Social background as an explanatory approach for educational differences of migrants

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Sociology - Political Sociology, Majorities, Minorities, grade: 2,0, University of Bamberg, course: Seminar zu "Labor migration: Perspectives from political sociology, economics and political science", language: English, abstract: The research question reads as follows: how does second generation migrants¿ social background influence their educational opportunities? In order to answer the posed research question, the influence of socioeconomic factors on educational inequalities must first be embedded into context regarding different explanations for unequal educational opportunities.

Following this, the theoretical link between the influence of social origin and educational opportunities shall be created with reference to Bourdieüs theory of the habitus. The following section pays attention to the operationalization of social

background. Indicators for the social background are being discussed and derived from the theory of primary and secondary effects of social background. Finally, a comparative analysis of the influence of social background on educational inequalities shall be conducted by reference to two studies.