Most western European countries have experienced a influx of non-western immigrants after World War II. Over the course of the years, it has become apparent that the educational position of the children of such immigrants leaves much to be desired (OECD, 2009). Despite attempts of policymakers to combat the educational delays of these groups, relatively little progress can be detected and one cannot speak of substantial improvements in the social positions of the groups (Driessen & Dekkers, 2008).

From a meritocratic perspective this situation can be called problematic, as the occupation of a particular social position should only be determined by a person’s talents, capacities and efforts (i.e., his or her ‘merits’). Competencies should thus play the central role in the social positions of people and not such factors as social milieu, ethnicity or sex. Research nevertheless shows that students coming from lower social milieus, many of them of immigrant origin, must demonstrate substantially more ‘merits’ than students coming from more privileged milieus to acquire comparable starting positions in society (Schneider, 2008).

In the present paper, the most decisive step in the school careers of children, namely the transition from primary to secondary school, is studied. The type of secondary education recommended by the primary school teachers is of particular interest because this recommendation determines the societal prospects of the children to a large extent (Tieben, 2009). The main reason for this is that in several European countries such as Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland, secondary education constitutes an early selection tracked system. Once a student is in a certain track it is very difficult to move up to higher track.

Within the framework of research on the establishment of recommendations for secondary education, the so-called phenomenon of ‘over-recommending’ for particularly minority children has been observed (De Jong, 1987; Imdorf, 2003; Kristen, 2000; Schnepf, 2002). This means that given comparable achievement minority children are actually given a higher educational recommendation than non-minority children. From a theoretical perspective over-recommending represents a deviation from the meritocratic principle and thus constitutes a form of positive discrimination. The opposite of over-recommending also exists: Under-recommending pertains to the situation where lower types of education are recommended than justified by the capacities of the student. In this context, over- and under-recommending always are relative phenomena and therefore depend on which group is taken as the norm. From a pragmatic perspective both over- and under-recommending are seen as undesirable. Over-recommending may lead to loss of motivation and school drop-out, while under-recommending implies that chances and talents of children are not fully used (Van de Werfhorst & Van Tubergen, 2007).

In the present paper, the practice of the educational advising of primary-school students in the Netherlands stands central. The main research question is whether we can (still) speak of over- or under-recommending of minority students and whether the teacher recommendation is a valid instrument for selecting minority students in secondary education tracks.

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