contrasting premises show many parallels in practice (Banton 2001: 166). Banton points out to the fact that formulated (paper) policies can often be in contrast with lived realities. We should be more focused on what he calls pure research. Research of practice rather than research of what Banton calls ideologically-loaded concepts of integration, pluralism and assimilation. In the article Banton looks at the preferences of migrants and their descendants in social interaction and identity issues. The idea is to see if the displayed preferences are different in Britain and France because of another national model of integration. My approach will be slightly different. I will look at those policies which are not mere paper policies but which have a direct effect on the position migrant pupils in education. I will restrict myself to what I regard as the three main areas of practices that effect the position of the second generation in education in the Netherlands.

The concentration of migrants in restricted areas has, as I discussed in the article a negative effect on the position of the Turkish and Moroccan second generation in education. Concentration is in The Netherlands the result of lacking policy measures. Moroccan and Turkish men when looking for a place to live for their families could only find cheap housing in the inner-city working class areas of the big cities. Policy measures to counter segregation where dismissed in the political debate. The principle of free choice of residence prevailed. The indirect result of residential concentration was concentration in schools. The concentration was further enhanced by the free school choice of parents. Many Dutch parents in the concentration neighborhoods choose for a school outside their own neighborhood. This phenomenon described with the term . white flight. enhanced segregation in schools. Research proved that this had a direct effect on the quality of schooling and therefore on the school careers of the second generation. To balance this statement a bit one could add that concentration in housing never lead to the forming of real ghettos in the Netherlands. In the neighborhoods the majority of houses are owned by social housing estates. They invested a lot of money in the neighborhoods together with the government to reconstruct and renovate housing areas that where most rundown. This, with the extra investments in the . migrant. schools, prevented the forming of ghettos.

The deficits of Turkish and Moroccan children in Dutch as a second language are primarily responsible for the poor results in primary schools. Teaching methods of Dutch as a second language and teachers training only began in the early nineties. In effect this meant that the early second generation was educated without a proper program for learning Dutch as a second language. In the first years the extra money in compensation programs was mostly spend on reducing the number of children in the classes. The idea was that this would allow the teacher to spend more time with each individual pupil. In effect this was not working out as expected. When ten or fifteen pupils need extra help the teacher is still not able to give individual attention. By now there is a broad consensus that improvement has to come from new language and teaching methods.

The most important selection moment in the Dutch educational system is the transition from primary school to secondary education. Those pupils with the lowest advice of primary schools are automatically sent to a school for Vocational Training. In the larger cities these schools are predominantly migrant schools. The same problems that primary school had in dealing with a sudden rise in migrant pupils we see now in Vocational Training Schools. The most important selection for those pupils is already at the age of twelve. Research proved that migrant pupils need more time to develop their talents than middle or upper class Dutch children. An early selection is therefore much to their disadvantage. Especially the transitional classes (first two years of secondary school) that existed before in most secondary schools offered the possibility to move up to higher levels even when one had a low advice from primary school. Successful Moroccan and Turkish students made much use of these trajects in the past. Most of these classes disappeared in the last two or three years. Possibilities to go from a lower school level to a higher one are less and less available. Many pupils are now already selected to enter tracks on different levels when coming into secondary school.

            The three areas of practice, I discussed, all have their own dynamics but they are also intertwined. Turkish and Moroccan pupils start in primary school with a Dutch language deficit. This is because Dutch is the second language spoken in the family. During the eight primary school years the language deficit doesn. t seem to become smaller. This is especially the case in schools with many migrant children. Until now numerous measures to improve the situation have failed. A large proportion of Turkish and Moroccan pupils as a result got a very low advice for secondary education. Many children therefore end up in the lowest tracks of secondary education. The lowest track, Vbo, is generally perceived as the dustbin of the educational system. Drop out figures in this track are high. To improve the position of Turkish and Moroccan pupils alterations in policy and policy interventions should be considered in different moments in the school career. Efforts to improve the teaching of Dutch as a second language in migrant schools have been and still are marginal considering the magnitude of the problem. If a free choice of school for parents is preferred and therefore concentration in schools is accepted, society at least should take responsibility for the situation this has created in migrant schools. The best teachers (for instance through a supplementary salary), more staff, the latest teaching methods in Dutch as a second language should be available to these schools. Altering the present selection system in schools is a much harder political problem to tackle. Recent educational reforms in the first two years of secondary schools in which the number of school subjects were extended increased the workload for children. This meant that some pupils where able to keep track and others weren. t. As a result secondary schools, already from the start, started to put pupils who received low advices from primary school in classes with a lower level of schooling. These classes are mostly located in a separate building that houses the lowest tracks in secondary school. Segregation of Moroccan and Turkish children on the one hand and Dutch children on the other hand is the result. The reforms are indirectly responsible for moving up the selection in secondary schools. To reverse the reforms will politically be almost impossible. A discussion about the consequences of selection at the age of twelve years for migrant children is however avoided. Because the necessity of selection is in the eyes of policy makers unarguable, the effect on Turkish and Moroccan pupils is not discussed any more but is taken for granted.

  

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