Effectief basisonderwijs voor allochtone leerlingen

Primary schools differ in the way they organize their education. Schools with a large population of ethnic minority pupils often organize special (curricular) activities for them. They use methods developed for second language learners (L2), provide minority language teaching, organize multicultural activities or pay special attention to ethnic minority parents. Essentially, ethnic minority pupils can benefit both from ‘general’ education and ‘special’ activities. The question is: what education is most effective for them? These pupils perform much lower than their Dutch counterparts. In order to remedy this situation the Dutch government provides extra facilities for schools with ethnic minority pupils and in this context it is important to know how the school can be most effective. In the study two criteria for effectiveness are considered: quality and equity. The quality of a school is defined as the mean performance of all pupils in the final year of primary school; the equity of a school as the difference in performance between Dutch and ethnic minority pupils, taking into account the influence of relevant individual background characteristics. The assumption is that general education that is effective for Dutch children will also be effective for ethnic minority pupils. So the effectiveness of general education is measured by looking at the quality of the school. Special activities for ethnic minority pupils are expected to be effective only for them. Thus their effectiveness is measured using the equity criterion. In this study we focus on Turkish and Moroccan pupils, for two reasons. First, they are the lowest achievers among ethnic minorities, so they can potentially benefit the most from special activities. Second, they comprise the two largest minority groups in schools (70 per cent of minorities are from Turkish or Moroccon origin) and special activities are often aimed at these. The research questions are: • do schools differ in quality, and if so, what characteristics of general education account for these differences? • do schools differ in equity, and if so, what special activities account for these differences? • what combination(s) of general and special educational provision characterize effective schools?