As the flow of immigrants to developed countries is increasing, the research community has begun to pay more attention to the occupational and social integration of immigrant professionals. Although there are a lot of studies on unskilled immigrants in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany, there are few research reports about the occupational trends, pursuits and problems of educated professionals in a new country (Remennick, 2002). Stories of teaching in a new culture are rare in the literature on teaching (Elbaz-Luwisch, 2004). Recent research reports that teachers who have work experience in another country and/or are from different ethnic origins face a great challenge adapting to the school system, since work in education is deeply embedded in local culture, mentality, and language. Immigrant teachers have to master the language and new curriculum, and have to adjust to the new school culture and student-teacher relationships (Remennick, 2002). There were also reports of exclusion from mainstream professional and social formal and informal interactions, conflicts between personal values and beliefs of what is acceptable in the school, which may well lead to teacher engagement with covert subversive actions in the classroom (Bascia, 1996, cited in Seah, 2002). The current study was carried out in the Netherlands with the assumption that the accepted cultural differences on the societal level, the corresponding assumptions about immigrants, and ethnic minority communities’ retaining of their own cultural values to some degree (Seah, 2002) lead to the encountering of some conflicts and tensions by Turkish and Moroccan immigrant teachers. Subject area specialist Turkish and Moroccan immigrant teachers are extremely underrepresented in the Dutch secondary education (Leeman, 2006). There has been very little research carried out on their perceptions and experiences in the educational context. The research question guiding this study was: - What type of conflicts and tensions do subject area specialist Turkish and Moroccan immigrant teachers encounter in their teaching experiences in Dutch secondary schools?

A phenomenological research design was employed to inductively and holistically understand the teachers’ experiences in context-specific settings (Patton, 1990). Purposive sampling was used to reach four participant teachers. A semi-structured interview protocol consisting of six questions was used to collect information about the participants’ perceptions and experiences of relationships, conflicts and tensions experienced in the educational context. A content-analysis approach was used to analyze the data.

The analysis of the data reveals that the participants experienced tension and conflict centering around three themes: adapting to the educational context and dealing with contextual constraints, challenges of establishing discipline and order, and challenges of identity. The findings of this study showed similarities with the international research on immigrant teachers concerning adaptation of immigrant teachers to the educational context, and challenges of establishing discipline and order. However, challenges of identity were the major source of the tension and conflict that Turkish and Moroccan teachers experienced, as it has been projected in the main assumption of the study. Although the findings of the study are not meant to be representative of all immigrant teachers in the Netherlands, considering the number of subject area specialist immigrant teachers in the secondary schools, they should be taken into consideration well by teachers, teacher educators and those charged with inducting new teachers into the profession.