My paper refers to a longitudinal study on 35 young Russian Jews, who came to Germany after the fall of iron curtain in 1989/90 (Interviews; 1995/96; 1998/99; 2002/03).
Russian Jewish migrants - and this includes the parents of the interviewees - have a higher level of education than both, other migrant ...
(Show more)My paper refers to a longitudinal study on 35 young Russian Jews, who came to Germany after the fall of iron curtain in 1989/90 (Interviews; 1995/96; 1998/99; 2002/03).
Russian Jewish migrants - and this includes the parents of the interviewees - have a higher level of education than both, other migrant groups and the German population as well (Schoeps/Jasper/Vogt 1999).
Their certificates as physians, engineers, or scientists, for example, are however as a rule not accepted in Germany. There fore, the majority of the parent generation were unable to transfer, in Bourdieu's terms, their cultural capital to Germany and occupy respecitive positions.
If we consider the children's generation, however, it is apparent that the cultural capital of the parents has by no means become obsolete. Rather it has been transferred to the children in form of educational aspirations and career ambitions. The emphasis on education within Jewish families is not only rooted in cultural traditions it is also connected with the Diaspora situation. Beeing confronted with more or less manifest antisemitism in the Diaspora, Jewish families had always follewed the principle that they have to be better than others if they were to achieve their goals.
In line with this principle it was no question for the parents of my study that they would send their children (adolescents and young adults) to institutions of higher education, even though the children did not know any German. The children were not only aware of the aspirations of their parents, they adopted them as their own. Although the Jewish children entered the German educational system from the side, so to speak, at a quite advanced age they acquired university degrees - with few exceptions - and got according positions.
Three case studies are presented demonstrating two successful and one failed educational carreer.
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