Efms Paper Nr. 29 (Efms) Migrationsstudien Für Forum Europäisches Efms Paper Nr
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efms Paper Nr. 29 School Education and Labor Market Integration of Second Generation Migrants in Germany Friedrich Heckmann Paper presented at the Workshop „Work in the European Context“ at Budapest University of Economic Sciences, 7. - 8.4.1999, Budapest europäisches forum für migrationsstudien efms Paper Nummer 29 (efms) efms Paper Nr. 29 1 Introduction There has been a very long discussion in Germany about whether the country is an immi- gration country or not. This has been and still is a sometimes quite confusing discourse, different people working with different notions and assumptions when using that term "immigration country". What nobody can deny is that there has been an almost uninterrupted net infl ow into the country (see chart 1). There is now a stock of 7.5 mio. foreigners in Germany, a number that does not count the around 3 mio. ethnic Germans that have come into the country. The continuous net in-migration or immigration creates a continuos need for the integration of these migrants, of groups of labor migrants, family members, ethnic Germans, asylum seekers and refugees. This is one of the big challenges in relation to overall societal integration; another is the huge task of East-West integration after the reunifi cation of the country in 1990. Both kinds of integration tasks have to be done simultaneously. Chart 1: In- and outfl ows of migrants across German national borders: 1958 – 1998 in Thousands 1.600 1.400 1.200 1.000 800 600 400 200 Infl ows Outfl ows 0 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 Year Source: Federal Statistical Offi ce One of the main dimensions of the integration of new groups into a society is the access to and equal participation in society's key institutions: in the education system, the occu- pational qualifying system, the labor market and the political community (structural in- tegration). In my contribution I will have a brief look at the fi rst three institutions: school, vocational training and labor market. This topic is connected to a new EU project of the european forum for migration studies at the University of Bamberg in which we study the integration policies of several European countries towards second generation migrants (EFFNATIS). Integration of migrants is - on the one hand - a market process; on the other side it is a conceptually and politically guided process. As to political concepts for the integration of migrants there are two basic kinds of policies: one is to have migrants participate in the „normal“ and general institutions of societal reproduction and integration policies of efms Paper Nr. 29 2 the modern welfare state. The other concept is to create special institutions for migrant integration. The concepts and policies connnected with these are not mutually exclusive, but could be given different emphasis in different countries. Germany clearly follows the universal policy as to the integration of migrants, but has some special institutions as well. To illustrate this: migrants‘ children normally attend schools of the general school system, but there are some special classes to prepare them languagewise for that; in addition there are offi cially recognized and publicly fi nanced voluntary so-called after- noon classes that teach the languages and cultures of the emigration countries. A totally different strategy as to schools would be to have a minority school system for the mi- grants‘ children. We have such a system for the traditional national minorities of Danes and Sorbs in Germany, but for migrants only as an exception (Greek national schools). Integration into the general school system Whereas the unemployment rate for Germans is about 10 %, it is about 20 % for foreigners (1st and 2nd generation). One of the main explanatory variables for this differ- ence is the difference in general educational attainment between the two groups. When viewing integration as a process one has to look 1) at the characteristics of the immigrant population when entering the country and 2) at time series data to learn about the devel- opment of educational integration of children of international migrants, who right now, are about one mio. in Germany. About the characteristics of migrants: The core group of Germany's foreign population are former so-called guest workers and their families. They were recruited for jobs of low qualifi cation, little pay and little prestige. The large majority of these labor migrants had very little schooling, no or little occupational training and were of rural background. And, of course, they had no knowledge of German and of institutions in Germany. This means in terms of family socialization conditions that the children of the labor migrants were severely disadvantaged and had little cultural and social capital compared to the native population. Despite of these starting conditions a continuos process of improvement in education- al attainment can be observed over a period of more than 30 years. The progress effect that the core group of recruited labor migrants has made is confounded in the offi cial sta- tistics – though still visible – by several factors: data are collected for "foreign children" in general. This group of foreign children includes 2nd and 3rd generation labor migrants who have been born in Germany, children of asylum seekers and war refugees who have come to the country only recently, particularly after the wars and crises in former You- goslavia. The group of foreign children also includes so-called "Seiteneinsteiger", which means children of migrants who have stayed behind in the country of origin of their par- ents and who join their parents as older children or as youth. In other words, among the foreign school population there is a large and growing proportion who have not lived in Germany before and have had their childhood socialization in a different country which implies many disadvantages for success in the German school system. There is another interesting group of so-called transnational migrants who - on the basis of EU law - frequently move between two or three living and working contexts and seem to have big problems as to their integration in each. This group of transnational migrants is particularly large among the Italians, who as a category, are the oldest immi- grant group in Germany, but are often relatively "young" in terms of individual time spent in Germany and score low in educational achievement. efms Paper Nr. 29 3 With this in mind let's have a look at some of the data of educational integration for the past ten years (Tables 1 and 2). Table 1: Types of schools attended by foreign children in Germany 1985 – 1996 (%) Type of school* 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Vorklassen - 0,9 0,9 0,8 0,8 0,6 0,7 0,7 0,7 0,8 0,8 0,8 Schulkindergärten - 0,9 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,9 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,0 1,1 1,1 Grundschulen 1) 40,6 39,5 39,1 39,1 38,1 37,8 37,3 37,5 38,1 39,0 40,2 41,4 Orientierungs stufe 1,9 2,0 2,4 2,2 3,1 3,2 3,3 3,4 3,4 3,3 3,2 3,2 Hauptschulen 2) 28,6 28,4 28,4 27,9 27,5 27,0 26,4 26,0 25,3 24,2 23,2 22,1 Integr. Klassen für Haupt- und Realschüler - - - - - - - - 0,1 0,3 0,3 0,4 Realschulen 3) 7,3 7,7 8,4 8,7 8,8 8,9 9,0 8,8 8,6 8,7 8,4 8,3 Gymnasien 4) 8,3 8,5 9,1 9,5 9,7 9,8 10,1 9,9 9,7 9,5 9,3 9,2 Gesamtschulen 5,2 5,7 4,4 4,7 5,0 5,2 5,6 5,9 6,2 6,4 6,5 6,5 Freie Waldorfschulen 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,2 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,2 0,1 0,1 Sonderschulen für Lern behinderte 5) 4,4 4,5 4,1 3,9 3,8 3,9 3,9 3,9 4,0 4,1 4,2 4,0 Sonderschulen für sonstige Behinderte 1,5 1,5 1,7 1,7 1,8 1,8 1,9 1,9 1,9 2,0 1,9 2,0 Abendhaupt- / Abendrealschulen 0,2 0,2 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,4 0,4 0,4 0,4 0,5 Abendgymnasien / Kollegs 0,1 0,1 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,3 0,3 Total 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 Source: Sekretariat 1997, Table 18. * Translation of the major categories: 1) = elementary school; 2) = basic education; 3) = middle level secondary school; 4) = secondary school preparing for university; 5) = schools for handicapped children Table 2: School diploma achieved by foreign children in Germany 1987 – 1996 (%) Kind of diploma 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Schulentlassungen nach Beendigung der Voll - zeitschulpfl icht ohne Hauptschulabschuß 1) 18,2 17,4 17,4 17,8 17,1 17,7 16,2 15,8 15,4 14,7 Schulentlassungen aus der Sonderschule für Lernbehinderte 2) 5,1 5,3 5,0 4,5 4,6 4,0 4,6 4,5 4,6 4,8 Schulentlassungen nach Beendigung der Voll- zeitschulpfl icht mit Hauptschulabschluß 3) 48,4 47,4 46,0 45,6 45,3 43,6 43,5 43,6 42,9 43,6 Realschulabschluß und entsprechende Abschlüsse 4) 22,1 23,7 24,3 25,1 25,4 25,0 26,6 26,6 27,3 27,6 Fachhochschulreife 5) 0,2 0,3 0,3 0,5 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,7 0,8 0,8 Hochschulreife 6) 5,9 5,9 6,4 6,4 7,2 7,7 8,4 8,8 8,9 8,5 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Source = Sekretariat 1997, Table A, E, 2 Translations: 1) = no diploma; 2) = fi nishing school for handicapped; 3) = basic education diploma; 4) = middle level diploma 5) = diploma to attend college; 5) = diploma to attend university efms Paper Nr.