This study builds on ongoing debates on the usefulness of Ogbu's (Ogbu, 1984; 2008; Ogbu & Simons, 1998) cultural-ecological theory by exploring the importance of various community forces in shaping educational aspirations of three different voluntary migrant groups in Flanders (Belgium). Since the first waves of labor migration to Belgium after WW II, immigrant children underachieved in school compared to their Belgian peers. As most immigrants came voluntarily to Belgium, these underachieving results conflict with Ogbu’s cultural-ecological model, in which he distinguishes between two main groups based on the shared collective history of different racial/ethnic groups. This model predicts that voluntary immigrants (such as Asian immigrants in the US) have better educational outcomes compared to the involuntary non-immigrants (such as African Americans in the US). According to Ogbu, these educational outcomes of immigrants are the result of both ‘the system’ and ‘community forces’. ‘The system’ consists out of educational policies at different levels, the treatment of minority children in school and the societal rewards that minority students receive when achieving. In addition, ‘community forces’ refer to minority community factors and exist out of the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors related to education, found in migrant communities, and these interact with ‘the system’. Community forces include the frame of reference for comparison, instrumental beliefs about schooling, a relational domain, such as perennial conflicts, the degree of trust and mistrust toward school and school personnel, the belief about the role of schooling in the  subordination or oppression of the group, and finally, expressive factors, such as collective identity and cultural and language frames of reference. Ogbu's theory has not received unequivocal support when tested in non-settler countries with respect to voluntary immigrant groups because recent migrant countries have different migration histories and political and economic relations with their former colonies (Eldering, 1997; Van Zanten, 1997; Hermans, 2004; Gibson, 1997), and fails to explain within-group variations, or variations within voluntary/involuntary immigrant groups (Akom, 2008; Gibson, 1997; Matute-Bianchi, 2008). In order to test Ogbu's theory and develop a deeper understanding of why certain immigrant groups might follow or deviate from Ogbu's predictions, this study compares one community force, namely the ‘frame of reference for comparison’, that underpins the development of such aspirations within and between three different voluntary immigrant groups in the same Flemish (Belgian) city: Turkish, North-African and Eastern European secondary school students. More specific, the internal variability within the voluntary immigrant category is examined. These immigrant groups have different comparison groups  as they have different migration histories, length of their stay in Belgium and the migration networks, and the utility of Ogbu’s cultural-ecological model  and typology for a non-settler society is tested.

Akom, A. A. (2008a). Reexamining resistance as oppositional behavior: the nation of islam and the creation of a black achievement ideology (the remix). In J.U.Ogbu (Ed.), Minority status, oppositional culture, & schooling (pp. 190-221). New York and London: Routledge. Eldering, L. (1997). Ethnic minority students in the Netherlands from a cultural-ecological perspective. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 28, 330-350. Gibson, M. (1997). Complicating the immigrant/involuntary minority typology. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 18, 335-356. Hermans, P. (2004). Applying Ogbu's theory of minority academic achievement to the situation of Moroccans in the Low countries. Intercultural education, 15, 431-438. Matute-Bianchi M.E. (2008). Situational ethnicity and patterns of school performance among immigrant and nonimmigrant Mexican-descent students. In J.U.Ogbu (Ed.), Minority status, oppositional culture, & schooling (pp. 397-432). New York and London: Routledge. Ogbu, J. U. (2008). Minority status, oppositional culture, & schooling (pp. 3-28). New York and London: Routledge. Ogbu, J. U. & Simons, H. D. (1998). Voluntary and involuntary minorities: A cultural-ecological theory of school performance with some implications for education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 29, 155-188. Van Zanten, A. (1997). Schooling Immigrants in France in the 1990s: Success or Failure of the Republican Model of Integration? Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 28, 351-374.