Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in Europe

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Chapter 6 – The Intercultural Approach at SchoolIn the United Kingdom (England), school inspections must evaluate what the school does to cultivatepupils’ personal development. Inspectors assess how the school actively enables pupils to understandand respect other people’s feelings, values and beliefs, and to appreciate their own and others’ culturaltraditions. Two reports (respectively for primary and secondary education) published by Osfted inMarch 2004, entitled Managing the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant, found that schools that use thefunding more effectively are strongly committed to an ethos that values cultural diversity andchallenges racism.In Norway, a recently conducted report concludes that teaching aids published in recent years reflectmulticultural Norway in the sense that they contain pictures of children whose appearance is differentfrom the majority. Nevertheless, it is still the majority population and the socio-cultural customs of themiddle class – with regard to food, holidays, religion, and family and living conditions – that aredepicted. Several of the projects in the survey conclude that the opportunities provided by amulticultural perspective in teaching aids are hardly utilised. Neither do the teacher guidance sectionsgive teachers the help they need to tackle the challenges represented by working in classes withchildren from diverse minority cultures.6.4. Activities Associated with Life at SchoolIn over half the countries, the intercultural approach is not confined to classroom learning but isintegrated into other aspects of school life. This may imply extracurricular activities, such as theorganisation of festive events at school to celebrate cultural diversity, international exchanges of pupils,or activities involving members of the broader educational community outside the school, such asmeetings with representatives of the immigrant community. The organisation of such initiatives isencouraged or supervised by the central or top-level education authorities in Belgium, the CzechRepublic, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Finland, the United Kingdom andRomania.In the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has recently launched a broadprogramme for the integration of immigrants, which funds schemes to develop multicultural educationand respect for diversity among teachers and pupils in particular.In Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovakia, there are no recommendations from the central or top-leveleducation authorities regarding activities of an intercultural nature, but some schools organise them.Some countries conceive of the intercultural approach at school as a general matter affecting all aspectsof the way schools function. This applies to Finland and Sweden, as well as to the Czech Republic, theUnited Kingdom and Norway. The intercultural approach is meant to influence school culture, meaningall those values on which interpersonal relations (among pupils and among teachers, as well as betweenboth groups) are based.61
Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in Europe6.5. Training and Support for TeachersOver and above the definition of content as specified in the curriculum, the challenge of the interculturalapproach in education systems lies in the ability of teachers and other school staff to ensure that itbecomes operational. In this respect, the way teachers are trained and the support they receive from theeducation authorities are of vital importance.Thus the intercultural approach calls for ability on the part of teachers and indeed other school staff toreact to ethnic or racist kinds of stereotyping by pupils. Initially, this presupposes that teachersthemselves are capable of protecting their own behaviour from the influence of cultural stereotypes andthat they then possess the arguments needed to discuss stereotyping by pupils. In short, they require acomplex type of skill that should be acquired during initial teacher education or in-service training. Itinvolves not just acquiring a theoretical body of knowledge but above all confrontation with realsituations and practical experience. According to a research article on preparing teachers for interculturaleducation in the Netherlands ( 4 ), teacher training for intercultural education which is restricted to learninga theory is no longer appropriate. Ideally, it should be regarded as learning activity in which practicalexperience is considered in combination with reflection based on interaction and dialogue with fellowstudents, teacher trainers and in-service teachers.In virtually all countries surveyed, topics associated with the intercultural approach are included incurricula for initial teacher education or in provision for in-service training. The only exceptions in2003/04 are Estonia and Bulgaria. In Estonia, however, a pilot project to provide teachers with training inthis educational approach is currently being implemented. In the German-speaking Community ofBelgium, Lithuania, Malta and in Sweden, training in the intercultural approach is primarily part of initialteacher education.Institutions for initial teacher education are at least partly free to draw up their own curriculum in almostall countries. In the majority of countries, the inclusion (or otherwise) of an intercultural approach in thecurricula of these institutions is governed solely by their internal policy. Around 10 countries formallyrequire institutions to provide for intercultural education.Thus in the French Community of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, theNetherlands (in primary education), Finland, the United Kingdom, Norway and Romania, the central ortop-level authority has firmly stated that intercultural education must be included in teacher educationprogrammes. There is also a recommendation along these lines in Austria (applicable solely to institutionsthat train teachers for pre-primary education) and in Slovakia.The French and Flemish Communities of Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Norwayhave specified the skills related to intercultural education that teachers should have acquired by the endof their training. These skills relate essentially to the knowledge acquired by teachers regarding thesituation of pupils from cultural backgrounds other than that of the national culture, as well as theirperception of those pupils and their ability to handle relations between pupils of different cultural origin.( 4 ) Preparing teachers for intercultural education, Yvonne Leeman & Guuske Ledoux, Teaching Education, Vol. 14, No. 3,December 2003, pp 281-283.62
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EURYDICEIntegrating Immigrant Child
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PREFACE‘How do education systems
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