Ethnic Educational Inequalities: School Careers and Experiences of the Second Generation in France

Yael Brinbaum, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Jean-Luc Primon, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)

We analyse the school careers and experiences of the children of immigrants in France to investigate the links between educational inequalities and perception of discrimination. After a description of the educational careers and attainment by gender and ethnic groups, we explain those outcomes in shaping the impact of social and ethnic origins, school context etc. and explore the school experience linked to the effective careers. Using the data of the “Trajectories and Origins” Survey (INSEE, INED, 2008), we find that Second Generation children are disadvantaged in school. However, most of the disadvantages are related to their social background and outcomes vary among ethnic groups. Some groups do even better than the majority with similar background. Besides, the Second Generation express a strong feeling of unfairness at school, in particular the descendants of immigrants from Sub-Saharan, North Africa and Turkey and they perceive it as ethnic discrimination.