In many European countries, disparities in educational outcomes between students with and without a migration background are exceptionally large. However, migration background is a social category that comprises several different aspects that are known to be related to educational success, e.g. socioeconomic factors, educational levels within the family, cultural capital, skills in the majority language, different orientations and attitudes. With respect to orientations and attitudes, research has shown that gender-role orientations of students have an impact on their educational performance, especially in domains which are traditional closely related with gender (e.g. mathematics, reading) (Athenstaedt & Alfermann, 2011; Dresel, Steuer, & Berner, 2010; Ehrtmann & Wolter, 2018). Gender-role orientation is defined as an expression of an individual’s view on the social structure of societies, in which assumptions on gender-specific expectations towards the division of labour and social interaction are expressed. Individual manifestations of these orientations are influenced by gender, migration background, social class and education itself (Athenstaedt & Alfermann, 2011). The present contribution addresses differences in gender-role orientations of secondary school students in Germany and attempts to disentangle the effects gender and migration background have on these orientations.

The gendered perception of social structure and everyday life is one of the basic principles individuals learn from an early age on (Krais & Gebauer, 2002). Through the within-family transmission of cultural capital and views on society, children develop a gender-specific worldview which affects habitual beliefs, behaviour etc. (Bourdieu, 1985, 2014). Dependent on the manifestation of gender-role orientation they establish their social reality in a more traditional or more egalitarian way which in turn effects further domains such as education (Ehrtmann & Wolter, 2018).

Research that investigates influencing factors on gender-role orientation has shown that boys generally display a more traditional gender-role orientation than girls. Further, individuals with a higher educational level and their children have a more egalitarian orientation than people with a lower educational level (Athenstaedt & Alfermann, 2011; Ehrtmann & Wolter, 2018; Hadjar, Grünewald-Huber, Gysin, Lupatsch, & Braun, 2012; Idema & Phalet, 2007; Salikutluk & Heyne, 2014). Children in migrant families are likely to grow up in an environment with more traditional gender-role orientations (Idema & Phalet, 2007; Salikutluk & Heyne, 2014). At the same time, even in migrant families the gender-role orientation of boys seems to be more traditional than the one of girls (Idema & Phalet, 2007). In this context, research indicates that the parents’ education, the socioeconomic background of the family and language use within the family predict gender- as well as migration-specific manifestations of gender-role orientation (Idema & Phalet, 2007; Salikutluk & Heyne, 2014).

While much is known about the influence of gender or migration background as single influencing factors on gender-role orientation, relatively little research has been carried out on the joint impact of these categories. Moreover, the investigation of such overlapping effects in a comprehensive manner is rarely addressed by quantitative analytical approaches. The present contribution focusses on the explanation of differences in the gender-role orientation of students by gender and migration background as an interaction of these background variables and their impact on manifestations of these gender-role orientations. In order to contribute to closing the described research gap, the following questions are examined:

I. Are there significant differences in the gender-role orientations of students that can be explained by their gender and migration background?

II. Do male and female students with and without migration background differ in their gender-role orientation?

Data for the following analysis is derived from the research project “Multilingual Development: A Longitudinal Perspective” carried out among monolingual German, German-Russian and German-Turkish speaking students in public schools in Germany. The longitudinal study followed two parallel cohorts (starting with grade seven and nine) over four waves and included questionnaires providing student and parent information on contextual and personal background as well as standardised assessments of the participants’ language skills. The sample used for the present contribution includes 1.662 students with a slightly higher percentage of female students (59%). About half of the students grew up multilingually (German-Russian: 18%; German-Turkish: 28%) compared to 55% monolingual German students. Information on the gender-role orientation of students was gathered in the third wave of data collection. Students indicated their attitudes towards vocational and personal gender-specific expectations on a four-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 “completely disagree” to 4 “completely agree”). The scale used for the present contribution consists out of six items, including “Boys and girls should have the same chores at home” or “Men are better suited for some professions than women”. A higher score on the scale indicates a more egalitarian gender-role orientation. The scale is unidimensional and has a Cronbach’s Alpha of α=0.81. For background information on gender and migration background, student and parent questionnaires of the first and second wave are used. Gender is operationalized as male and female, while the language used within the students’ families indicates migration background: monolingual German and multilingual German-Russian as well as German-Turkish as the two largest migrant groups in Germany. To explore the range in gender-role orientation through the influence of gender and migration background, in a first step, t-tests were used to determine whether there are differences between the averages of i) male and female students, and ii) students without (monolingual German) and with a migration background (German-Russian and German-Turkish). In a second step, multiple linear regression analyses are carried out in order to identify the relationship between gender and migration background as well as its joint impact on gender-role orientation by interactions terms. Two similar models are specified. The first model differentiated students with and without migration background while the second model investigates students with migration background in more detail (German-Russian and German-Turkish). Both models include the following control variables: socioeconomic status, school type, grade and the parents’ gender role orientation as additional influential factors.

With an average of M=3.36 (SD=0.57) students tend to egalitarian gender-role orientation. However, the orientations differ significantly between boys and girls as well as students with and without migration background. Both, German-Russian and German-Turkish students significantly differ in their gender-role orientation compared to non-migrant students and among each other. The first regression model shows, that migration background and gender have a significant effect on student’s gender-role orientation. While students with a migration background are more traditionally orientated in general, girls have a more egalitarian gender-role orientation than boys in the migrant as well as non-migrant group. If the migrant group is divided into German-Russian and German-Turkish students in a second step, German-Turkish students show the most traditional and monolingual German students the most egalitarian gender-role orientation. As in the first model, girls generally have more egalitarian orientations than boys. In both models, controlling for socioeconomic background, school type, grade and parents’ gender role orientation have no influence on the significance of the effects. Beyond that, the interaction of gender and migration background have no significant explanatory power, which indicates that both factors are relatively independent predictors of gender-role orientation. The results show, that not only gender but also the specific migration background have an impact on gender-role orientation, which indicates a different influence of family background that comes along with a migration background. However, with similar manifestation of gender-role orientation between boys and girls within the different migration groups, a substantial joint effect of gender and migration could not be proven. For further research, the differences within the migrant group of students should be addressed. Possible explanatory factors could be the use of the heritage language within migrant families, the migration generation of students as well as general gender-role orientation of the country of origin.

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