Frans Lelie

The upcoming new elite among children of immigrants: a cross-country and cross-sector comparison

ABSTRACT The European-born children of immigrants, often referred to as the second generation, play an important role in the academic debate about integration and assimilation. The successful second generation, defined in terms of possessing a higher education diploma and or professional position, receives increasing attention. In this special issue, we will look at the most successful group: the upcoming “elite” among the descendants of migrants from Turkey, based on data gathered in the ELITES, Pathways to Success project. In this research project we deliberately selected on the dependent variable: being professionally successful in managerial jobs in the corporate business sector, the corporate law sector and the education sector.

The multiplier effect: how the accumulation of cultural and social capital explains steep upward social mobility of children of low-educated immigrants

ABSTRACT We introduce what we have coined the multiplier effect. We explain the steep upward mobility of children of low-educated immigrants by studying how they overcome obstacles on their regular pathway, via alternative routes or through loopholes in the education and labour market system. The idea of the multiplier effect is that they virtually propel themselves forward in their careers. Essential is that each successful step forward offers new possibilities on which they build, thereby accumulating cultural and social capital and multiplying their chances of success. Initial small differences with their less successful co-ethnic peers generate an increasingly wider gap over time. Cultural and social capital theories primarily explain the reproduction of inequalities in society. The multiplier effect explains the breaking of the perpetual cycle of this reproduction, enabling steep upward mobility even when this group does not initially possess the right cultural and social capital to be successful.

No Lost Generation? Education for Refugee Children: A Comparison Between Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and Turkey

The research debate covering the so-called ‘refugee crises in Europe’ has largely been addressing issues like border control, EU policies – or the lack thereof – and the political backlash in the form of anti-immigrant sentiments. Follow-up questions about the integration of refugees and 1 We would like to thank Alireza Behtoui for helping us find relevant English language literature on Sweden for this paper. their children into society, education and work are now slowly appearing on the agenda too. Although the current attention to the issue of the integration of the children of refugees into education is recent, several researchers in Europe have addressed the question for previous waves of refugees. The findings of one of the largest European studies on the topic, Integrace, a comparative study which includes Sweden and the Netherlands among other EU Member States, will figure prominently in this paper. Next to this study there are smaller national and local studies that are often descriptive or evaluate examples of so-called good practice in cities and schools.