


Here is the full reference:


The authors’ Summary is as follows:


For more details……








Surinamese and Antillians
Turks and Moroccans
T: 1.43 M: 1.86 Average: 1.5

Children (1st generation)
Surinamese and Antillians
S: 0.93, S & A: 1.09 Average: 1.01
Turks and Moroccans

Children (2nd generation and mixed generations)
Surinamese and Antillians
A: 0.21 (mix) Average: 0.56
Turks and Moroccans




  1. Below is a rough translation of information on the RAKIT test, found on http://www.plato.caiw.nl
    The parts marked with [?] are ambiguous in the original Dutch.

    “RAKIT refers to Revisie Amsterdamse Kinder Intelligentie Test (Revised Amsterdam Intelligence Test for Children). The tests are intended for children aged 4-11 yrs, are conducted individually, and take about 2.5 hours. RAKIT consists of 12 subtests. For the youngest age bracket (4-5), the subtests measure: verbal learning ability and verbal fluency, spatial-perceptual reasoning, sequential memory and quantity [?]. For the 5-11 yr bracket: perceptual reasoning, verbal learning ability, spatial orientation, tempo [?] and verbal fluency. […] The raw sub-test scores may be converted to standardized scores.”

  2. The lack of data on “Indonesian” Dutch is partly due to the policy definitions used for ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. Because the notion of “racial” classifications is tainted because of the sad legacy of World War II, when the Nazis had no trouble at all pinpointing Dutch Jews because of the detailed civil records, the government had to come up with a way of singling out (ethnic) groups which demanded special attention (such as affirmative action programs, which have taken a rather different approach than in the US, for instance). So “ethnic minorities” called “allochtonen” in the PC speak of the last few decades, are defined on the basis of the country of birth of the parents (needless to say, this sometimes produces odd results as some white persons may have been born in Surinam, for instance, and thus officially counted as “allochtoon” for some purposes.
    The arrival of “Indonesian” Dutch (actually, most of them were Eurasians, also known as “Indische Nederlanders” or “Indo’s” who often felt more akin to the Dutch than to the Indonesians while they were still in the colony) and Moluccans took place in the early 1950s. The “Indische Nederlanders” were usually fluent in Dutch and relatively well-educated. Although some second and third generation Indische Nederlanders are culturally drawn to Indonesia, they are on average very well integrated into the Dutch mainstream. The Moluccans were a more difficult (but much smaller) group. First generation Moluccans were often not fluent in Dutch, and resentment of Dutch decolonization policy made them a volatile group. However, time has removed most of the sharp edges by now, nowadays young Moluccans speak Dutch as well as Malay, most of them have jobs and have become political realists. Not unimportantly, most of them are Christians.
    Turks and Moroccans are overwhelmingly Muslim, have arrived more recently and in much greater numbers, and have more language difficulties. However, the young Moroccans who are perceived as difficult in Dutch society are usually fluent in Dutch, so that is no longer the main problem. (What IS, is a topic which would take too long to discuss here).
    Anyway, “Indonesian” Dutch are absent from the statistics because of the way the criteria for being considered “allochtoon” were formulated. These criteria were formulated intentionally so as to include “difficult” ethnic groups without using overtly “racial” or “ethnic” criteria. “Indische Nederlanders” are not considered especially “difficult”; and most of them, or their parents/grandparents, have arrived to long ago for the “country of birth” criterion to apply.

  3. GATB = General Aptitude Test Battery
    Quote from

    “The General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) was designed to measure the work-related skills of applicants for white-collar civil service jobs in the U.S. government. It consists of nine tests of aptitude, including general ability, verbal aptitude, numerical aptitude, and other occupationally related aptitudes such as clerical perception and manual dexterity. Of the nine, general ability and verbal aptitude are the most closely related to the GED.”

    DAT = Differential Aptitude Test

    provides more details on the composition of this test.

  4. 1 immigrant minorities are not necessarily representative of their countries of origin. for example Black Africans in the UK tend to be okay in terms of education and income. in terms of Fluid IQ they are not nearly as bad as African Negros or as bas as Black Americans (90 v 70,85).

    2 along the same lines immigrants from a country are not necessarily representative of that countries ethnic break down. for example over 70% of Arab Americans are Christian. Dutch Antillies is about 85% Creole (Mixed Black) with the remainder mostly Amerindians, East Asians and Whites. Dutch Guyana is over 1/3 South Asian, about 1/3 Mixed Black, 1/6 Indonesian and the 1/10 Negro with some Chinese and Whites. i would guess that from these countries non-Negros would be more likely to leave than the Negros.

    3 David B’s Dutch language theory is not consistent with the fact that Antillians and Guyanese improve more across the generations than Turks and Moroccans.

  5. Speaking of Dutch-Indonesian blends, the best-known in the U.S. are the Van Halen brothers. I’ve never met them, but I know their sons Aric (Alex’s kid) and Atilla (Eddie’s kid). Aric is small and blond and Atilla is small, dark, and sensitive looking, with his mother Valerie Bertinelli’s big dark eyes. I wish him luck in life — he’s going to need it being named Atilla Van Halen!

  6. that dude who played zack morris in “saved by the bell” is also indonesian-dutch…and know I feel he does look a tad ethnic…of course when i was a kid i thought he was a WASP’s wasp :)

  7. Syarikat: thanks for the in-depth briefing!

    Acheson: interesting info on the racial makeup of Surinames and Antillians. The authors of the article themselves describe them as ‘predominantly Black’.

    - also a fair point about the relative change (or lack of change) over time. I don’t know whether the Turkish and Moroccan 2nd-gen children are entirely fluent in Dutch – in Britain some Muslim communities (especially Bangladeshis) tend to speak their own language to the children and don’t let them mix much with the ‘natives’, so the kids still start school with a serious language handicap. (Though this is changing.)

    Of course, I agree that immigrants are not a random sample of their population of origin. In general I would expect them to be somewhat superior in IQ, if only because the very-low-IQ people are more likely to be left behind.

  8. “Antillies is about 85% Creole (Mixed Black)”

    Most ordinary Dutch, who are only vaguely aware of the ethnic intricacies of their former colonies and remaining overseas dependencies, would consider the “mixed black” group simpy “black”. The presence of the ore “purely” black group found in Surinam (the Maroons or “Bosnegers”, descendants of escaped slaves) is negligible in the Netherlands.

    “I would guess that from these countries non-Negros would be more likely to leave than the Negros.”

    Not necessarily, because the East Asians, Chinese (and also the numerically insignificant whites) are economically dominant, so there is somewhat less incentive for them to leave. While is a significant number East Asians (“Hindostanen”) in the Netherlands, they have the strongest presence in The Hague, while most of Surinam’s Creoles are concentrated in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The former group is socio-economically relatively well-off and well-educated, so it doesn’t often appear in publications designed to deal with “problematic groups” (the same goes for groups like the Chinese, who mostly keep to themselves socially, but are successful economically and educationally and are virtually absent from Dutch crime statistics). When speaking of “Surinamers” most Dutch people primarily think of the Creoles.


    Surinamese usually speak much better Dutch than lower-class Antillians. Surinam has been independent since 1975, and the last big immigration wave from that country occurred around that time. Even then, Dutch is still dominant as the language of administration and education, while in the Antilles, which is still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Papiamento (a Portuguese/Spanish based creole language with some Dutch vocabulary) is dominant. Only the higher social classes are really fluent in Dutch. The small well-educated Antillian elite in the Netherlands generally arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. Recent Antillian “immigrants” (they are citizens) are almost invariably from the lowest social strata, speak an impoverished form of Dutch, are barely educated and often unemployed. While it is hard to tell a Surinamese from an Antillian from their appearance, their behaviour and related problems are quite different. Lower-class Antillians’ command of Dutch is not much better than that of Turks and Moroccans, so they have comparable room for improvement. But Turkish and Moroccan improvement is seriously impeded by (voluntary) social segregation and the role of (some manifestations of) Islam.

    “I don’t know whether the Turkish and Moroccan 2nd-gen children are entirely fluent in Dutch”

    “Fluent” yes (like, African-Americans are very fluent in English), but (academic) proficiency levels differ greatly. Boys drop out of school much more frequently than girls.


    Same in the Netherlands, although there are some peculiar differences between Turks and Morrocans. Turks keep speaking their own language among themselves, are proud of it and of their nationality and heritage, are relatively well organized, and are rising in socio-economic and educational achievement considerably faster than Moroccans. Relatively speaking, criminal behaviour among Turks this group is slowly declining.

    Moroccans, on the other hand, often have a relatively poor command of their own language. This is complicated by the relationship of Arabic dialects to the standard language, the fact that many Moroccans have Tamazight (a “Berber” language) as their first language, in combination with limited literacy to begin with. Many Moroccans consider their dialect not really much of a language (in contrast with the official, high-prestige Arabic, which they often have a limited command of).

    Turkish, by contrast, has high status in the Turkish community, which is quite nationalistic. Neither Turks nor Moroccans have much social interaction with Dutch people, but Turks usually have better Dutch language skills than Moroccans despite the fact that the latter use Dutch among themselves far more often and also have somewhat more contact with Dutch people than Turks.

    By the way: intermarriage between Morrocans and Dutch is rare, but considerably less so than between Turks and Dutch.because of Islamic and tradition attitudes, Muslim male – Dutch female couplings are probably about 10 times as common as the other way around. As you can see in other posts on this site or elsewhere, for a Muslim girl to marry, date, or even socialize with non-Muslim males is quite dangerous. In most of the cases I’ve seen of Moroccan or Turkish girls with a Dutch boyfriend or husband, the girls were university students who had arrived on their own. By contrast, most Turks and Moroccans living in the Netherlands arrived by “family reunification” chain migration, following the labour migration of the 1960s and 1970s).

  9. Syarikat: this is fascinating info. I hope you will keep commenting on other posts.