Preliminary communication
Education and Employment of Migrant Children in Benelux Countries
Andrina Pavlinić-Wolf
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper deals with the social and economic status of the so-called second-generation migrants in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which is closely linked with the participation of the children and their chances for success in educational processes.
With regard to migrant children's education in the Netherlands, neither have favourable results been achieved, nor is a breakthrough to be expected, because “Mediterranean” migrants, Yugoslavs included, are predestined for lower-status jobs.
Only Italian, Turkish and Greek children are included in Belgian statistics. The school achievement of foreign children in the elementary school is twice as bad as that of the native children. It is easy to conclude that the former, without proper school and professional qualifications, will have to take over their parents' (lower-status) jobs. In most cases they actually have a legal right to a labour permit on the basis of family qualifications.
Benelux countries share the many characteristics of a multiethnic society. They also share a positive stance towards intercultural education. However, they have not been equally successful on both planes where interculturalism should prove effective: on the plane of instruction in the language of the country of immigration and on the plane of mother tongue instruction. This “double education”, as carried out in the countries concerned, seems to give migrant children little protection against ethno-centrism. Instruction in the mother tongue and culture acts as a counterbalance to the integrating (assimilatory) mechanisms of the host society.
Keywords
migrant children; education; employment; the Netherlands; Belgium Luxembourg
Hrčak ID:
128897
URI
Publication date:
30.9.1985.
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