**2. Educational exclusion**

There are vast differences in grades, drop-out rates and length of education between immigrants with different countries of origin. Some perform better than the majority population, whereas others perform worse. The main reason for these differences seems to be the fact that immigrants of different origins have different pre-migration class backgrounds and educational profiles (Modood, 2007). In Norway, Pakistani and Turkish young people more often drop out of school, and more often do not take up higher education, than young people of Indian and Vietnamese origin (despite the same length of residence) (Fekjær 2007). The main reason is found to be class differences among the parents from these different groups, but also significant are the different attitudes towards education. In this way, class and ethnicity (here in the sense of country of origin, which in reality does not always equal ethnicity) *interact* in producing distinct patterns of inclusion

Social Exclusion and Inclusion of Young

**3. Labour market exclusion** 

(Brekke 2008: 61).

with visible minority background (Rogstad, 2000).

comfortable.

Immigrants in Different Arenas – Outline of an Analytical Framework 269

But such an attitude towards school does not always appear as a collective reaction. In the *Weight of the world,* Bourdieu (2002: 61) writes about a young Moroccan man who has an illiterate father and a mother who is hardly able to write. Bourdieu argues that: 'Everything suggests that the organizing principle behind his rejection of school and the defiant attitudes that lead him towards, and gradually trap him in, the role of the "tough", is the desire to avoid the humiliation of having to read out loud in front of the other students'. In cases like this, the self-exclusion come about in order to avoid the humiliation of being excluded by others. The distinct multicultural community of the peer group is for some young people an alternative setting for inclusion, instead of school which is an arena where they do not feel

All in all, lower class background seems to be the major factor to explain the higher dropout rate and lower grades of immigrants compared to nonimmigrants. This may be related both to the importance of role models, but also to the degree of parental support and motivation. Parents' high expectations are one factor that explains many young immigrants' extra drive to perform well. For some however, the expectation that they will experience discrimination contributes to their lack of motivation to strive for further achievements.

When assessing what factors contribute to a harder access to the labour market, there is often an emphasis of what the individual lacks, as regards experience, network, qualifications, profiency in the majority language, knowledge of how the 'system' works and self-confidence. These factors create barriers for young people in general, but for young immigrants, an additional barrier in some cases is employers' reluctance to employ persons

However, ethnic stigmatization can influence men and women differently. In some segments of the labour market, it seems that women with immigrant background have better access to jobs than men with the same background. It would therefore be erroneous one-sidedly to speak of a double disadvantage for women with ethnic minority background (Modood, 2007: 61). There is also an element of self-exclusion among young women with immigrant background as regards labour market. Statistical research shows that women with immigrant background have a decline in their employment over time, whereas the opposite is true for women without an immigrant background. One reason is that more women with immigrant background prioritize child rearing to active employment. Therefore, when they start to get children, they choose to work less or not to work at all

The problem for young immigrants of the first-generation is that they often do not have the network that leads to the right kind of jobs (Wiborg, 2006). Statistical research has shown that education reduces the risk of unemployment and it diminishes the income gap between people with or without immigrant background. The reluctance to employ young people with visible minority background is more prevalent in some parts of the labour market than in others. There are huge differences between immigrants of different origins when it comes to unemployment. Young migrants who have experienced war have greater difficulties with this. Living for many years in a society without any infrastructure, including a functioning

and exclusion. Just as attitudes to schooling, to higher education and to financing education by means of loan, are influenced by class, so are they influenced by ethnicity (Fekjær, 2007; Modood, 2007).

Yet, the danger of presenting statistics of the performance of immigrants of different countries of origin is that it might reify a picture of each immigrant group. A qualitative study can be used to analyze the experiences of immigrants with one common country of origin but with different class backgrounds, with rural vs. urban backgrounds and with different migration trajectories. In Norway, immigrants from Somalia are more often unemployed and if employed have a low income, combined with having more children than all other immigrant groups in Norway (Henriksen, 2007). However, in my study of Somalis in Norway, I interviewed many young Somalis who pursued higher education. Common for all of these was that they had parents who also had taken higher education — either from the homeland or after coming to Norway, *or* their parents had held privileged positions in Somalia. This high level of education or status of their parents might have contributed to these young people having higher aspirations themselves (Fangen 2008). However, statistical data are necessary in order to say something conclusive about the meaning of parent's education for young adult immigrant's educational aspirations and achievements.

There are differences between first-generation immigrants who come as refugees and those coming through family reunion, as well as differences between those coming from war areas and those who do not have such experiences. This is partly a matter of having had any access to schooling before arriving in the host country, partly a matter of the extent to which one has experienced traumas or having or not having someone to relate to when arriving. Qualitative research can show how the migration history affects later educational performance, as well as experiences of inclusion and exclusion. There are vast differences in the experiences of those young immigrants coming from southern Somalia who had never attended school because of the war and some young immigrants from other countries (or other areas of Somalia) who had ordinary access to schooling in the home country before arriving in the country of reception. In many cases, however, child migrants learn the new language quicker than their parents, and it is the children who support the parent's learning. Some migrant parents who face barriers to insertion in the labour market also seek comfort in ethnic networks that might be counter-productive to active participation and consequently, they serve as poor role models for their children.

Among young men (both with or without immigrant background) who do not master the school setting well and feel stigmatized by the teacher or in general just bored of school, the tough guy, often inspired by the gangster or other sub-cultural images, is an alternative source of respect and status (Fangen 1998: 47; Moshuus 2007; Sernhede 2002; Vestel 2004). A young person who drops out of school and joins a criminal gang or a youth sub-culture instead is excluded from one setting, namely school, but included in another setting, namely the gang or the sub-culture. In Willis' (1977: 113) well-known study of white working-class boys in school, his main argument is that it is not the school that excludes these boys; they exclude themselves through the development of a counter-school culture which prepares them for the future on the shop floor. According to Willis, it is an element of self-domination in the acceptance of subordinate roles. However, this is experienced, paradoxically, as a form of true learning and as a kind of resistance.

But such an attitude towards school does not always appear as a collective reaction. In the *Weight of the world,* Bourdieu (2002: 61) writes about a young Moroccan man who has an illiterate father and a mother who is hardly able to write. Bourdieu argues that: 'Everything suggests that the organizing principle behind his rejection of school and the defiant attitudes that lead him towards, and gradually trap him in, the role of the "tough", is the desire to avoid the humiliation of having to read out loud in front of the other students'. In cases like this, the self-exclusion come about in order to avoid the humiliation of being excluded by others. The distinct multicultural community of the peer group is for some young people an alternative setting for inclusion, instead of school which is an arena where they do not feel comfortable.

All in all, lower class background seems to be the major factor to explain the higher dropout rate and lower grades of immigrants compared to nonimmigrants. This may be related both to the importance of role models, but also to the degree of parental support and motivation. Parents' high expectations are one factor that explains many young immigrants' extra drive to perform well. For some however, the expectation that they will experience discrimination contributes to their lack of motivation to strive for further achievements.

### **3. Labour market exclusion**

268 Social Sciences and Cultural Studies – Issues of Language, Public Opinion, Education and Welfare

and exclusion. Just as attitudes to schooling, to higher education and to financing education by means of loan, are influenced by class, so are they influenced by ethnicity (Fekjær, 2007;

Yet, the danger of presenting statistics of the performance of immigrants of different countries of origin is that it might reify a picture of each immigrant group. A qualitative study can be used to analyze the experiences of immigrants with one common country of origin but with different class backgrounds, with rural vs. urban backgrounds and with different migration trajectories. In Norway, immigrants from Somalia are more often unemployed and if employed have a low income, combined with having more children than all other immigrant groups in Norway (Henriksen, 2007). However, in my study of Somalis in Norway, I interviewed many young Somalis who pursued higher education. Common for all of these was that they had parents who also had taken higher education — either from the homeland or after coming to Norway, *or* their parents had held privileged positions in Somalia. This high level of education or status of their parents might have contributed to these young people having higher aspirations themselves (Fangen 2008). However, statistical data are necessary in order to say something conclusive about the meaning of parent's education for young adult immigrant's

There are differences between first-generation immigrants who come as refugees and those coming through family reunion, as well as differences between those coming from war areas and those who do not have such experiences. This is partly a matter of having had any access to schooling before arriving in the host country, partly a matter of the extent to which one has experienced traumas or having or not having someone to relate to when arriving. Qualitative research can show how the migration history affects later educational performance, as well as experiences of inclusion and exclusion. There are vast differences in the experiences of those young immigrants coming from southern Somalia who had never attended school because of the war and some young immigrants from other countries (or other areas of Somalia) who had ordinary access to schooling in the home country before arriving in the country of reception. In many cases, however, child migrants learn the new language quicker than their parents, and it is the children who support the parent's learning. Some migrant parents who face barriers to insertion in the labour market also seek comfort in ethnic networks that might be counter-productive to active participation and

Among young men (both with or without immigrant background) who do not master the school setting well and feel stigmatized by the teacher or in general just bored of school, the tough guy, often inspired by the gangster or other sub-cultural images, is an alternative source of respect and status (Fangen 1998: 47; Moshuus 2007; Sernhede 2002; Vestel 2004). A young person who drops out of school and joins a criminal gang or a youth sub-culture instead is excluded from one setting, namely school, but included in another setting, namely the gang or the sub-culture. In Willis' (1977: 113) well-known study of white working-class boys in school, his main argument is that it is not the school that excludes these boys; they exclude themselves through the development of a counter-school culture which prepares them for the future on the shop floor. According to Willis, it is an element of self-domination in the acceptance of subordinate roles. However, this is experienced, paradoxically, as a

Modood, 2007).

educational aspirations and achievements.

consequently, they serve as poor role models for their children.

form of true learning and as a kind of resistance.

When assessing what factors contribute to a harder access to the labour market, there is often an emphasis of what the individual lacks, as regards experience, network, qualifications, profiency in the majority language, knowledge of how the 'system' works and self-confidence. These factors create barriers for young people in general, but for young immigrants, an additional barrier in some cases is employers' reluctance to employ persons with visible minority background (Rogstad, 2000).

However, ethnic stigmatization can influence men and women differently. In some segments of the labour market, it seems that women with immigrant background have better access to jobs than men with the same background. It would therefore be erroneous one-sidedly to speak of a double disadvantage for women with ethnic minority background (Modood, 2007: 61). There is also an element of self-exclusion among young women with immigrant background as regards labour market. Statistical research shows that women with immigrant background have a decline in their employment over time, whereas the opposite is true for women without an immigrant background. One reason is that more women with immigrant background prioritize child rearing to active employment. Therefore, when they start to get children, they choose to work less or not to work at all (Brekke 2008: 61).

The problem for young immigrants of the first-generation is that they often do not have the network that leads to the right kind of jobs (Wiborg, 2006). Statistical research has shown that education reduces the risk of unemployment and it diminishes the income gap between people with or without immigrant background. The reluctance to employ young people with visible minority background is more prevalent in some parts of the labour market than in others. There are huge differences between immigrants of different origins when it comes to unemployment. Young migrants who have experienced war have greater difficulties with this. Living for many years in a society without any infrastructure, including a functioning

Social Exclusion and Inclusion of Young

music.

Immigrants in Different Arenas – Outline of an Analytical Framework 271

The poor suburbs of Paris that collect the most disadvantaged groups contrast in every respect with areas of Paris where there is a concentration of the rarest goods and their owners. In France, large public housing projects were built in the French *Banlieues* in the 1950s to the 1970s, and the houses were filled with low-income immigrant families. A stigma became attached to these areas because of the fear of a 'cultural clash' and of downward mobility by white working-class families and added to this was the rapid decay of the buildings (Body-Gendrot, 2002: 373). Young ethnic minority men vandalized buildings and public amenities as a protest against the way projects were designed and maintained, as well as against the French state bureaucracy for putting tenants in the same identical mortar

and concrete boxes without any sensitivity to ethnic and cultural preferences (ibid.).

The stigmatization of suburbs on the one hand contributes to a feeling of collective exclusion, while on the other hand, it can open up for alternative forms of inclusion based on the experienced sameness and common destiny of being foreigners in relation to the national state. The young men studied by Sernhede (2002) in one of Gothenburg's suburbs, did not see themselves as Swedish, but identified instead as 'blackheads', thus reinventing a racist term by making it their own resistant identity. Some of them also identified with the suburb as such. Sernhede sees a relation between these young men's unwillingness to participate in elections or in politics in general, and their experience of not being members of the Swedish society. Their felt powerlessness led to a fascination with violent gang culture and Afro- American hip hop, which again reinforced their hostility towards the dominant culture. Sernhede argues that the welfare state can diminish problems of inequality by different forms of social benefits, but it cannot solve these young people's experience of being outsiders in relation to the Swedish society. The hip hop sub-culture or even the suburb as a separate society within society, are alternative sources of community for some of these young people. This is similar to what Vestel (2004) found among the young men he studied in one of Oslo's North-Eastern suburbs. There was a 'community of difference', that was built around new practices of greeting rituals, language use, dress and

Among young migrants and descendants who live in Europe's suburbs, there are also many (especially those who have high ambitions as regards education) who do *not* identify themselves with the suburb because of its connotation of no future and of criminality and drug use. Young people define their own hierarchies between places, which are sometimes the same as the more dominant common sense hierarchies, but sometimes slightly different. Thus, different places and different arenas are linked to certain feelings of inclusion and exclusion, and for many young immigrants the high status areas of the city are the sites were they do not feel at home, and as the examples above show, this also appears true for some of those who take high status education. In addition to houses in these areas being too expensive for many immigrants, there is also an element of self-exclusion when young people with visible minority background choose not to spend their time in these areas, and later in life, do not aspire towards owning houses there. The ethnic segregation of the city

For many adults, it is tempting to seek inclusion in their own ethnic community, whereas many of the young immigrants prefer multi-ethnic communities, and also communities that

marks a symbolic barrier against real class mobility of young immigrants.

school-system, gives a person high qualifications, but these are the qualifications of how to survive from day to day (Fangen 2008). These skills are not easily convertible to the skills needed in order to succeed in a regulated labour market.

This is similar to what Weil et al. (2005) write on the problems of excluded youth adapting to a working identity. Many socially excluded young adults dream of a regular job, or even a job where they can be the boss. According to Weil et al. (2005), typical of many excluded young adults is that they resist authority and attempts by others to tell them what to do. Their dreams about a good job can be understood as part of a wider search for an idealized normality that includes education, work, a traditional family, spouse, children and house. For those who are marginalized, the wish to achieve this implies a dream that is exactly the opposite of the conditions in which they find themselves (Weil et al., 2005). Factors like unemployment, poor housing conditions and strained relations with family, friends and partners may be dashing these dreams against the rocks daily (ibid.). Weil et al. (2005) see the need for such dreams as a survival strategy. It enables young people to deny a present that might paralyze them altogether.

A factor typical of young adults who manage to avoid further economic and social marginalization and to benefit from the chances an individualized society provides is that they succeed in changing their strategies according to changing situations and circumstances. Young people who manage to alternate between unemployment, work and the educational system prolong the traditional adolescent phase, 'literally turning their life into an experience of lifelong learning' (Weil et al., 2005). Trying out possible options might function as a means of improving their competence to survive in ever changing situations (ibid.). Bourdieu (2002: 62) argues that young marginalized adults with and without immigrant background share every trait except ethnic origin. What some young people have in addition is an ethnic stigma inscribed in their skin or their facial features, as well as in their name, their clothes and their manners. These aspects intensify or radicalize the handicap linked to the lack of certificates and qualifications, itself linked to the lack of cultural and more specific linguistic capital (ibid.).

More than in other spheres, discrimination is a major barrier against young immigrants' active participation in the labour market. However, it is hard to document how huge this problem is, since it is difficult to control for the effect of all other variables, such as lack of qualifications, and so on. In the next section, I will focus on a sphere that is not so dependent on the individual resources, but rather on the collective ones.
