Diversity and Uniformity – The Swiss Case

With regard to the concept of minorities teaching in a majority society, this article deals with the perception of otherness and othering in the context of transnational migration in Switzerland. Despite relatively strict immigration laws, Switzerland is an immigration country with a high percentage of inhabitants with an immigrant background which are very heterogenous in terms of ethnic or national origin, socioeconomic history or reasons for migration (Federal Statistical Office (FSO) Switzerland, 2017).

At the same time, Switzerland’s educational system is considered to be relatively highly structured, with an early division of students into different achievement levels, which usually takes place at the age of 12. In the current literature, this transition is often cited as being responsible for a strong relationship between educational success and social as well as immigrant background. When it comes to naming migration-related diversity, words are (obviously) important. Surveys and operationalizations of the so-called “immigrant background” in the context of (official) statistics as well as (educational) scientific studies have three possible consequences: First, different data collection types and operationalizations often have very different implications for theory-based explanations of the studied ‘faits sociaux’, in Emile Durkheim’s words, which in our view are not always made sufficiently explicit. Second, the nature of data collection and operationalization naturally affects the nature and strength of the effects and results as well as their interpretations. And third, the terms, definitions, and operationalizations used, in turn, naturally influence the ‘faits sociaux’, for example, by not only not reflecting but possibly also preserving stereotypes, minority status and thus power relations.

In contrast to the heterogeneity and abundance of different immigrant backgrounds and histories in Switzerland, there has been little research on teachers with an immigrant background. This article shows the current state of research, and at the same time, points out the gaps in the state of research, based on different theoretical backgrounds.

Throughout this article, we look at the construction of difference in the choice of studying to become a teacher. We assume that the choice of apprenticeship or study is a result of weighing the advantages and disadvantages one expects from the associated career options. These advantages and disadvantages can be, for example, more economic/material factors such as salary or job security. They can also be more psychological/non-material factors such as self-worth and a sense of belonging, but also anticipated interactions (for example, the risk of experiencing discrimination on the basis of origin in daily interactions) with superiors, colleagues and “customers” (in the case of teachers: students and parents).

This article is structured as follows: First, we will show examples of the problems involved in constructing the immigrant background on an operational and theoretical level. We then provide theoretical considerations with regard to explaining differing educational pathways, leading to differential outcomes concerning the choice of studying to become a teacher. Following this, the Swiss educational system is briefly explained, with a focus on the training of teachers for compulsory education.

Then, based on figures from official education statistics, we present distributions of the proportions of persons with an immigrant background in relation to the total population as well as various indicators of educational success. Furthermore, we show the results of studies to choose a course of study to become a teacher and the experiences of teachers with a migrant background when on the job or looking for a job. The article concludes with implications of the results for research and educational policy.

The findings presented here come from various data sources: First, we draw on previously published studies, official data and surveys to look more closely at educational aspirations and the choice of a course of study to become a teacher among individuals with an immigrant background. In addition, we use data that we have collected in the context of our own projects at universities of teacher education. On the one hand, these are data from the projects DIVAL and DIVAL_transition, which we collected from 2013 onwards at the St.Gallen University of Teacher Education. In the project DIVAL, additional to a standardized questionnaire survey of all students in 2013 (N = 891), 8 focus group discussions with 18 students and 4 focus group discussions with 17 lecturersFootnote 1 were conducted on the relevance they attribute to immigrant backgrounds during teacher education (Beck et al., 2014; Bischoff et al., 2016; Edelmann et al., 2015; Ha & Bischoff, 2020; Ha et al., 2019). In addition, in the project DIVAL_transition (Bischoff & Edelmann, 2017) we interviewed students with an immigrant background during their transition into the profession using problem-centred interviews (Witzel, 2000). Finally, we refer to another one of our own studies in which we generated data by biographical-narrative interviews with 19 teachers and analyzed the data with a hermeneutical approach (Mantel, 2017, 2020). We include findings from other research in Switzerland in our reflections, drawing largely on the work of Edelmann (2006, 2008), who examined interviews with 40 practicing teachers in the context of her studies.

Who? Otherness and Othering

To analyze differences in outcomes for different groups of a population, one must first define the different groups. In doing so, there is a danger of reproducing social categories and the inequalities they entail. Therefore, it should be pointed out that operational definitions are artificial and must always be interpreted with regard to the object of investigation. Starting from a (as far as possible) value-free approach, the distinctions presented here should therefore be understood as theory-based. Their construction should neither be understood as a justification of unequal treatment nor as a negation of other relevant distinctions. In terms of content, the following descriptions largely follow the considerations in Beck and Edelmann (2016), which in turn are strongly oriented on Gresch and Kristen (2011) and Kemper (2010).

When analyzing group differences related to family migration biographies, terms such as “foreigner,” “ethnic or cultural affiliation,” or “migration/migratory background” are used in the (German-language) social sciences. Operationalizations of immigrant backgrounds in studies that draw on existing (often large) data sets are naturally made on the basis of information available on nationality, country of birth, but also first language. This implies different restrictions in the analytical depth of possible results, since the set of theoretical explanations is naturally limited. However, this does not automatically mean that “simple” operationalizations via nationality or residence status, for example, cannot be meaningful, since naturalization, at least in Germany and Switzerland, is associated with both increased educational success and increased integration (see for example Hainmueller & Hangartner, 2013; Söhn, 2014). Therefore, we propose a definition of a person having a migratory/immigrant background analogous to the statistical advice, given by the European commission as “a person who has: (a) migrated into their present country of residence; and/or (b) previously had a different nationality from their present country of residence; and/or (c) at least one of their parents previously entered their present country of residence as a migrant” (European Commission, 2020). While we should be aware that this demarcation is not sufficient to describe social categories, this definition nevertheless may highlight the common denominator, namely the aspect of movement/mobility.Footnote 2 Usual (statistical) categories available in pre-existing data are nationality, country of birth of the respondents and if born abroad, the year in which they immigrated. Especially when the data are related to education, the languages spoken by the respondents and/or their respective households are used to distinguish autochthonous and immigrant population. In a narrower sense, nationality is only a meaningful operationalization when it comes either to aspects related to citizenship or to the fact that it can be used as an “instrument” for discrimination (when it is stated in job applications, for example). The use of country of birth as a distinguishing criterion is based on the assumption that comparable regions of origin are associated with more or less comparable “ethnic” or “cultural” contexts of origin.Footnote 3 This is often combined with the indication of the so-called generational status of immigrants, usually distinguishing between “first” (born “abroad”) and “second” (born “at country of residence”, at least one parent born “abroad”) generation.

Using statistical categorizations (or variables) that already exist in data comes with different problems: First, when analyzing such data, researchers rely on the variables collected to construct exhaustive categories. Second, these constructions should also be able to represent categories that are valid and have theoretical content. One danger of such approaches, which is not emphasized enough by Beck and Edelmann (2016), is the following: An approach that is predominantly oriented towards statistical categories may overlook the fact that these categories are not “objectively given”. Rather, the relevance of these categories in relation to outcomes (such as experiences of discrimination in the job search) may be rooted deeply in the social processes that both helped to create such categorizations, as well as working as a mechanism responsible for the phenomena of interest.

Especially studies with qualitative research approaches proceed in a different way by primarily recording or interpreting self-attributions or perceived attributions by others with reference to an immigrant background. The relevance of the categorization is either left to the actors themselves or revealed with the help of analytical (mostly hermeneutical) methods in combination with attributions from others. This has the advantage for different lines of difference to be drawn when analyzing different situations. Furthermore, the subjective view of the actors can be better documented. Of course, this approach also poses challenges that have to be addressed by the researcher with the help of adequate methodology: Potentially important processes that take place outside the perception of the actors can almost not be captured. Furthermore, there is a danger that certain situations and their consequences are over- or under-interpreted with regard to the underlying lines of difference. Relevant attributions of an immigrant background can also be discovered within the framework of a specific analysis by analyzing patterns. Ideally, this can also uncover patterns of action and interpretations hidden from the persons involved in the social processes under investigation.

The use of existing categories should therefore be theory-guided so that they do not only represent otherness, but also take the processes of categorizing in the sense of othering into account. Thus, existing differences should not be interpreted as objectively and permanently existing differences but should be understood as situational as well as addressed and interpreted as a consequence of social processes and resulting attributions.

From Diverse Schools to Universities: Choice or Restriction?

Compulsory education in Switzerland today starts at the age of four and comprises (simplified) 2 years of kindergarten, 6 years of primary education and 3 years of lower secondary education (Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), 2019). Subsequently, approximately two-thirds of a cohort enters dual vocational education, which lasts between 3 and 4 years, and one-third attends a tertiary educational institution (university, teacher-training college or university of applied sciences). As Switzerland is a federal state with a very high degree of autonomy of the cantons (federal states), there are great differences in the actual organization of compulsory education. As mentioned above, Switzerland is an immigration country despite rigid immigration policies. This is also reflected in the educational institutions. The public education statistics record any immigrant background in Switzerland only via nationality. According to this categorization, around 28% of students in kindergarten and elementary school and 26% of students in secondary schools were of foreign nationality in the 2018/2019 school year (Federal Statistical Office (FSO) Switzerland, 2020). In level-separated secondary schools, around 37% of foreign students were at basic levels, while at advanced levels the figure is only 17%. However, with the PISA survey (which includes secondary school students at the age of 15) and the so-called Assessment of the Achievement of Basic Educational Competences, large, representative data sets are available that allow for a more differentiated analysis with a more precise operationalization. According to data from the Swiss Assessment of the Achievement of Basic Educational Competences, in 2017, approximately 67% of students in 6th grade at the primary level did not have an immigrant background. The breakdown of students with an immigrant background (33% overall) is 21% for the second generation and around 12% for the first (Konsortium ÜGK (Ed.), 2019). Students with only one parent born abroad are not counted as having immigrant background. Using a similar operationalization, according to the 2018 PISA survey data, approximately 34% of 15-year-old students at the lower secondary level had an immigrant background, an almost identical proportion (Konsortium PISA.ch, 2019). However, as we will show below, the composition of the teaching force in Switzerland does not remotely reflect this migration-related diversity. In order to get closer to this problem of underrepresentation, we therefore first address what moves people to start a teacher-training program. Psychological as well as sociological and educational theories often assume educational decisions as realizations of educational aspirations in decision-making situations, which are associated with more or less uncertainty, depending on different factors such as socioeconomic and psychological resources and the expected benefits of the chosen educational pathway (Boudon, 1974; see Maaz et al., 2006 for an overview). However, although such models have a strong focus on the choice of individuals, one should not assume that this choice is completely free for all individuals. Rather, we must emphasize here that restrictions can massively limit the “freedom of choice”. These restrictions can be of a material nature, for example in the form of excessively high opportunity costs for completing a course of study. But they can also be immaterial, for example in the sense that people expect not to be accepted by their fellow students and lecturers during their studies, or in the form of being exposed to discrimination when looking for a job or later in their career. Research shows that people with an immigrant background in particular often report higher educational aspirations (Van De Werfhorst & Van Tubergen, 2007). These high aspirations are described by some authors as immigrant optimism (Heath & Brinbaum, 2007; Kao & Tienad, 1995). According to this conception, persons with an immigrant background represent a particularly selective group and tend to regard their low socioeconomic status in the country of arrival as temporary and accordingly changeable. However, if this attitude is confronted with the reality of possible discrimination in the job search, this optimism would presumably be reversed in the case of minorities who were already born in the country under consideration. Whether or not this discrimination objectively takes place is irrelevant from an analytical viewpoint,Footnote 4 as the awareness of having to perform better than non-migrants in order to achieve comparable professional success might still lead to higher educational aspirations, however, it could also lead to educational aspirations being directed at areas where less discrimination is expected.

Suter (2016) found evidence of high parental educational aspirations among educationally successful students with a migrant background in Switzerland in the context of a guideline-based interview study. Beck (2015) however, finds no evidence for increased aspirations among parents of primary school students with an immigrant background from “typical” migration countries (former Yugoslavian states, Turkey and Portugal). Glauser (2015) finds no clear influence of migration status on the educational motivation of school leavers in Switzerland, while Tjaden and Scharenberg (2017), using a different data set, find more favorable transitions after lower secondary school for students with an immigrant background (controlling for social origin and school performance) in Switzerland, which they attribute predominantly to immigrant optimism. Similarly, Griga and Hadjar (2014) finds that second-generation immigrant women in Switzerland are more likely to enter university than natives, controlling for social background and school performance. However, it is not clear whether this is due to higher educational aspirations or expected discrimination in the search for apprenticeships.

Overall, one might consider the profession of a teacher in Switzerland as very secure nowadays due to a shortage of teachers (Dachverband Lehrerinnen und Lehrer Schweiz (LCH), 2020). It is also well paid compared to the level of demands of the training (Wolter et al., 2003) and since pay is based on established salary categories, there is actually little possibility of wage discrimination. So based on these considerations and assumptions, there are actually many reasons why people with a migrant background could choose to study to become a teacher more often, as long as they meet the entry requirements. But this consideration is also based on the restriction that no discrimination on the basis of origin is to be expected in the search for a job or in the job itself.

Few studies examine the reasons for choosing to study teaching in Switzerland (Denzler et al., 2005; Denzler & Wolter, 2009, 2010), even fewer with a focus on students with an immigrant background. Beck and Edelmann (2016) examine the choice using educational statistics with the application of different statistical operationalizations of immigrant background. They find that there are strong differences in the distribution of students across different types of higher education institutions (universities (Uni), universities of applied sciences (UAS), and universities of teacher education (UTED)), but not only in terms of immigrant background, but also depending on the type of operationalization (see Fig. 4.1).

Fig. 4.1
A multiple bar graph plot for no migration, migration background, first and second generation. It plots percentages versus F O S, C O B, and N A T. No migration is the highest while the second generation is the lowest.

Students by Immigrant background (No, 1st Generation, 2nd Generation), Operationalization (FOS According to Federal Office of Statistics Switzerland, COB Country of birth of respondent and their parents, NAT Nationality of Respondent) and Type of University (UTED: University of Teacher Education, Uni: University, UAS: University of Applied Sciences). (Data: Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) Switzerland, 2013)

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Two findings stand out (Beck & Edelmann, 2016): First, students with an immigrant background are significantly underrepresented at Swiss universities of teacher education compared to universities and universities of applied sciences, and this can probably not be explained by the career choice motives considered in the study (Beck & Edelmann, 2016, p. 185). Second, the extent of the underrepresentation depends strongly on what counts as an immigrant background. It is particularly interesting to note that the definition of an immigrant background as made by the official statistics of Switzerland, takes into account the nationality in addition to the countries of birth of the respondents and their parents (Federal Statistical Office (FSO) Switzerland, 2017). This has consequences, for example, when people have one parent born in Switzerland and one born abroad; in this case, nationality at birth determines whether a person is categorized as having an immigrant background or not.

At University: One of Us?

For prospective teachers, the path from educational decision to the profession normally leads through the University of Teacher Education. Among other things, fellow students and the interactions with the lecturers can have an influence on whether the training can be successfully completed. Literature on dropping out of higher education with a focus on students with an immigrant background is relatively scarce until now, especially when it comes to teacher education. One of the problems is the adequate operationalization of dropout and the associated problems in the study of such phenomena. However, there are indications that a low socioeconomic status as well as general conditions of study have an influence on the risk of dropping out from university in general (see, for example Wolter et al., 2014). One conceivable factor here for students with an immigrant background would be, how integrated they feel at university and the sense of belonging conveyed to them by fellow students and lecturers. Furthermore, research on the sense of belonging at universities in Switzerland is rare to non-existent (see Federal Statistical Office (FSO) Switzerland, 2018 for results related to overall wellbeing). Recent studies from the United States of America (Gopalan & Brady, 2020) show a significant difference depending on the racial-ethnic origin of students in the sense of belonging, even if the reported effect sizes are rather small. We use selected examples to show the extent to which integration and a sense of belonging at university might play a role for prospective teachers.

Results from the survey of 14 students with an immigrant background as part of the project DIVAL (cf. Paragraph 1) indicate that the question of representativeness and belonging is relevant to some of the students with an immigrant background and that they would welcome an increased proportion of students with an immigrant background at university. This is illustrated with the following selected statements from the interviews (cf. Edelmann et al., 2015, p. 217):

When I started here, I was, I believe, the only dark-skinned student. And now at undergraduate level there are, I think, two or three more dark-skinned students that have recently started. And I think that’s good.

I have asked myself this question before I started teacher education: If I become a teacher as a person with an immigrant background, how many other such students are currently at this university? Will I be the only one? And if you already know, aha, yes, there are other students with an immigrant background at this university and it is seen as something positive, then you simply don’t need to have this discussion with yourself and worries at the beginning.

Other students emphasized that they hardly perceive an immigrant background as a relevant distinguishing feature at St. Gallen University of Teacher Education. One reason mentioned is that all students have already completed a successful educational path in Switzerland and acquired the Certificate of Access to Higher Education (Edelmann et al., 2015, p. 217).

These results show several aspects: On the one hand, a perceived relevance of the sense of belonging, which, however, is rather defined by belonging to the minority (in this case there seems that “migration” and “skin color/race” are mixed together). The risk of not feeling a sense of belonging can be interpreted as a cost aspect, which can lead to an overall negative evaluation of the teacher education program, even among those who are inclined to study. On the other hand, a meritocratic attitude is reported, where only the entrance qualification counts.

Into and on the Job: What to Expect?

The decision as to whether students choose to enter the teaching profession may also depend on what they anticipate encountering as teachers. This anticipation may be based on what they experience during their practical courses as well as what they observe about and hear from practicing teachers.

There are indications from the DIVAL and DIVAL_transition projects that prospective teachers with a so-called immigrant background are indeed concerned about their future role, as they tend to think much more about certain aspects than their fellow students. For example, considerations are made regarding the extent to which languages shared with students or parents may or may not be used in a school context or to what extent a common national or ethnic origin with the pupils and their parents may lead to more closeness and when it is appropriate or necessary to make delimitations.

So, the question arises, what kind of stories may reach the students during their pre-service teacher education – or, in other words: What are the experiences of teachers for whom a so-called immigrant background has become relevant?

Edelmann (2006, 2008) has studied with a content analysis approach (Mayring, 2010), how teachers in the city of Zurich who consider themselves as someone ‘with immigrant background’ (and therefore using self-identification as an operationalization) deal with cultural diversity among their students. Surprisingly, she has found these teachers to feel fully recognized. They considered their ‘background’ as a resource for their teaching by – for instance – acting as role models for their students or by being particularly empathetic to those with similar migration experiences. Edelmann (2008) suggests to interpret these results against the background that the teachers in the city of Zurich at the time of research had a particularly high working satisfaction, as the working conditions were attractive and there was an overall teacher shortage so that they were usually able to choose the particular school neighborhood they most preferred (ibid., p. 200ff).

The question why teachers choose or avoid to work in particular neighborhoods has also been addressed in a study by Mantel (2017, 2020). She has investigated how teachers’ ways of dealing with diversity are interconnected with their biographical experiences of being someone ‘with immigrant background’. The study is framed by the social constructivist theory of boundary making by Wimmer (2013) referring to Weber (1921–1922), Barth (1969) and Bourdieu (1982). It focuses on the question of how teachers experience and deal with processes of boundary making in the pursuit of their life story as well as in their pedagogical orientations. The hermeneutical analysis of biographical-narrative interviews (Rosenthal, 1995; Schütze, 1983) reveals threeFootnote 5 types that each show specific ways of dealing with social boundaries which are closely related to the teachers’ ways of dealing with student diversity:

The first type has an overall orientation of striving towards appreciation for all. This type has biographically experienced only lightly effective processes of boundary making which he or she has been able to influence by constantly modifying boundaries in claiming both sides to be equally valuable in some way. As a teacher, this type avoids schools in the rural context and consciously prefers schools in urban-immigrant neighborhoods for a negative as well as a positive reason: The negative reason is the anticipation to be less exposed to stigmatization or denigration as would presumably be the case in the rural context, while the positive reason is to feel familiar with the milieu of the urban-immigrant environment. Nevertheless, this type experiences precarious lack of belonging and recognition as a teacher, is particularly cautious not to offend anyone and tends to think of those ‘with immigrant background’ – including his or her own students – as those who will always be limited in their career opportunities.

The second type orientates towards a struggle against social exclusion and has experienced social boundaries that have been almost impossible to overcome, including physical and/or psychological violence such as being strongly stigmatized based on one’s national or ethnic family history, which in turn leads to a constant feeling of vulnerability. As a teacher, this type avoids the migration context altogether and seeks to find an environment in which migration is on the agenda as little as possible for fear of again being addressed as someone of foreign origin. Due to the feeling of vulnerability, this type seeks to keep and defend the relatively high social position as a teacher, while at the same time teaching the students not to exclude or denigrate anyone.

The third type is structured along self-determined belonging through upward mobility. In this case, there is a strong desire for change because of unsatisfying family conditions and limiting socioeconomic circumstances. Social upward mobility becomes a main biographical orientation. Having reached this social advancement by becoming a teacher, the social position feels strong and secure. Consequently, this type feels free to choose a school neighborhood independently of concerns of being recognized as a teacher, while sometimes urban-immigrant neighborhoods are chosen for reasons of familiarity. These teachers typically distance themselves from the ‘new immigrants’ who – in their eyes – have not yet ‘earned’ their belonging while showing strongly optimistic performance expectations towards all of their students combined with the idea that assimilation is needed in order to achieve full integration and educational success.

In all three types, the boundaries that are most strongly experienced and lead to strongly contoured type structures are those that refer to socioeconomic background as well as migration, typically having a parental labor migration history.

In sum, the overall picture of experienced teachers for whom a so-called immigrant background has become significant, shows various kinds of tensions between different resources in dealing with student diversity and limitations based on experienced boundary making processes. Those feeling vulnerable in their recognition as teachers tend to avoid rural environments and choose urban-immigrant neighborhoods instead, while nevertheless experiencing precarious conditions of belonging (Ha & Bischoff, 2020; Mantel, 2020).

Conclusions and Implication

In this article, we have tried to summarize the current state of research on teachers with a migration history in Switzerland. The focus was on the construction of the immigrant background as an object of investigation in scientific works, on the choice of a study program to become a teacher as well as on the experiences of prospective and practicing teachers with an immigrant background. Based on the results presented here, we would like to briefly discuss what we already know and, building on this, focus on the question of what we do not know.

Although we first discussed the question of operationalizing immigrant background, this discussion is by no means completed. Especially in a strongly heterogeneous immigration society like Switzerland, it is important that this heterogeneity is also anticipated in research. For this, studies with a focus on specific immigrant backgrounds would be promising in the first instance, since dichotomizing operationalizations (with/without an immigrant background) are mainly demarcations in relation to the autochthonous population, but they blur the boundaries within the immigrant population. At the same time, the examples of skin color/race and religion described here show once more that national origin in this context is not sufficient to examine relevant boundary demarcations and questions of representation and belonging. This raises the problem of which categories can be used in research and how. Categorizations like skin color or race are easily misused for biologizing explanations and therefore subject to data protection for good reasons.

We have seen that differences in operationalization, which seem trivial at first glance, already result in large quantitative differences in the categorization into “minority” and “majority”. If, for example, nationality is taken into account in the construction of the “2nd generation”, we could see that the proportion of students with an immigrant background is clearly underestimated according to the official statistical definition of Switzerland. This leads to the question: Does “opening up” the term “immigrant background” in the true sense of the word (here, for example, if at least one parent was born abroad, regardless of current nationality), which leads to a markedly higher proportion of students with an immigrant background, enable the normalization of diversity in the context of migration? Does the “assimilation” by definition of persons with an actual immigrant background as described above lead to a stronger delimitation of the then so-called “immigrants”?

A promising approach could be to use extended concepts of (self-identified) ancestry to measure specific group memberships in future (quantitative) studies. While measurements of origin via cultural and ethnic background as well as self-identified ancestry are already standard in surveys in countries such as Australia or the USA, such operationalizations have only recently been applied in the European context (cf. European Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ESCEG) by Heath et al., 2016). It has been shown that these are also suitable for identifying distinctions based on sub-national and regional categories (Heath et al., 2016, p. 45) and are suitable for uncovering connections with, for example, experiences of discrimination that cannot be identified exclusively with operationalizations based on countries of birth and nationalities (Schneider & Heath, 2020, p. 549).

A central question remains to what extent one overlooks relevant lines of difference with too rigid categorizations based on simple observable facts (such as country of birth). At the same time, however, focusing on the complexity of heterogeneity, especially in the Swiss context, can obscure the bigger picture. This an make it difficult to distinguish structural realities and mechanisms from the assessment of individual preferences and choices. Another aspect of this is to return to the fit between operationalization and theoretical explanation: perhaps the question should not be who chooses to study to become a teacher, but who chooses not to. Further studies thereby address the question of the extent to which “objective” or self-assessed factors are relevant in determining who becomes a teacher, or whether there is also the question of who, why, and what categorizations of “otherness” are made and whether this may already be discouraging school leavers from becoming teachers. Certainly, studies that start much earlier in the career choice process could provide more clarity here. In the context of recognition and belonging, this is immediately followed by the question of who drops out of teacher training or leaves the teaching profession prematurely and why. This could provide valuable clues as to which aspects of categorization can help explain the low representation of minority teachers in Switzerland.