Foreigners, Minorities and Integration: The Muslim Immigrant Experience in Britain and Germany by Sarah Hackett

Author:Sarah Hackett [Hackett, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Islamic Studies, Social Science, Emigration & Immigration
ISBN: 9781526102461
Google: o225DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28543919
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2015-11-01T09:18:25+00:00

3

The education sector: the three Rs – race, relations and arithmetic

Ethnic minorities in Britain and Germany’s education sectors

Education has potentially been the most complex and most discussed topic regarding the settlement of immigrants and their descendants in Britain and Germany in the post-war period. Not only has it traditionally secured a place at the centre of political and academic debate in both countries, but it has also often been perceived as having the power to determine young ethnic minorities’ long-term integration. In Britain, many Afro-Caribbean and East African refugee children arrived during the 1960s, and those of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin followed during the family reunification process that began in the 1970s.1 It has been argued that educational disadvantage was present amongst many of these immigrants from the beginning, with many being less educationally qualified than their white counterparts, a trait that continues for some groups still today.2 Much of the academic literature has stressed that Britain’s education system was unprepared for the arrival of post-war immigrant youths and thus did not effectively cater for them. Panikos Panayi, for example, has argued that local education authorities during the 1960s and 1970s had no real concept of how to address the growing number of ethnic minority schoolchildren.3 Sally Tomlinson has claimed that Britain lacked a clear notion of how to integrate migrant youths, and that post-war education policies have too often been influenced by society’s xenophobic and racist sentiments.4 Similarly, Gajendra Verma and Douglas Darby have asserted that individual schools and teachers have often struggled to integrate ethnic minority children and meet their education needs, and received very little help or support.5

In Germany, guest-worker children, especially those of Turkish origin, started arriving in large numbers during the 1970s despite an overall decline in foreign workers: despite the 1973 recruitment halt, many foreign workers already in Germany wished to unify their families. The 1975 change to children’s allowances (Kindergeld) was a further factor. Prior to this, no distinction was made between children living inside or outside Germany, but from 1975 higher payments were to be made for children living in Germany.6 As in Britain, educational disadvantage was arguably present amongst Germany’s guest-workers from the beginning. Having been recruited to largely carry out manual work, many were less educationally qualified than their German counterparts, and it has often been mistakenly assumed that their children are not interested in education.7 Regarding Germany, the academic literature has been even more forceful than that addressing Britain in its blaming of the government and local authorities for issues and problems that have arisen regarding the education of ethnic minority schoolchildren. It has often been argued that, as a result of the nature of the guest-worker rotation system, they were very slow to acknowledge that a substantial proportion of the guest-worker population and their families were settling in Germany.8 There have also been two other key factors that have undoubtedly contributed to educational hardship amongst migrant children. Firstly, education in Germany is state-controlled, meaning that there has historically been a lack of any type of national overarching policy or accountability.

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