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The Netherlands is home to approximately three million people of foreign origin. More than a third (35.6 per cent) belongs to one of the four major ethnic groups: Surinamese, Turks, Moroccans and Antilleans (see Table 1). Of the approximately 16.1 million people in the Netherlands, about 12 per cent are considered to be ethnic minorities (excludes foreign nationals and refugees). The Netherlands is thought to have one of the highest rates of ethnic representation in Western Europe, given its geographical size and population. The Netherlands has a non-Dutch population that represents over 15 per cent of the total population. This is almost twice as much as Great Britain, for example, with an ethnic population of about 8 per cent. Even though not all of the non-Dutch population would be considered members of traditional ethnic groups (e.g., white Germans and white Americans), it could be said that at least 10–12 per cent are part of traditional ethnic groups.

Much of what we know about the status of different populations in the educational system is gained by understanding the factors that facilitate or restrict student progress in the educational pipeline. The educational pipeline as an analytic model places access to and opportunity in higher education in a larger social and institutional context and examines the steps leading to the successful completion of college as part of a larger, more complex process. Namely, it helps us to understand the process – as a whole and in stages – by which the many are reduced to a few on the path leading from the earliest years of schooling to post-college outcomes.

Hugh Africa, Council on Higher Education (South Africa)

Hugh Africa returned to South Africa in July 1994 after an absence of 30 years. His deep involvement at all levels of education – from basic to university – covers almost four decades. After obtaining the B.A. and B.A. (Hons) degrees from the University of Natal, he completed the M.A. degree at the University of Leeds and received his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. He also holds a Natal Teacher's Diploma.

W.E.B. Du Bois proclaimed the colorline as the problem of the 20th century; in similar fashion, the problem of the 21st century could be characterized as the “wealth divide” or more clearly, the challenge of extreme economic disparity alongside broad socio-cultural diversity. Women-of-color scholars have used various concepts such as “the matrix of domination” (King, 1988), “intersectionality” (Collins, 1991), “borderlands” (Anzaldúa, 1987) and critical race theory (Crenshaw, 1995) to demonstrate that the “problems of the 21st century” are related to rapidly expanding diversity alongside stubbornly persistent economic inequities across race, ethnicity, gender, class, language, citizenship and nation. Extensive technological, economic, political and social changes, along with immigration, have coalesced to produce a global community of great diversity and interpenetration. Unfortunately, this global community continues to be fractured by extreme disparities in wealth, divided into “have” and “have-not” societies (Chua, 2003).