More Than a Sorting Machine: Ethnic Boundary Making in a Stratified School System

Abstract

This article examines the structural conditions that shape ethnic boundary making in the school setting. While previous work has focused on the ethnic composition of student bodies, our study places schools in their institutional and local contexts. We argue that the formation of identities and networks varies across local areas depending on the extent of ethnic stratification across schools. Empirically, we turn to the case of Germany, where the role of schools as producers of categorical inequalities is particularly obvious. Our analysis links large-scale survey data on adolescents' identification and networks with administrative geocoded information on local stratification across secondary schools. We find that minority students in schools with identical ethnic compositions show different inclinations to identify as a majority group member and to form friendships with majority peers-depending on the local extent of ethnic stratification across schools. To place these findings in a cross-national perspective, we identify scope conditions of these mechanisms of boundary making and discuss their presence in other countries and school systems. Our results support recent theories of immigrant incorporation and offer a more contextualized understanding of ethnic boundary making in schools.

Oppositional culture revisited. Friendship dynamics and the creation of social capital among Turkish minority adolescents in Germany

“…Under the assumption of a collective identity among Turkish minority members that rewards academic striving, same-ethnic peers who engage or are successful in school might be particularly attractive as friends since they serve as role models and behave according to the social norms emerging among this ethnic minority group. Interethnic friendship with majority peers, in contrast, might be guided by other social norms or even ostracised by same-ethnic peers (Kruse and Kroneberg 2019). Therefore, Turkish minority adolescents should consider the academic engagement and achievement of peers as more important when selecting same-ethnic friends than when selecting majority friends (Hypothesis 2).…”

Die Offenheit für interethnische Freundschaften von Jugendlichen in marginalisierten Wohngebieten

“…Sogar in der Netzwerkforschung, welche dezidiert die Heterogenität sozialer Umfelder ergründet, ist meist von weit verbreiteter ethnischer Homophilie die Rede (Janßen und Polat 2006;Kruse und Kroneberg 2019;Leszczensky und Pink 2019;Winkler et al 2011;Zakikhany 2014). Das hat teils methodische Ursachen, wenn neben der eigenen Ethnie nur nach deutschen Kontakten gefragt wird bzw.…”

“…sich ethnischer Homophilie oder der bloßen Zusammensetzung des sozialen Umfeldes widmen (z. B. Janßen und Polat 2006; Kruse und Kroneberg 2019;Leszczensky und Pink 2019;Winkler et al 2011;Zakikhany 2014) noch immer relativ wenig thematisiert. Zudem liefern Daten zu solchen Einstellungen oder Berechnungen der Kontaktchancen zu anderen Ethnien keine belastbaren Erkenntnisse zur ethnischen Heterogenität oder Homophilie im persönlichen Umfeld bzw.…”

Building Bridges to Better Bonds?: Differential On-Campus Participation between International and Domestic Students

“…Second, their feelings that those clubs are not legitimate forms of social interaction on campus have an othering effect on international Asian students. A common theme among domestic White students was that international Asian students are not the typical university student and that they need to do more to fit in, creating boundaries between student groups (Kruse & Kroneberg, 2019). This is exemplified in by Jason and Mark's comments that they do not know what the purpose of ethnicity-based clubs are and that taking part in those organizations demonstrates international Asian students' unwillingness to "merge into" Canadian culture.…”