When we speak of the position of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands, it is increasingly important to include the children and descendants of the original migrants in the analysis. In the case of the Surinamese, the largest ethnic minority group in the Netherlands, the second generation currently makes up forty per cent of the total population of this group. Focusing on the second and subsequent generations is not only important because of their increasing numbers, but also because it permits a long- term analysis of the development of the position of immigrant groups. We focus in this research on the position of second-generation Surinamese in the Netherlands.
Interviews are a widely used method of gathering data in the social sciences.
The role of the interviewer is often taken for granted and it is not always recognized that the interviewer can be responsible for up to fifteen per cent of the variance in the answers of respondents. This is true not only in survey interviews but also in open interviews. The interviewees make assumptions about the views of the interviewer and may adjust their statements to accommodate the interviewer. In this study ethnicity plays an important role. This research shows that a black interviewer obtains systematically different answers from respondents compared with a white interviewer.