Overcoming barriers: Career trajectories of highly skilled members of the German second generation.

In: A life-course perspective on migration and integration., S. 101-119

Abstract

"By focusing an members of the second generation who have attended university, my article examines trajectories including a sequence of transitions by studying educational pathways and the entry to the labour market. The empirical findings are based an qualitative interviews drawn from the investigation 'Cultural Capital during Migration'. All interviewees had already made the status passage to the labour market after having obtained qualifications in one of three areas: the medical professions, the technical professions, or the management and administration sector. In this article, I will first discuss the theoretical and methodological assumptions of a biographical approach to the career trajectories of the second generation. The empirical analysis then highlights the impacting institutional and social settings of different educational pathways which lead to the acquisition of the Abitur (in Germany the educational degree providing access to university) and, finally, the various circumstances during the entry to the labour market. A key question of the analysis, whether there are interrelating effects over time, will then be discussed in the concluding section, along with the issue to which extent the presented findings concern the second generation only or whether they also hold for their native born peers." Forschungsmethode: empirisch-qualitativ; empirisch; Befragung. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 2005 bis 2009. (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku).