Muslim Life in Germany - Deutsche Islam Konferenz

238 Aspects of Integration
Table 41: German language proficiency of interviewed Muslims according
to gender (in per cent)
Listening comprehension
Speaking skills Reading skills Writing skills
Men
No proficiency 0,0 0,8 2,2
Very poor 0,1 0,8 1,0 0,4
Poor 2,5 3,7 1,8 7,5
Average 21,1 21,2 18,2 26,8
Good 31,5 40,6 36,7 36,3
Very good
Women
44,8 33,8 41,5 26,8
No proficiency 1,0 1,5 3,1 5,9
Very poor 4,2 3,3 1,5 2,3
Poor 5,2 4,6 2,8 6,5
Average 20,2 23,1 18,0 20,5
Good 26,3 33,3 28,2 30,6
Very good 43,1 34,2 46,4 34,3
Source: MLG 2008, dataset of interviewees aged 16 and over, weighted.
Unweighted number of cases: 2,554
In the Representative Survey of Selected Migrant Groups
study, gender-specific differences in German proficiency were
ascertained among Turks and Poles (Haug 2008: 26). A relatively
high proportion of Turkish women (7 per cent) are revealed as
being illiterate – they are unable to write both in German and in
the language of their country of origin. Although its is not possible
to calculate an illiteracy level on the basis of the data from
the study “Muslim Life in Germany”, as interviewees were not
asked about their proficiency in the language of their country of
origin, illiteracy cannot be a virulent problem among Muslims
in view of the small number of persons with no skills in written
German. This is presumably attributable to the higher proportion
of persons belonging to the second generation.