Migrant-Native Exposure in Danish Lower Secondary Schools, 1985-2019
Author
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2020
Submitted on
2020-12-17
Pages
74
Abstract
The present report describes the changes in migrant-native exposure within lower secondary education in Denmark from 1985 to 2019. On a backdrop of Gordon Allport’s contact theory and the assumption that intergroup contact affects long-term social integration on a societal level, the analysis is guided by Peter M. Blau’s macrosociological theory. It is shown that while overall intergroup exposure in secondary school is increasing in pace with immigrant inflows, we see the contours of structural sorting mechanisms. Over time, it is increasingly migrant and native children of low socio-economic status experiencing increasing intergroup exposure rates on a group-level. While migrant and native children of high(er) socio-economic status increasingly, on a group-level, are attending schools in which their ingroup has the ‘numeric advantage.’ On a municipal-level, the absolute size of the immigrant group is found to be the best determinant in explaining processes of migrant-native separation between schools in the school landscape.
Keywords
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