Maurice Crul

The Second Generation in Europe

The study of integration processes has now reached a crucial stage in most Western European countries with the emergence of the second generation. The oldest children born to postwar immigrants on European soil have recently entered the job market, and we can now investigate their performance in both education and employment. This opens a unique opportunity to compare the situations of second generation migrants across countries. Ostensibly the children all have the same starting position, being born in the country of settlement. The intriguing question is how differences between immigrant groups, and also differences in national contexts, work to the benefit or detriment of the second generation. We discuss the first issue briefly, confining ourselves here to Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. In addressing the issue of national contexts, we focus primarily on policies and practices rather than on broad-reaching national integration models. We examine in detail the integration process itself in the context of vital institutional arrangements such as the education system and the mechanisms for transition to the labor market. How do such arrangements differ between countries, and how do they affect the outcomes for the second generation?

The Second Generation in Europe and the United States: How is the Transatlantic Debate Relevant for Further Research on the European Second Generation?

This introductory paper to the special issue of JEMS on the second generation in Europe reviews some of the key themes underpinning the growing interest in the second generation, and asks what ‘integration’ actually means in contemporary debates about immigration and settlement. The authors attempt to place these debates within their specific national contexts, in particular by applying US-developed theories of second-generation integration to Europe. In this way, we build on the embryonic transatlantic dialogue about which factors potentially account for different patterns of second-generation integration in different countries. Integration, in this sense, refers both to structural aspects such as educational and labour-market status as well as to a broader and at times fuzzier concept that includes ideas of culture, ethnic or religious identity and citizenship. The paper also sets the scene for the various articles in this special issue which together illustrate the thematic breadth of European-based research on the children of immigrants. We conclude by offering two theoretical avenues for future research on ethnic minority groups and their settlement patterns.

The Turkish and Moroccan second generation in the Netherlands: Divergent trends between and polarization within the two groups

This article examines the socioeconomic and sociocultural status of the second-generation Turkish young people in the Netherlands, comparing them to their Moroccan counterparts. The comparative perspective can better highlight the characteristic features of the Turkish second generation. The educational status of both the Turkish and the Moroccan young people is still weak, especially by comparison with their ethnic Dutch peers. The obstacles that second-generation migrants encounter in their educational careers are many and diverse, and these derive both from inside their own groups and from institutional structures and other forces in Dutch society. Among the latter has been the delay in introducing professional second-language training, which resulted in Dutch language deficiencies and poor primary school achievements. This, in combination with early school selection mechanisms at age 12, has consigned the vast majority of second-generation children to short, dead-end lower vocational or secondary school tracks. Unemployment is extremely high among the second-generation migrants with short educational tracks, and discrimination in the labor market hits this group especially hard. Despite all this, the number of second-generation young people who have succeeded in getting a better education is growing, and they are now well equipped to seek employment. An important factor in their success has been the mutual help and support they have received from family and community networks.

The second generation in Belgium

A growing proportion of second-generation Moroccan and Turkish youngsters in Belgium are moving on to higher secondary education and beyond. This trend is greater among Moroccan youngsters than among their Turkish peers. Turkish girls in particular are still married off at a young age, which inevitably affects their educational opportunities. Despite higher participation rates for youngsters from immigrant backgrounds, the educational gap with Belgian pupils and students remains wide. This is largely attributable to differences in socioeconomic background. It appears that the concentration of second-generation immigrant pupils in certain schools is also a major explanatory factor. Despite their increased participation in education, second-generation immigrants are still not well represented in the labor market and they are, moreover, employed mostly in less favorable segments of that market. An interesting development among second-generation immigrants is the polarization that is taking place in relation to the significance of Islam. A growing number of second-generation youngsters are opting for a more secular way of life, while an increasingly large group is choosing Islamist ideologies or at least a more conscious form of Islam. For young people of the second generation, who often have little to hold on to socially, Islamism can provide a transparent, supportive, and all-embracing frame of reference.

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

ABSTRACT 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.

Immigration, education and the Turkish second generation in five European nations: A comparative study

Introduction Research on the second generation of postwar immigrants is a relatively new phenomenon. Only in the past decade has it become a central focus in the study of immigrant integration. The postwar second generation in Europe came of age at roughly the same time as the American one – and that was when researchers began exploring it more systematically. Examples of early studies in various European countries are Seifert (1992), Crul (1994), Tribalat (1995), Veenman (1996), and Lesthaeghe (1997). International comparative research on the second generation is still scant. In fact, only one such venture has been undertaken – the EFFNATIS project, conducted from 1998 to 2000 by researchers in eight European countries (EFFNATIS, 2001). Because EFFNATIS focused on different ethnic groups in different countries, no comparisons could be made of how the same ethnic group had fared in different settings. Cross-national comparisons were, therefore, awkward to make (Crul and Vermeulen 2003). The primary focus of this chapter is the comparison of integration processes in different countries. This is an aspect that has received far more attention in European than in American research. More specifically, we compare the integration of second-generation Turkish immigrants in five European countries: Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Austria. This focus on immigrants from a single source country offers a complementary contrast to chapter 8 by Schnepf, as does a focus on educational attainment rather than achievement.

New insights into assimilation and integration theory: introduction to the special issue

In all Western countries which have been the destination for large-scale migration over the past decades, integration and assimilation issues are heavily debated. This has certainly helped making Migration Studies one of the fastest growing fields in the social sciences, but it also created a certain pressure to produce fast and ‘digestible’ results. In that sense, the methodological and theoretical advancement of Migration Studies has not quite followed the rapid growth in the number of disciplines, researchers and projects involved. Some research ignores the complexities of the phenomena studied (or oversimplifies them in order to make results more ‘palpable’ for policy-making and the general public), in others the ‘explanatory reach’ of research findings remains unclear. To find about the actual ‘state of knowledge’ in integration/assimilation research is difficult, because of the increasing amount of studies on specific cases, groups or problems, but also because there is a lack of agreed-upon theoretical and methodological concepts and indicators. Transatlantic discussions and comparisons, although also steadily on the rise, have had to cope with two quite different theoretical developments: in the US, the debate seems largely dominated by the pros and cons of segmented assimilation versus new assimilation theory, although obviously not all research is neither fitting into this dichotomy nor willing to serve it; in Europe, on the other side, the theoretical debate has not been as strong as to produce an independent counterweight to the American debate. Segmented assimilation theory has also been quite influential here, and many scholars have tried to apply it to European contexts. By far the most research in Europe remains within national boundaries, and despite the promising efforts of especially the IMISCOE network, the continent’s unique variety and proximity of neighbouring national integration situations and Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 33 No. 7 July 2010 pp. 1143 1148

Snakes and Ladders in Educational Systems: Access to Higher Education for Second-Generation Turks in Europe

Based on the first international standardised survey on the second generation in Europe, I compare the school trajectories of youth from the same origin group (parents born in Turkey), with the same starting position (born in Europe) and the same socio-economic status (parents with only modest educational credentials) in six European countries. The differences between countries are substantial. The opportunity to enter higher education is seven times greater in the highest-performing country than in the lowest. These differences can be explained by the institutional arrangements in education in interaction with the available family resources. The article highlights the importance of the oft-neglected national school context.

Success against the Odds—Educational pathways of disadvantaged second-generation Turks in France and the Netherlands

By drawing on comparative analyses of successful second-generation Turks from disadvantaged family backgrounds in France and the Netherlands, this article examines pathways and mechanisms that lead to educational success against the backdrop of structural and familial disadvantages. We foreground the experiences and practices of successful second-generation Turks in both countries and demonstrate the importance of institutional arrangements and their interactions with individual resources to account for their success. We use data from the “The Integration of the European Second Generation” (TIES) survey to reconstruct school careers and to inventory opportunities and constraints presented to them in the most important selection processes. We illustrate our findings with life stories drawn from qualitative interviews with TIES respondents in both settings. Combining the results of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis allows us to unravel the mechanisms of the educational success of second-generation Turks from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Success breeds success. Moroccan and Turkish student mentors in the Netherlands.

Of all the major migrant groups in theNetherlands, Turkish and Moroccan pupilsperform the least well in school. Althoughsmaller in number there is also a Turkish andMoroccan group that is successful in school. Inseveral projects these successful Turkish andMoroccan higher education students give, as astudent mentor, guidance and counselling toTurkish and Moroccan pupils in secondaryeducation. International literature hasextensively reviewed the effects of mentoring.The content of mentoring as such, however, hasnot been studied so much. In the article I willfocus on this somehow neglected aspect in theresearch. I will, based on my own qualitativeresearch, go into depth on how mentoring ispracticed on a daily basis. With the aim todevelop (the beginning of) a methodology I willlook how a mentor relationship develops overtime and describe the variety of themes amentor relationships deals with.