Trends in Ethnic Educational Inequalities in the Netherlands: A Cohort Design

This study examines ethnic educational inequality in the Netherlands, focusing on changes over cohorts in highest educational level and school transitions for the four largest ethnic groups compared with Dutch natives. The maximum maintained inequality (MMI) and the effectively maintained inequality (EMI) propositions are used to predict ethnic educational differentials, using data from the Dutch immigrant surveys. We show that ethnic educational inequality is maximally maintained at the highest educational levels. After elementary school, ethnic minorities are more likely to choose the lower tracks but they do not differ in their choices between vocational and general tracks at the secondary level. If they succeed in passing higher general secondary education, they are less likely than Dutch natives to continue their school career, and university becomes more exclusively the domain of the native Dutch. These ethnic educational differences are not accounted for by disadvantaged socioeconomic background. In a country where class-based and genderbased educational inequality has decreased over time, ethnic-based educational inequality remains very apparent.