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Janina Söhn (2020) Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training 12(4), pp. 1-22. Open access.Abstract. In the German system of dual vocational training, in which companies recruit apprentices, graduates from low-level secondary schools (Hauptschule), and particularly those from immigrant families, are at a significant disadvantage regarding access to such apprenticeships. Previous qualitative studies have already pointed to the role of companies’ recruiting criteria for mechanisms of indirect discrimination, e.g., their desire for smooth social interaction within the firm. This article builds on a standardized survey among companies to which low-skilled adolescents successfully or unsuccessfully applied for dual vocational training. The company data are matched with secondary longitudinal survey data on the same girls and boys. Which recruiting criteria put ethnic minorities at a disadvantage and hence indirectly facilitate ethnic discrimination? The theoretical approach considers (knowledge of) the immigration country’s official language as both a functional requirement and a tool of hierarchical ethnic boundary making. In addition, concepts of social interaction within firms and respective norms as well as of homophily are subjected to an empirical test. Statistical results show that the below-average recruitment chances of applicants with a migration background are somewhat lower if companies stress a social fit criterion in their selection procedures. Furthermore, contrary to the initial hypothesis, ethnic minority youths are only substantially disadvantaged when applying to firms which consider the ability of verbal expression less crucial. Firms which consider this criterion very important may give applicants from immigrant families the chance to present themselves in a job interview and thus dispel ethnic stereotypes like the one that second-generation immigrant youths display serious language deficiencies.Extract. “Without explicitly building on the concept of homophily, the sociologist Imdorf (2010) makes a comparable distinction between three different social spheres as well as corresponding norms and conventions of behavior in any workplace. Referring to Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) concept of cites, social spheres with different forms of coordination and values, Imdorf (2010: 87–88) differentiates, first, the “industrial world of the firm, the fabrication of consumer goods or the provision of services”; second, the world of the market, including interaction with clients; and third, the “domestic world” of social interaction among the workforce, on which the following arguments focus. With the rational goal of a well-run business in mind, companies seek to keep horizontal and vertical social relationships free of conflict. Some ethnic majority business owners perceive the potential for minorities to disturb smooth and familiar ways of social interaction. In Imdorf’s (2007: 418) study, rather than explaining directly why they rather not train ethnic minority members (beyond the language and qualification argument), interviewed bosses of smaller firms underlined the need for an apprentice to fit into the Swiss tradition of family-owned businesses, anticipating conflicts along ethnic or linguistic lines among the staff. This “gut feeling” approach, when applied to the final recruiting of apprentices, rationalizes de facto biased personnel selection because its emotion-based screening enables and accelerates such decisions “under conditions of time pressure and uncertainty” (Imdorf 2010: 100).”Link to the article