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Ethnicity and Education: Old Issues, New Insights
Educational systems in many developed countries around the world struggle to provide equal opportunities
to all their members. Although education is often viewed as a mechanism for assisting the integration of
ethnic minority groups into the social fabric of society - and for reducing prejudice and discrimination overall -
research shows an incoherent picture with results varying between countries, schools and ethnic minority groups. While some scholars claim that class differences are more apparent and significant than ethnic or
cultural dissimilarities, ethnic differences seem to persist in all educational areas including scholastic achievement, access to “good” schools, academic tracks, entry to post-compulsory education, including access to certain higher education courses and types of institutions, as well as individual aspirations, teachers’ attitudes, classroom experiences and the ethnic minority student experience in higher education institutions.
Within this conference we aim to look at ways schooling perpetuates ethnic differences in society by focusing on some of the following questions:
All methodological approaches (incl. quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods) are welcome.
You may download the full call for papers from here.
Please direct all questions and queries to the organiser Dr Adel Pasztor at: [email protected].
Ethnicity and Education: Old Issues, New Insights
Educational systems in many developed countries around the world struggle to provide equal opportunities
to all their members. Although education is often viewed as a mechanism for assisting the integration of
ethnic minority groups into the social fabric of society - and for reducing prejudice and discrimination overall -
research shows an incoherent picture with results varying between countries, schools and ethnic minority groups. While some scholars claim that class differences are more apparent and significant than ethnic or
cultural dissimilarities, ethnic differences seem to persist in all educational areas including scholastic achievement, access to “good” schools, academic tracks, entry to post-compulsory education, including access to certain higher education courses and types of institutions, as well as individual aspirations, teachers’ attitudes, classroom experiences and the ethnic minority student experience in higher education institutions.
Within this conference we aim to look at ways schooling perpetuates ethnic differences in society by focusing on some of the following questions:
- Who is left behind in the educational process; how and why? What are ethnic minority children taught in schools about their place in society and the world?
- Why are ethnic minority children distributed unevenly across the educational system? How does ethnicity feature in the construction of educational choices? How does ethnicity condition children's understanding of the role of education in their lives? How are aspirations shaped?
- Which individual characteristics distinguish academically successful students from their less successful counterparts? How do contextual and institutional factors impact on the educational careers of ethnic minority students? Which particular characteristics of educational systems reduce or exacerbate ethnic differences in education?
- What is the relationship between educational systems, migration policies and welfare provisions in relation to the educational integration of immigrant children? What are the provisions for historic or autochthonous minority children in terms of bilingual or mother tongue education and how these affect their aspirations, choices and experiences of education?
- What is the role of teachers and what can schools do in order to circumvent the marginalisation of certain ethnic groups? What strategies can be used to improve the educational outcomes of ethnic minority children?
- What are the different methodological, ethical and epistemological aspects of studying ethnic inequalities in education?
All methodological approaches (incl. quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods) are welcome.
You may download the full call for papers from here.
Please direct all questions and queries to the organiser Dr Adel Pasztor at: [email protected].