De onderwijskansen van allochtone en autochtone Nederlanders vergeleken: een cohort-design

Summary Ethnic inequality of educational opportunities in the Netherlands: A cohort design The largest Dutch ethnic minority groups did not improve their position in the educational system compared to that of the native Dutch. We show this by cohort analysis on data from the Sociale Positie en Voorzieningengebruik van Allochtonen Surveys (1988, 1991, 1994, 1998 en 2002), by testing hypotheses from the ‘Maximum Maintained Inequality’ and ‘Effectively Maintained Inequality’ propositions. After elementary school, ethnic minorities choose relatively more often than their Dutch counterparts for the lower tracks (LBO, MAVO). For successive birth cohorts, this pattern becomes more pronounced. If minority members succeed in passing higher general secondary education, they are less likely to continue their school career. This remains true for all investigated birth cohorts (1960- 1980). Moreover, the higher general track at the tertiary level (i.e. university) becomes more exclusively the domain of the native Dutch. In a country where class-based and gender-based educational inequality has decreased over time, ethnic-based educational inequality remains very apparent.