ABSTRACT
This chapter is based upon a research project focusing on the educational trajectories of students with an immigrant background in Flemish secondary education. An abundance of research has focused on stigmatization in educational settings and the stereotype threat literature in particular has shown some interesting insights. In that line of research, the important question has arisen regarding how students in stigmatized groups respond to the negative stereotypes in education that threaten their self-concept. School success is often defined in individualistic and meritocratic terms: individual students need to make the right choices, need to be motivated and will then become successful. As the ethnic minorities' problematized and stigmatized in the teacher discourses presented above are Moroccans and Turks, we focused on those groups in the statistical analyses, testing effects of stigmatization. As discussed in the theoretical sections, research shows that stigmatized individuals react to certain stigmatization processes and deploy specific strategies to protect their self-concept.
