The second generation of immigrants : a sociological analysis with special emphasis on Switzerland

Author(s) : Hans-Joachim Hoffmann-Nowotny

Source : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/101033864

Abstract:

The children of foreign workers, whether they migrated with their parents or were born in the country of immigration, have become a social and political reality that is being dealt with now at many different levels in the Western European countries. This discussion is based on empirical findings from research in Switzerland, which are compared to similar data from the Federal Republic of Germany. In Switzerland immigration is a historically recent phenomenon. To determine whether or not foreign children in Swiss schools are at a disadvantage, the percentages of foreign children and Swiss children in schools are compared. The absolute number of foreign children in Swiss secondary schools is very low; however, the situation in Switzerland is much better than it is in West Germany, where only about 1/6 of the foreign youths learn an occupation. The observed disadvantages of foreign children today are consequence of the fact that they belong overwhelmingly to the lower social strata; there no longer seems to be any ethnic discrimination in the Swiss educational system. Foreign parents as well as their children have extremely high educational aspirations. The principal goal of the Swiss educational policy is the intergration of foreign children into the local school system; the intent behind the measures employed is to avoid the creation of special classes in which children are separated according to their nationality. The problem of the 2 generations of immigrants is not to find work but rather to find the type of work that they would like to have; in this respect, it is not foreigners who are disadvantaged, but primarily all those who completed only the lower educational levels. The delinquency rate is higher among foreign youths than among either Swiss youths or the foreign parent generation. This fulfills the hypothesis that unfulfilled aspirations find an anomic outlet in delinquency.