SIXTH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE

WORKSHOP 19: The accessibility of  education for migrants' children: an international comparison

ORGANIZERS

Flip Lindo
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES)
University of Amsterdam

Rokin 84, 1012 KX  Amsterdam
Tel. (31) 20 525 2663
fax. (31) 20 525 3628
Email: lindo@pscw.uva.nl 

Maurice Crul
IMES, (see above) and Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology  (ICS)
University of Groningen

Grote Rozenstraat 31, 9712 TG  Groningen
Tel. (31) 50 363 6283
fax. (31) 50 363 6226

Email: m.crul@ppsw.rug.nl

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

For a long time already the educational attainment of pupils from migrant families has been a focus of anxiety and an important political issue in Western immigration countries. Parents are intensely conscious of the importance of the proper educational credentials for their children to get access to higher levels of education and training. In fact, as more and more children born in the immigration country enrol in secondary education, the group that is doing well in school and that will obtain the chance to follow higher vocational training and even go to university, is growing. However, it is to be expected that, also among the so-called second generation, there will remain a sizable group of young people that will not be able to make it in school. Although education policies for migrant pupils have been put into effect everywhere to provide equal educational opportunity for migrant groups, a large part of the minority pupils still does not achieve educational qualifications on a par with their white peers. 

The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers, policy makers and practitioners in the field, to discuss the implications of  the different national educational systems and policy measures for local practice 'on the ground'. Researchers are invited to focus in their papers on the experiences of pupils from migrant families with the local educational practices they encounter. Practitioners and local policy makers are invited to react to the papers of the researchers, and to enter in discussion which each other about their varying experiences, so as to come to a 'comparative ethnography of educational settings', with the aim to uncover the factors that obstruct the accessibility of institutions of secondary and higher education in different countries for 'in-between' and second generation migrant youth.

PAPERS:

Dr Nihad Bunar, School of Social Sciences, Växjö University, Sweden

Dr Tamar Horowitz, Department of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Dr Trees Pels, Institute for Sociological and Economic Research, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Dr Maurice Crul, IMES, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The researchers will be asked each to invite from their country to join them in this workshop:  a practitioner (someone who occupies a central position within a local educational setting) and a (local) policy maker.