2016年考研英語(yǔ)閱讀材料:Ethnic minorities
BY LAW, French authorities cannot collect ethnic statistics. All citizens are considered equal. Differentiating them is felt to imply stigmatisation, or even worse to echo the singling out of Jews that took place under the collaborationist Vichy regime in the 1940s.
Yet however strong the historical reasons, this approach makes it difficult to tell whether French people of different backgrounds really do fare as well as each other. A new study suggests they do not.
It comes, surprisingly, from an official source: France Strategie, the government's economic-strategy unit, which is run by Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist. The authors get round the ethnicity taboo by using census data on national origin. Several decades after mass immigration began, enough long-term data exist to see how the generation raised in France by parents from other countries has done.
In a word, badly. Youth unemployment of 32% for French-born citizens whose parents arrived from Africa, including sub-Saharan countries and those of the Maghreb, is twice as high as for those with no immigrant background. Fully 30% leave high school without any diploma or qualification, against 16% of those without immigrant parents. French people with parents from Africa have less stable working lives, and are more likely to live in poor neighbourhoods, than those with non-African immigrant backgrounds, the report finds.
Other studies use the data to reveal further differences by national origin. French-born citizens with parents from Morocco orTunisia, for example, seem to do better at school than those with parents from Algeria or the African Sahel. Only 10% of French men aged 25-35 with Algerian-born parents, and just 9% of those with parents from the Sahel, have a degree, against 19% of those with Moroccan or Tunisian parents and 23% of the non-immigrant population. (Among those with south-east Asian roots, the figure tops 30%.)
Girls also seem to do better than boys. Just 49% of French-born men aged 20-35 with Algerian parents have passed the baccalaureat, the national school-leaving exam, compared with 58% of women (and 68% of the non-immigrant population). Those with parents from the Sahel do little better: 63% of young French-born women have the bac, and 51% of men. Interestingly, when the sexes are combined, young French citizens born to Moroccan or Tunisian parents do better at school not only than those from Algeria or the Sahel but also those born to parents from Portugal.
Such divergent patterns mirror those found in other European countries. British-born Bangladeshis have pulled away from British-born Pakistanis in terms of school results, for instance, and now perform better than white British children.
What explains the French pattern? History may play a part. The bloody war forAlgeria's independence may have created feelings of hostility to the French system, and general alienation, which are slow to disappear. Poverty and discrimination clearly play a role. Many French immigrants came from countries with very low living standards, like Mali, Mauritania and Niger. And coming from a poor family background, notes the France Strategie study, seems to have a stronger impact on school performance in France than it does in other comparable countries.
參考譯文:
根據(jù)法律規(guī)定，法國(guó)官方部門(mén)不可以收集少數(shù)民族的統(tǒng)計(jì)資料。所有公民一律平等，對(duì)其進(jìn)行區(qū)分可認(rèn)為是有意歧視，嚴(yán)重者，可喚起20世紀(jì)40年代維希賣(mài)國(guó)政府對(duì)猶太人迫害的記憶。
然而，無(wú)論歷史的作用多么強(qiáng)大，禁止的方法讓人難以發(fā)現(xiàn)法國(guó)不同背景的人們是否真的個(gè)個(gè)表現(xiàn)良好。一項(xiàng)新的研究表明，并非全然良好。
出人意外的是，該項(xiàng)研究竟出自官方之手：由經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家Jean Pisani-Ferry經(jīng)營(yíng)的政府經(jīng)濟(jì)戰(zhàn)略研究單位France Strategie。研究作者使用原籍人口普查資料，以避免觸犯民族禁忌。人口大規(guī)模遷入的幾十年來(lái)，存取了大量的長(zhǎng)期數(shù)據(jù)，足以用來(lái)研究第二代移民的表現(xiàn)。
一言以蔽之，糟糕透頂。對(duì)于來(lái)自撒哈拉以南以及馬格里布等非洲地區(qū)的第二代法國(guó)移民，其青年失業(yè)率為32%，是無(wú)移民背景人群的兩倍。高中畢業(yè)時(shí)未獲得任何學(xué)位或文憑的人數(shù)比率高達(dá)30%，而無(wú)移民背景人群所占的比率為16%。研究報(bào)告發(fā)現(xiàn)，與無(wú)移民背景的法國(guó)人相比，第二代非裔法國(guó)移民的工作生活不穩(wěn)定，在貧窮社區(qū)生活的可能性更大。
其他幾項(xiàng)研究通過(guò)這些數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)一步揭示了來(lái)自不同國(guó)家的移民之間的差異。第二代摩洛哥裔或突尼斯裔法國(guó)移民在學(xué)校的表現(xiàn)似乎優(yōu)于第二代阿爾及利亞裔或非洲薩赫勒裔法國(guó)移民。25歲至32歲的第二代阿爾及利亞裔法國(guó)移民中，只有10%的人擁有大學(xué)學(xué)位，第二代薩赫勒裔法國(guó)移民的比率為9%，而第二代摩洛哥裔或突尼斯裔法國(guó)移民的比率為19%，無(wú)移民背景的人口比率為23%。(第二代東南亞裔法國(guó)移民的比率為30%，數(shù)量最多。)
女孩兒的表現(xiàn)亦似乎優(yōu)于男孩兒。20歲至35歲的第二代阿爾及利亞裔法國(guó)男士在全國(guó)學(xué)校畢業(yè)考試―高中畢業(yè)會(huì)考中的通過(guò)率為49%，而女性的通過(guò)率為58%(非移民人口的通過(guò)率為68%)。第二代薩赫勒裔法國(guó)移民的表現(xiàn)稍好一些：年輕女性的通過(guò)率為63%，男性的通過(guò)率為51%。有趣的是，如果不分性別，摩洛哥裔或突尼斯裔法國(guó)移民在學(xué)校的表現(xiàn)不僅要優(yōu)于阿爾及利亞裔或薩赫勒裔法國(guó)移民，而且優(yōu)于葡萄牙裔法國(guó)移民。
這些大相徑庭的結(jié)果映射出歐洲其他國(guó)家少數(shù)民族的發(fā)展趨勢(shì)。第二代孟加拉國(guó)裔英國(guó)移民的學(xué)校成績(jī)遠(yuǎn)不同于第二代巴基斯坦裔英國(guó)移民，如今超過(guò)了英國(guó)白人兒童。
何以解釋這種法國(guó)模式?也許有歷史的原因。因阿爾及利亞獨(dú)立引發(fā)的血腥戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)產(chǎn)生了對(duì)法國(guó)體制的敵視情緒，以及普遍的疏離感，這些皆不易消失。貧窮和種族歧視也具有明顯的作用。法國(guó)很多移民來(lái)自生活水平極低的國(guó)家，如馬里、毛里塔尼亞、尼日爾。據(jù)France Strategie的研究顯示，在法國(guó)，出身貧困對(duì)學(xué)生在學(xué)校表現(xiàn)的影響似乎大于其他類(lèi)似國(guó)家。
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