Discontinuous intersections: second-generation immigrant girls in transition from school to work

This article provides a theoretical framework for analysing discrimination against second-generation immigrant girls in education and the labour market by proposing an intersectional approach. Drawing upon selected elements of the findings of our Neskak Gora Project – a qualitative research conducted between 2009 and 2011 in Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK and funded by the EC Daphne III Programme – we show that the intersection of class, gender and ‘race’/ethnicity, which is at play at the structural, institutional and discursive levels of systems of intersectional discrimination, works in variable ways. While gendered educational structures seem partly to benefit female immigrant youth at school, gendered disadvantages are experienced particularly in the transition to the labour market. This highlights the necessary acknowledgement of the ‘discontinuity’ of axes of inequality that are manifested in different ways, according to specific contexts, institutional settings and moments of the individual's life cycle.