the Idea for the study, Torun Österberg, associate professor of social work, after a conversation with a taxi driver who immigrated from the Middle east to Sweden several years ago. The taxi driver had in their home country worked as an engineer, and expressed his frustration over the discrimination he experienced in the Swedish labour market. He had low hopes that the training would pay off for his children in the future.
” I wanted to see if it was possible to quantitatively measure it he gave expression to. And it turned out he was right. The protective effect of having college-educated parents disappears if there is no good example in the home or in the neighbourhood of that education provides jobs, ” says Torun Österberg.
Has followed more than 30,000 16-year-olds
Together with his colleagues Björn Gustafsson, university of Gothenburg Katarina Katz from the university of Karlstad has she with the help of statistics followed all of the 16-year-olds in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. The survey covers the years 2001-2006, and in total included 30 514 young people.
– the Risk for gymnasieavhopp increased significantly in areas where there lived many well-educated, which does not come into the labour market, ” says Torun Österberg.
the Study was to find out the factors that might contribute to the gymnasieavhopp, in addition to the already known, as for example, school quality or low-skilled parents. Many aspects have been investigated, such as how many young people in the metropolitan areas that failed out of high school, and the proportion of gymnasieavhopp in an area in relation to the proportion of unemployed graduates.
Of all the young born in 1985 who grew up in the major metropolitan areas was up to 25% children of immigrant parents. This, say the researchers, is a natural consequence of the increased immigration that have occurred in recent decades and the fact that the majority of the immigrants live in big cities.
Affects the individual and society
the Study shows that get the highly skilled born in Sweden received social assistance. However, had the whole 39 per cent of the immigrant with a foreign higher education income support. The children who lived in the same neighborhood as these adults showed a high degree of jump of high school. 17 per cent of boys and 14 percent of girls had at the age of 21, have not completed their high school studies. Among young men from north Africa and the Middle east, the proportion was even higher, over 40 per cent.
– If you don’t get signals from either your family or your surroundings, that education is worth the effort, this risks to have a negative impact. It affects not only the individual but also society at large, ” says Torun Österberg.
Even if more and better resources to the school is important is one of the researchers ‘ conclusions that this is not enough to get all young people to go out of high school. Increased resources must be combined with effective active labour policies targeted to the unemployed adults who are in the young people whose experiences affect young people’s belief that education makes a difference.
– A key factor is to get a working integration in Sweden. We also see that the student has a very important role today, what comes to convey knowledge about further education, on average, in spite of everything leads to a better position in the labour market, ” says Torun Österberg.
Study: Why do some young adults note graduate from upper-secondary school? On the importance of signals of labour market failure, is published in the Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
Contact:
Torun Österberg, associate professor of social work, torun.osterberg@socwork.gu.se, telephone 0705-952624, 031-786 1841
Björn Gustafsson, professor in social work, bjorn.gustafsson@socwork.gu.se, telephone 031-29 80 66, 031-786 1890
Katarina Katz, associate professor in economics, Karlstad University, Katarina.katz@kau.se, telephone 0734- 42 40 36
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