Thomsen, Jens Peter, Bolette Moldenhawer, and Tine Kallehave. Ethnic Differences in Education in Denmark: Survey Report. EDUMIGROM, 2010.
The primary purpose of this report is to give a descriptive and analytical account of the lives of minority urban youth at the end of their primary schooling by looking at their school experiences and achievements, plans for future education and work life, attitudes towards school, and relations to peers, as well as the shaping of identity among minority students. Focusing on youth in the 8th and 9th grades in primary school in Copenhagen, Denmark, the report not only differentiates among ethnic groups in order to identify significant social patterns among groups, but also explores how ethnic differentiations intersect with other variables relating to the students’ background (gender, parents’ socio-economic status and educational level, and so on), and characteristics of everyday social life (social interaction, peer relations, etc). The report aims to contribute to a growing body of research on early identity formation and interethnic relations among young people in primary schools as a way of understanding how and why social positions of young people are structured the way they are.