Mens & Maatschappij - Volume 90, Issue 1, 2015

Who profits of selection into secondary education tracks? A new approach to an old question[1]

Recently Dunne (2010) and Dronkers, van der Velden & Dunne (2011) introduced a three-level model: countries, schools, and students to analyze effects of educational systems. They showed that school characteristics like socioeconomic composition seem to mediate some of the effects of educational system characteristics. However their results contradict the consensus about the effects of educational systems on outcomes and inequality, which is exclusively based on a two-level model: countries and students. In this article I try to solve a serious omission in these contradicting two- and three-level analyses (no early scholastic ability) by analyzing Dutch longitudinal data (VOCL 1989), and test hypotheses derived from a three-level model. My analyses show that 1. The relation between parental education and early scholastic ability differs in more or less selective tracks: stronger in the less selective tracks and weaker in the more selective tracks. 2. The strength of the effect of parental education on getting a recommendation for the most suited track and on attending a track in the first or second year is smaller than the strength of early scholastic ability. 3. Both parental education and socio-economic school composition are not longer significantly related with the performance score in the third year, but that track has a substantial effect on that performance. Parental education has still significant effects on the language score in the third year, but only in the less selective tracks, while parental education has no effect in the more selective tracks. These results would be predicted by the three-level model, but not by a two-level model, and thus contradict the consensus, based on a two-level analysis without early scholastic ability.

Care ideals in the Netherlands: Shifts between 2002 and 2011^[1]

Our point of departure is that normative care beliefs can inform the current care policy debate. We conduct latent class regression analyses using two waves of Netherlands Kinship Panel Study data (N=4,163) to distinguish care ideals that capture multiple dimensions of normative care beliefs simultaneously. We also assess how these care ideals have shifted in the early 21^st century. We distinguish four care ideals: warm-modern (family and state jointly responsible for caring, egalitarian gender roles), cold-modern (large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, egalitarian gender roles), traditional (restricted state responsibility, large family responsibility, moderately traditional gender roles) and cold-traditional (large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, traditional gender roles). The probability to adhere to a cold-modern care ideal relative to a warm-modern, traditional or cold-traditional care ideal is higher for men than for women. Between 2002 and 2011 a shift away from warm-modern care ideals and towards cold-modern care ideals has taken place. This is remarkable, because Dutch policy makers have increasingly encouraged family members to take on an active role in caring for dependent relatives.

Norm blind behaviour of people with a mental disorder and social discomfort in interactions between the befriender and the befriended in a befriending service

In recent years, anti-stigma strategies have been developed to diminish prejudiced attitudes to people with a mental disorder. One of the strategies involves organised social contact. ‘Befriending services’ deliver such connections. We assumed that voluntary befrienders might regularly feel uneasy in these circumstances as the behaviour of people with a mental disorder can be socially disruptive when they deviate from self-evident social norms. This ‘residual irregularity’ (Scheff) often appears to be the cause of social discomfort for the befriending contacts. Through in-depth interviews with voluntary befrienders, we obtained an understanding of the irregular behaviour of the befriended individuals and about what causes the befriending contacts to feel uncomfortable as well as the character of their uneasiness. We found six types of this residual deviant behaviour and accompanying types of discomfort.

Labour market disadvantage amongst highly educated non-Western immigrants in the transition from school to work: The role of structural, institutional, and socio-cultural factors

This paper builds upon previous research on ethnic penalties in European labour markets by studying unemployment among higher educated non-western immigrant labour market entrants. By doing so, we attempt to get a better understanding of the extent to which one of the most advantaged immigrant groups still faces significant barriers in their search for work. We discuss to what extent structural-, institutional-, and socio-cultural characteristics of countries are able to explain cross-national variation in these inequalities between natives and non-western immigrants. Drawing upon pooled cross-section data from the European Labour Force Surveys (2005-2011), we test our hypotheses using a two-step multilevel method. Our analyses demonstrate that, first of all, higher educated non-western immigrant labour market entrants are more likely to be unemployed than their native counterparts. Second, we find that a higher percentage of foreigners in a country is positively associated with higher inequalities between immigrants and natives. However, in contrast to our expectation, governmental attempts to stimulate the integration of non-western immigrants are related to larger inequalities between non-western immigrants and natives among higher educated labour market entrants. Finally, we find inconclusive effects with regard to a country’s immigration history.