Etnische en religieuze diversiteit van eerstejaarsstudenten geneeskunde aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

To obtain information on the ethnic, religious and socio-cultural diversity of first-year medical students at the University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Design

Anonymous questionnaire.

Method

In December 2001, first-year medical students were given a questionnaire during a compulsory practical class. In the processing of the result, use was made of Statistics Netherlands’ classification of allochthonous persons. Data were also collected on the student's mother tongue, self-reported command of Dutch and other languages, religious denomination and the education of their parents.

Results

The response rate was 90 (277/308); 175 women and 102 men. Seventy-four percent of respondents were rated as ‘autochthonous’ (both parents born in the Netherlands), 8 as ‘western allochthonous’ (at least one parent born in another western country) and 18 as ‘non-western allochthonous’ (at least one parent born in a non-western country). ‘Allochthonous’ students originated from 30 different countries, most frequently Surinam (n = 15), and spoke 26 different languages. Of the ‘western allochthonous’ students 70 considered themselves to be ‘ethnic Dutch’, of the ‘non-western allochthonous’ 65 considered themselves to be both Dutch and ‘allochthonous’. Fifteen students did not speak Dutch with their parents and rated their command of Dutch to be significantly lower (score 8.9; scale 0-10) than that of the others. Forty-eight percent of the respondents did not consider themselves to be a member of any religious denomination, 18 were Protestant, 15 Roman Catholic and 7 Muslim. For 60 of the respondents, at least one parent had finished higher education. Parents of ethnic Turkish and Moroccan students had a significantly lower education than parents in all other groups.