‘Go, go on and go higher an’ higher’. Second‐generation Turks’ understanding of the role of education and their struggle through the Dutch school system

Abstract

With reference to capital theories and rational choice theory, this paper aims to understand how abilities and schooling ambitions are intertwined with social class, gender and ethnicity. By drawing on 16 in‐depth interviews carried out with highly educated second‐generation Turks in the Netherlands, the paper discusses the resources, opportunities and educational attitudes of young people, together with the role of the school system and that of teachers in perpetuating ethnic inequalities in schooling, with special emphasis on gender differences in schooling ambitions.

Keywords:

• Turkish second generation
• educational inequalities
• qualitative research

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to Anthony Heath, Flip Lindo, Marcel Maussen, Paul Wakeling and Elif Keskiner for their comments on former drafts. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the British Sociological Association Conference, Cardiff City Hall, April 2009. The author would like to acknowledge the support of the community under the Marie Curie Fellowship within the Sixth European Community Framework Programme.

Notes

1. There is a non‐selective university system: no admittance tests, a low level of tuition fees and government support during studies.

2. Given that the average educational level of guest workers is around five years of schooling (some of them are illiterate), their children can easily outperform them simply by completing compulsory schooling. This combined with their knowledge of the host society and the Dutch language in particular is unlikely to allow downward mobility relative to their parents’ social standing.

3. Self‐fulfilling prophecy is the idea that by predicting something to happen we unconsciously take steps to ensure that it will happen.

4. The existence of ‘under‐advising’ is backed up with recent survey data (TIES) on the second generation (Crul and Heering, 2008) pointing at Turkish females being twice as likely to receive advice for lower schools than their male peers at the end of primary schooling. Subsequently, as a clear consequence of such tracking females are under‐represented at universities.