Teaching the Nation. How teachers deal with diversity in the classroom
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2019-09-16
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en
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Abstract
In 2015 the refugee ‘crisis’ in Europe was at its peak. Refugees mostly from a war-torn Syria
looked for refuge in the nation-states in Europe. The crisis showed an ambivalent Germany
stuck between the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments and Willkommenskultur,
which describes Germany’s welcoming stance towards arriving refugees. Three years after the
‘crisis’ public and political debates have shifted from managing the ‘crisis’ to figuring out how
to ‘integrate’ the newcomers. One of the institutions of public and political concern are schools,
who absorbed the arriving refugee children and are an important factor for their integration.
This thesis looks at how anxieties about the influx of migrants and the growing diversification
of Europe is taken up by teachers. Schools can be seen as a place that mirrors the nation in its
social and ethnic composition. Therefore the thesis examines how broader debates and social
change manifest in the classroom. The opinions, perspectives and struggles of teachers are
highlighted to show what teaching at this moment in time means and looks like. Through
qualitative research at a primary school in Eastern Germany, the challenges teachers articulate
about educating the next generation are emphasized, grounded in the setting and context of the
school’s frame and unique student body. Consequently this thesis shows that in the classroom
political and social debates about integrating the ethnic ‘other’ play out in complex ways.
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen