Μαθητές με ιστορικό μετανάστευσης στο γερμανικό σχολικό σύστημα: η αποτυχία μιας πρόκλησης

Abstract

Ethnicity and culture, or ethnic and cultural identity, have marked the discussion about the educational integration of immigrant children in Germany, in the sense that for a relatively long time collective (ethnic or cultural) identities were considered to relate to personal biographies and individual histories within the educational organizations of the receiving society. This type of thinking is at least partly responsible for the development of some versions of intercultural education which directed their criticism against the school for its rather comprehensive nature and monocultural curricula, since it was exactly this orientation which was held to be responsible for the migrant students’ relatively poor educational achievement. A so-called diffuse identity for the immigrant student, produced by the schools’ peripheral attendance to his linguistic and cultural capital, was thought to be a negative factor in the process of integration. At the same time no adequate empirical longitudinal research to corroborate such a hypothesis has been conducted in Germany. In this sense, intercultural education eventually functioned as a branch of social work, trying to help migrant children cope with difficulties of the school environment, whereas it was not always clear that the motivation taken for granted by the educationists as that of children and /or of their parents’ was in fact their actual motivation. There has also been no empirical evidence in Germany that the school integration of children with a migrant background has failed due to monolingual instead of bilingual training. In this article the author presents possible reasons for language difficulties faced in school by immigrant children, as well as some ways for their management.