Μεταναστευτικές βιογραφίες και εκπαιδευτικές τροχιές: ιδεολογίες, πραγματικότητες και ζητούμενα

Abstract

The educational discourse about the socialization and integration of immigrant children within the European Union has established two main focuses. The first one considers the behavior of the receiving society (legislation, teacher training and education, school practices etc.) towards immigrant students, especially the issue of the educational system’s attitude towards the cultural capital brought by the student to the school and which is related either to the country of origin and its cultural system or to the immigrants’ community and its developing culture. The main focus of this type of interest is to examine whether the host country’s educational system guarantees the recognition and reproduction of the student’s group (or cultural) identity through transmission to the next 

generation and to express criticism on “assimilationist” practices and to promote identity survival in the new socio-cultural setting. Anti-assimilationist discourse dominated the public discussion but also the more specialized educational fora during the 80’s and part of the 90’s in Europe and is still strong as an “opposition discourse”.
The second focus of the discussion on immigrant students’ schooling is the educational capital (knowledge, skills, capacities) that immigrant students factually gain from their school attendance as indicated by official educational qualifications entitling the second or third generation immigrant to seek and find access to the employment system in a way different and better than that of her/his parents. During the last ten years this type of interest tends to replace the older anti-assimilationist one, at least in public discourse and in the official educational administration jargon. The main thrust of this “qualifica- tionist” discourse is the educational achievement of the immigrant student, especially the description and analysis of the factors related to low achievement, unequal educational opportunities and unemployment or underemployment. Within this context, an educational system is judged as successful in the field of immigrant students’ integration according to their learning outcome. Topics such as the student’s language competence of the student in the school’s medium of teaching communication, leveling the potential knowledge and skill gaps of immigrant student in the initial stage through well-defined and well-organized interventions, establishing quality factors in the teaching staffs initial and in-service training and the school’s organizational and managing patterns, equality of chances and equality of treatment within the school environment dominate the new discourse.
As a country with a relatively short immigration history, Greece faces educational challenges concerning the integration of its immigrant students similar to those faced by other receiving societies in the past. Notwithstanding the experience gained in other societies on this matter, the present discourse on immigrant education in Greece is dominated by ideological arguments and thus more or less out of pace with recent developments in Europe. The ongoing focus on identity preservation -supported both by politically conservative speakers and human right activists at the same time- has established a “discourse culture” in which anti-assimilationist or anti-racist arguments constitute a barrier in that they prevent or slow down the process of shifting the focus towards the real problems of educating immigrant children. In this sense, the emphasis given on identity preservation and the reproduction of cultural difference serves as an instrument of keeping public consciousness away from the comparatively negative indicators for school achievement for both migrant and “indigenous” students in the last five years.