Sharing common educational institutions:

A necessary condition for integration?

 

Workshop Program

Sixth International Metropolis Conference

Rotterdam, November, 27^th, 2001

 

 

 

 

Workshop Description

 

Among the issues relating to the mainstreaming of immigrants in schools, the debate concerning the integration of immigrant children in common or ethnospecific schools is sparking renewed interest. Firstly, the concentration of immigrant populations in certain public schools has been steadily increasing in several immigrant-receiving countries, often despite policies and programs aimed at a more balanced distribution of this population. Secondly, ethnospecific school projects designed to better answer the specific educational or cultural needs of immigrants are gaining in popularity, but also raise concern in some contexts. Rather than focussing on their normative assumptions, this workshop wishes to examine these two models of schooling in the light of various research results. Namely, these results will allow us to compare their strengths and weaknesses in reaching the various objectives assigned to schools with respect to the integration of immigrants. The limits of voluntarist perspectives in this field, whether concerned with fighting ethnic concentration, with promoting identity or with using schooling to promote specific identities will also be addressed. The workshop brings together five researchers, one policy-maker, and one NGO representative from four different countries (France, Canada, Belgium, and Holland); all are involved to some degree in research, policy-making, program design, and intervention, and work with practitioners in the field. The fruitfulness of the exchanges will be insured by the sharing of conference papers before the workshop and by the workshop structure, which allows for a 30-minute discussion period. This discussion will promote the consolidation of comparative perspectives and encourage the participation of other interested researchers, policy-makers, and agents from various countries to the debate. 

 

 

 

2:00 - 2:05 pm        General workshop presentation

2:05 - 3:30 pm        The concentration of immigrants in public schools

 

Ethnic concentration in Montreal. s French language schools : origin and impact

 

The aim of my paper is to discuss the results of a multifaceted research program undertaken in Quebec from 1992 to 2000 regarding the origin and impact of ethnic concentration in Montreal. s French Language schools. My presentation will be divided in five parts : a brief overview of the evolution of ethnic segregation in the Quebec' school system, a discussion of the socio-ecological and school roots of the over-representation of immigrant students in some school settings and an assessment of the impact of this phenomenon on three main dimensions of schooling in modern society, school. s performance and mobility, social integration and linguistic integration. In conclusion, I will try to assert the contribution of this research program on the public debate in Quebec, as well as on the international discussions in this regard.

 

 

The Clash of the Multiculturalists. Debating ethnic (de)segregation in schools: postulates, practices and resistance in Flanders.

 

The right for minority children to go to the same schools as the children of the majority has generally been accepted as one of the main conditions to develop a fair and just multicultural society. Contrary to North America, European governments have rarely engaged in a pro-active policy to enhance desegregation. Apart from a few short-lived local projects in the Netherlands, Flanders has been the only region in Europe where since 1993 a policy has been put into place to address ethnic segregation in schools. This makes it a rare case to explore the postulates, practices and the nature of the resistance against desegregation and its wider implications in terms of society building. Going into this debate allows a better insight in the way different agents construct the multicultural society.

Protagonists and antagonists of desegregation policies use different and mutually excluding strategies. These reflect a split between . supporters for integration. on the one hand and . defenders of the rights of minorities. on the other hand. Despite their fundamental differences in views, both present themselves as defenders of the interests of minority parents. As such they share a common paternalistic approach.

Given the inconsistencies in the arguments on both sides, the debate needs to go beyond the . clash of the Multiculturalists. . I argue that we need to focus on the central question, asking ourselves if schools should aspire to be grounds of hybridity or if they are only supposed to re-establish existing identities? Starting from these questions, it should be possible to reconceptualise the main arguments in the debate.

 

Elizabeth Ruddick, Citizenship and Immigration Canada

 

                                                                                                                              

3:30 . 4:00 pm        Coffee Break

 

4:00 . 5:30 pm        Ethnospecific schools

 

Making the case for African-centred schools in the Euro-American context

 

This paper examines the case for Afrocentric/African-centred schools as an alternative educational site for youth disengaged and disaffected in the Euro-American context.  The paper is located within the on-going debates on the possibilities and challenges of developing alternative learning environments for youths disengaged in the mainstream schooling system. It is argued that an African-centred school be interrogated as an alternative educational site for those youths who, for varied reasons, do not appear to perform well, academically or socially, in the mainstream school system. In making the case for Afrocentric educational sites, the paper draws on research findings of an on-going longitudinal study of the Canadian public school system.

 

The evaluation of Muslim schools in Netherlands

 

Since the 1988/89 school year, 33 Islamic primary schools have been founded in the Netherlands. These schools are attended by about 7,000 pupils, largely of Moroccan and Turkish descent. Their main aims are to improve the pupils. achievements, and to strengthen the pupils. Islamic identity. This paper firstly explores the backgrounds of Islamic education. Then, the achievement levels, behaviour, attitudes and family backgrounds of pupils at 16 Islamic schools are compared with pupils at 16 schools with a similar socio-ethnic population and pupils at 432 schools from a nationally representative sample (in total more than 40,000 pupils). With regard to their achievements, behaviour and attitudes the analyses show that there are only very small if any differences between the Islamic and similar schools. However, they perform far below the pupils at the schools from the representative sample. With regard to the family background characteristics, there are some minor differences between the pupils at Islamic schools and pupils at similar schools. The parents are more oriented towards the Muslim community and they attach more importance to the role of religion in the upbringing of their children. At the same time they are less oriented towards the Dutch society and they speak less Dutch. For the time being, it is possible to conclude that pupils at Islamic schools do not do any worse, nor any better than pupils at schools with a similar socio-ethnic disadvantage. Time will tell whether they will succeed in raising their educational performance up to the level of non-disadvantaged pupils, and how the pupils will eventually function in Dutch society.

 

Gary Obas, Centre d'appui aux communautés immigrantes