Necesidad de un enfoque pragmático desde la

After several years of research into the integration of immigrants into the Danish labour market, the Rockwool Foundation decided in 2004 to start a project (reported in Tranæs 2008) that would focus exclusively on the use of the Danish education system by young non-Western immigrants and second generation immigrants. This section presents some results from the section of the project that was based on the use of statistics from Danish registers for 1997 and 2007. While 36% of Danes aged 20-24 were registered on courses of education in 1997, the corresponding figures were 33% for second generation immigrants and 25% for immigrants who had been aged 0-14 on arrival. Ten years later, these proportions had risen to 46% for Danes, 41% for second generation immigrants

and 39% for immigrants aged 0-14 on arrival. Thus the proportions of immigrants and second generation immigrants undergoing education remained significantly lower than the proportion of Danes, but the immigrants had closed the gap to some extent.

In 2007 there were also larger proportions of both Danes and immigrants who had completed a course of education that qualified them for a specific job; the increase was again greater among immigrants. In 1997, 66% of 30-year-old Danes had completed a course of education that qualified them for a job, whereas the proportion was only 23% among 30-year-old immigrants (aged 0-14 on arrival). In 2007 these figures had increased to 74% and 36% respectively, with 46% of 30-year-old second generation immigrants having completed such a course.

The differences between the groups were still very large, which is perhaps not so surprising. The parents of the young Danes had on average much stronger educational and professional backgrounds than the parents of the young immigrants and second generation immigrants, and parental background has a significant effect on children’s education. If – as far as is possible – a comparison is made between young Danes and young immigrants with the same parental backgrounds, the probability of being registered on a course is in many cases greater for the first or second generation immigrants than for the Danes; and for the probability that 30-year-olds will have completed a course of education that gives a work qualification, the immigrants are clearly catching up with the Danes.

To the extent that the parents of immigrants and second generation immigrants come to resemble the parents of Danes, then, it might be expected that the patterns of education for these groups will also come to resemble those of Danes; but as yet this is far from being the case. At present there are few people among the two groups with comparable parental backgrounds; and the analysis suggests that as long as there are large differences between the two groups in terms of their social characteristics, there will also continue to be differences between them in their patterns of education as well – even though there are indications that the immigrants are better able to break away from their social inheritance than Danes.

3.4. Summary

This chapter has focused on the two variables, education and Danish language proficiency, which might be expected to be of crucial importance in determining the opportunities which immigrants and second generation immigrants have for participating in Danish society. Such participation includes integration into the labour market, which is the main theme of the studies described in this book.

The 1999 study was based on information regarding levels of foreign education and Danish language proficiency obtained solely via the interview survey. Immigrants who came to Denmark as children aged 13 or over, or as adults, were asked about their level of education at the time of immigration and it emerged that it was only among immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, Iran and Poland that around half or more had completed a course of education before coming to Denmark. The smallest proportions were amongst immigrants from Pakistan, Somalia and Turkey, and it was these groups which also had the largest proportions – around 15% – with no formal education at all.

By combining the interview responses from the 1999 survey regarding education in immigrants’ countries of origin with register information on education taken in Denmark, it was possible to build up an overall picture of immigrants’ education. There were relatively more immigrants than Danes who only had education at the level of obligatory schooling, while the opposite was the case for vocational and higher education. Immigrants from the “old” immigrant source countries Turkey and Pakistan were particularly notable for their lack of vocational and higher education.

To conclude the analysis of the overall level of education, logistic regressions were used to elucidate the factors which had special significance for determining whether immigrants who had arrived in Denmark aged 13 or over had taken Danish and/or foreign courses of education. It was found, for example, that in addition to country of origin, the reason for granting a residence permit in Denmark was a significant factor for both sexes. Religion played a certain role for both sexes, in that strong associations with religious groups had a negative effect on the probability of having an education above the level of obligatory schooling.

With regard to Danish language skills, around one third of all Poles and Pakistanis assessed themselves as speaking fluent Danish. The poorest Danish language skills, as assessed by the respondents themselves, were among Somalis, of whom only one tenth thought that they spoke the language fluently. The interview surveys were the only source of information on Danish language proficiency for both the 1999 and 2001 studies, but in connection with the 2001 study it was also possible to obtain register information from Statistics Denmark relating to foreign courses of education.

Knowledge of Danish among immigrants and second generation immigrants was found to be better in the 2001 survey than in the 1999 survey. This trend was most marked among those immigrants who had come to Denmark as children (aged 12 or under) and among second generation immigrants. The proportions of these groups having poor Danish language proficiency found in the 1999 survey

had almost completely disappeared in the 2001 survey, and the proportions with only moderately good Danish proficiency had grown smaller.

In 2008 the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit published the results of a study of young non-Western immigrants’ and second generation immigrants’ use of the Danish educational system, based on Danish register statistics for the years 1997 and 2007.

While 36% of Danes aged 20-24 were registered on courses of education in 1997, the corresponding figures were 33% for second generation immigrants and 25% for immigrants who had been aged 0-14 on arrival. Ten years later, these proportions had risen to 46% for Danes, 41% for second generation immigrants and 39% for immigrants aged 0-14 on arrival.

In 1997, 66% of 30-year-old Danes had completed a course of education that qualified them for a job, whereas the proportion was only 23% among 30-year- old immigrants (aged 0-14 on arrival). In 2007 these figures had increased to 74% and 36% respectively, with 46% of 30-year-old second generation immigrants having completed such a course.

References

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Blom, Svein. 1998. Levekår blant ikke-vestlige innvandrere i Norge, Rapporter

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Hvidtfeldt, Camilla and Marie Louise Schultz-Nielsen. 2008. “Unge indvandre- res brug af det danske uddannelsessystem”, in Torben Tranæs (ed.),

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