Young migrants’ transition from school to work : obstacles and opportunities

Abstract

There is an ongoing concern about the unfavourable position of migrant youth in education and on the labour market, in particular concerning them dropping out of school or becoming unemployed. This leads to a great proliferation of policies and measures to tackle these problems. In this thesis the presumed problematic school-work transition of migrant youth is studied. First on an individual and social level by looking at their experiences with schooling and work, and the role of their family network therein, and secondly on a structural institutional level by considering the vocational education and training system and the contributions of education and labour market policies. A mixed methods approach is employed consisting of observations in schools, interviews with youngsters, teachers and other professionals, a youth survey and analyses of existing data and policy documents. The results point out that the majority of young migrants fares well in education and on the labour market and that a smaller share has problems; there are important differences in and between migrant groups. Analyses of the dropout rates indicate that the overall majority of dropouts do, in fact, perform well on the labour market. At the same time there is a fairly small group of youngsters, who lag behind - they are neither in school or training, nor are they employed. However, this group is seen to represent the entire group of dropouts and this has a negative impact on how migrant dropouts are viewed. The survey and interview results reveal that the majority of migrant youngsters, girls in particular, have a positive school satisfaction, are motivated to make a career and are optimistic about their future perspectives. Their family network serves as an important frame of reference and stimulus: communicating about school with parents and (older) siblings contributes to a higher school satisfaction. Many migrant youngsters, however, do not receive any support with school and also miss role models which makes it harder to make the right educational or professional choices. And for girls care responsibilities at home can hinder school engagement. School failure is within the policy framework foremost individualized, ascribed to individual or groups related deficits. Structural or institutional issues are hereby barely discussed. In the educational system these are the (early) selection mechanisms which contribute to youngsters making a wrong study choice and the competence-based and new learning that is by both students and teachers negatively perceived as lacking structure. When looking for a job or trainee post, migrant youngsters can be confronted with exclusion due to discrimination or a presumed lack of soft or social skills deemed necessary for employability. Finally, the re-integration policies which aim to lead youngsters (back) to school or the labour market are not adequate: interagency cooperation between public and private partners hampers and the most difficult group is not sufficiently reached.