When National Origins Equal Socio-economic Background: The Effect of the Ethno-class Parental Background on the Education of Children Coming of Age in Switzerland

The educational outcomes of the descendants of migrants are important indicators of migrants’ incorporation into host societies and an indicator of intergenerational social im/mobility. This paper examines this relationship using data from a survey that follows a cohort of young adults, born between 1988 and 1997, who grew up in Switzerland. It looks at the relationship between the educational output of respondents and their parental migratory background, with the theoretical consideration that the family’s social capital is a starting point in the descendants’ trajectories. The paper is based on secondary data and exploratory cross-sectional quantitative analyses. The results highlight first a correspondence between migrant parents’ national origins and their socio-economic status—in other words, an ‘ethno-class’. Second, they show differences in educational outcomes between migrants’ descendants and native Swiss as well as between the migrants’ descendants themselves—which indicates a segmented incorporation process for both the first and the second generation, in confirmation of previous research. Third, results show that parental background and language region of residence are statistically significant in determining the level of education achieved by the migrants’ descendants, especially those with a low socio-economic status. Their social mobility is ‘limited’, and they remain mostly in vocational education. The paper concludes that the Swiss school system still fails to include the most unprivileged and that a glass ceiling remains for them.