Issues of
Comparability
Problems in comparing the
minority populations’ educational situation arise for
various reasons. The main difficulties regarding
comparability across countries evolve from the fact that
in the Member States there are:
Different
types of ethnic minority groups;
Different
terms and categories that are used for collecting data
on migrants and ethnic minorities in the field of
education;
Differences
regarding the availability of data; Different
educational systems.
Types of
Ethnic Minority Groups
Minority groups in the
Member States vary in ethnicity, size, and status.
Circumstances, how majority and minority populations
initially came in contact with each other and the
treatment of minority groups in the respective countries
differ. Some Member States have a substantial ethnic
minority population due to their colonial past (e.g.
France, UK, the Netherlands). There, many of the
minority members have attained citizenship. In other
countries the presence of minorities is mostly due to
recruitment of so-called "guest-workers" in the second
half of last century (e.g. Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden). These countries have
significant populations of non-nationals but also of
descendants who have acquired citizenship in their new
country of residence. Several countries - some of which
used to be countries of emigration - experience more
recent immigration (e.g. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
Finland, Ireland).
While the absolute increase
of school enrolment of migrants and minorities depends
on immigration, some countries with little new
immigration still show a relative increase of these
groups among the school population, which in part is
caused by lower birth rates among the majority
populations.
Depending on each country’s
specific situation, there are also indigenous groups or
different national, autochthonous or linguistic
minorities that have lived in the respective countries
or specific territories for centuries. Thus, among the
different types of ethnic minority groups in the Member
States are:
Indigenous
groups (e.g. the SE1mi in Finland and Sweden or the
Travellers in Ireland);
National,
autochthonous or linguistic minorities (e.g. Roma, who
live in many countries);
Ethnic
minorities from former colonies (e.g. minority groups
from North African countries in France or from Asian
countries in the UK and the Netherlands);
Labour
migrants and descendants (e.g. from Turkey, and former
Yugoslavia);
Refugees
and asylum-seekers (from various countries depending on
regional conflicts and political turmoil);
Repatriated
groups or returned migrants (e.g. in Greece or
Portugal).
Terms and
Categories for Collecting Data
The countries of the
European Union use different terms and categories for
collecting data on migrants and ethnic minorities in the
field of education. These criteria effect how data is
collected for educational enrolment or achievement and
determine, who receives what kind of services.
Most countries distinguish
students according to citizenship or nationality. These
countries are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain.
Collecting data according to these categories has the
result that naturalized citizens or members of the
second or third generation with a foreign background,
who were granted citizenship at birth, no longer are
recorded separately from the countries’ majority group.
As a consequence, depending on each country’s situation,
a smaller or larger group of students with a foreign
background "disappears" from the statistics.
Furthermore, in all countries, with the exception of
Germany, data on university students do not
differentiate between foreign students, who came to the
country for the sole purpose of studying, and foreign
nationals, who permanently live in the country.
If distinctions are not made
according to ethnicity, data on the schooling situation
of specific ethnic groups (e.g. Roma, Kurds, etc.) is
not recorded. However, some countries also collect data
on the students’ primary language and thus at times
indirectly record data on particular ethnic groups.
There are great variations
regarding the size of the student populations with
foreign citizenship in the Member States. For example,
in primary education there are countries with 2-4%
enrolment of students with a foreign citizenship (e.g.
Italy, Spain, Finland), others with 10-15% (e.g.
Austria, the French Community in Belgium, Germany) or
Luxembourg, which has 38%. Great differences also exist
in absolute numbers. In recent school years there were
more than 350.000 foreign students in primary schools in
Germany (four years duration) and in France (five years
duration) but less than 15.000 in Luxembourg (six years
duration) and in Finland (nine years basic compulsory
school).
Some countries use other
categories than citizenship, such as immigrants and
descendants, bilingual students, students with a foreign
background, students with non-native ethnic background,
or ethnic minority students.
Education statistics in
Denmark distinguish between "immigrants" from different
countries and "descendants" A person born outside of
Denmark is an immigrant, if both parents are foreign
citizens or born outside of Denmark. A person born in
Denmark is a descendent if none of the parents living in
the country are Danish citizens. These students,
regardless of being immigrants or descendants, may or
may not be Danish citizens. The term "bilingual
students", which is another category used in data
collections, is not used strictly according to its
definition. Descendants with little knowledge of their
parents’ mother tongue are called bilingual students in
the same way as newcomers, who do not speak Danish.
In Greece, the term
"immigrants" refers to either foreign immigrants with
another ethnicity or to ethnic Greek immigrants, who
have returned to Greece from other countries. Their
citizenship status varies.
The Netherlands collects
data on students with "non-Dutch ethnic background",
independent of citizenship status. Different terms, such
as "ethnic minorities" or "cultural minorities" as well
as "allochtonen" are used interchangeably. An ethnic
minority student is defined as someone, who was born in
one of the target group countries or someone, who has at
least one parent born in a target group country, a
country from which most emigrants tend to be socially
disadvantaged. Since not all countries of origin are
regarded as criteria for disadvantage, certain countries
have been selected as "target" countries (e.g. Turkey,
Morocco, Surinam, Netherlands Antilles, etc.) The
definition of target groups is part of the policy on
disadvantaged peoples, for whom an extra school budget
is made available for overcoming learning lags.
Portugal uses the category
"cultural groups and nationalities", to collect data on
students of various foreign nationalities, returned
emigrants, and Roma.
Sweden collects data on
"students with foreign background," differentiated by
countries of origin. This category includes students
born to foreign parents in Sweden and students born
abroad.
The U.K. distinguishes
groups according to "ethnicity". However, the categories
used for ethnic data monitoring since 2003 refer to skin
colour and geographic origin (i.e. regions or countries)
rather than to ethnicity. The main categories used are
White, Mixed, Asian or Asian British, Chinese, Black or
Black British, and Any Other Ethnic Background. Each
main category has subcategories. For example, for the
category "White" the subcategories are White British,
White Irish, Traveller of Irish heritage, Gypsy/Roma,
Greek/Greek Cypriot, Turkish/Turkish Cypriot and White
European.
Categorisations of groups
according to foreign or ethnic background do not always
allow distinction between recent immigrants and members
of established ethnic minority groups. It is thus more
difficult to analyse certain developments such as
educational achievements of groups over time.
Some countries also collect
separate data on indigenous or national, autochthonous
minorities. There are substantial numbers of Roma
students in several countries (e.g. Spain, Portugal,
Greece) and other particularly large groups such as the
Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, the Finnish
minority in Sweden, the Muslim minority in Greece, or
Travellers in Ireland.
In view of the different
ethnic minority groups in the Member States and of the
non-standardized methods of collecting data on these
groups, it becomes rather difficult to arrive at
meaningful comparisons of aggregate data on migrants and
ethnic minorities. Even an assessment of the same ethnic
minority or nationality group in different countries is
at times complicated, because not all countries make the
same differentiations.
Education
Systems
Another circumstance that
hampers comparability of data is the fact that education
systems in the Member States vary considerably. There
are countries where schooling starts at age four (e.g.
Ireland) and others where it starts at age seven (e.g.
Sweden). In some countries, students transfer to
different school types after four years of primary
school (e.g. Austria), while in others basic
comprehensive schooling lasts nine years (e.g. Finland).
Some countries have less variation of secondary school
types, while in others (e.g. Sweden) students may choose
between a great variety of different tracks and
specialisations. Depending on each country’s school
system, aggregate data on migrants and ethnic minorities
exists for a different number of years of consecutive
schooling (e.g. four years of primary schooling in
Germany or nine years of compulsory schooling in
Denmark). All countries collect data on minority student
enrolments at different educational levels but only a
few (e.g. United Kingdom) also collect data on school
completion rates.
Educational provisions for
migrants and ethnic minorities vary in the EU Member
States. Among these provisions are language programs
(native language and second language instruction),
culture of origin courses, reception programs for
newcomers, and compensatory education. Native language
instruction, which has been recognised by many experts
as fostering the language development of both, the
native language as well as the language of the country
of immigration, is not offered to all minorities in all
Member States. Programs of second language instruction
are not always lead by appropriately educated and
well-trained staff. In addition, there are differences
regarding the integration of intercultural approaches to
teaching. School textbooks and curricula do not always
depict the countries’ ethnic diversity
appropriately.
Despite the lack of
comparability of data across countries, general trends
can be derived from the interpretation of data on
educational enrolment and achievement, as well as from
reports about specific phenomena faced by migrants and
ethnic minorities. These include segregation, exclusion,
limited access to certain educational institutions,
unequal treatment, verbalized prejudice, harassment by
teachers and peers, as well as violence.
Inequality, Discrimination, and Racism in the
Field of Education
Enrolment and achievement
data frequently show an overrepresentation of migrant
and ethnic minority groups in educational institutions
with lower academic demands, an overrepresentation in
special education, as well as disproportional early
dropout and expulsion rates. Given the lack of research
in this area, it is rather difficult to assess the
extent to which educational underachievement of migrants
and ethnic minority groups can be traced back to forms
of discrimination. Many factors influence their
educational attainment, e.g. language competency,
socio-economic factors, parents’ educational background,
and cultural values. Still, among signs of
discriminatory attitudes and practices are that minority
students are faced with low teacher expectations,
assignment to special education for reasons other than
disability, placement in lower than age-appropriate
grades, and restricted admittance into more prestigious
or private institutions. In addition, disadvantages
exist when there is a lack of or low quality of
compensatory programs, a lack of effective language
programs and of specifically trained language teachers,
a lack of intercultural curricula and minority education
programs as well as a lack of religious pluralism.
Differentiated data shows
that great differences exist in achievements between
various migrant and ethnic minority groups. While some
ethnic groups achieve significantly above average
results or even outperform majority students on some
educational levels, others are very much behind. For
example, in England, students with Chinese and Indian
backgrounds have higher achievements than White majority
students, while Black students (the group also most
likely to be excluded from school), or students with
Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds achieve below
average.
Despite overall lower
success ratings for educational attainment, there are
positive developments reported by some countries
regarding the starting performance of students with
foreign backgrounds (e.g. in the Netherlands).
Second-generation migrants, in many cases, do better
than new immigrants. Studies also show that these
students often attain higher educational levels than
their parents (e.g. in Germany). Across all ethnic
groups, female students tend to achieve better than
males.
PISA study results of
students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy
skills show that in most countries, native students
perform better than students with a foreign background
(born in the country or abroad).(2) Results from
Ireland, indicating that non-native students surpass the
average score of native students, as well as from
Denmark and Belgium, indicating that non-native students
perform better than native-born students with a foreign
background, have to be treated with caution because of
small and unreliable study samples. In order to draw
better evidence-based conclusions, the collection of
more differentiated quantitative data as well as
qualitative research on educational achievement of
migrants and minorities in the Member States is
needed.
Reports on non-migrant
ethnic minority groups (national, autochthonous or
linguistic minorities) show underachievement in
education of several groups, among them Roma (and Sinti)
in several countries, Travellers in Ireland and Northern
Ireland, or the Muslim minority in Greece. The reasons
for the lower academic achievement of these groups vary
and are manifold. For some groups, e.g. the SE1mi and
the Swedish-speaking Finns in Finland or the SE1mi and
the Swedish Finns in Sweden, very little data on
achievement was supplied.
Overall, there is a lack of
research and data concerning the reasons for the
educational underachievement of non-migrant ethnic
minority groups. It seems fair to say that in many
cases, a history of social exclusion, assimilationist
tendencies, and a monocultural orientation in education
lead to distrust in the educational system and to low
expectations about the benefits of educational
attainment. Since a large proportion of the groups’
older generation has not met basic educational
standards, it has been problematic to increase the
educational attainment of the younger generation. Some
consider schooling of their children even as harmful
since, in their view, it deprives children of their
family and socializes them into different cultural
values and norms. The socio-economic differences between
many national minorities and the majority of the
population in the Member States are still considerable.
This creates not only problems relating to education,
but also to other aspects such as employment and
housing, which also negatively influence the educational
situation of these groups.
The EU Member States report
various acts of discrimination and racism in the area of
education. For example, there are reports about
segregation of minorities in special "minority classes"
or about exclusion and harassment for cultural reasons
(e.g. for wearing a headscarf). However, the reported
incidences are not a reliable indicator of their actual
frequency of occurrence. Instead, countries with a
better functioning reporting system are likely to report
more cases than others. Significant differences exist in
the EU Member States regarding the existence of
legislative measures to combat ethnic discrimination,
racism, and inequalities. Some countries have specific
anti-discrimination or equal treatment legislation
pertaining to the field of education, such as Ireland,
the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, or Sweden
(in higher education). Other countries lack explicit
legislation on this matter or are currently proposing to
introduce new laws in accordance with Directive
2000/43/EC(3). The same is true for monitoring bodies,
which are implemented in some countries to oversee the
laws on anti-discrimination and to record incidents of
discrimination and racism. Such bodies may be official
and state-organised, or unofficial and run by NGOs.
Conclusions
It can be concluded that
there is a lack of comprehensive and comparable data on
the educational situation of migrants and ethnic
minorities in the EU Member States. In order to better
understand the situation of minorities in education, the
availability, the scope, and the quality of data has to
be increased. This pertains to data on educational
enrolment and achievement, as well as to the monitoring
of acts of discrimination and racism. Also, there is a
need for more qualitative (ethnographic) research on the
variability in educational performance of minority
groups.
In spite of various support
programs (e.g. reception programs, native language and
second language programs), of efforts to introduce new
curricula to suit the needs of a multicultural student
body, as well as of integration and anti-discrimination
initiatives, inequalities continue to persist to a great
extent. On the one hand, one needs to gain a good
understanding of the particularities of each education
system in order to better understand the relevance of
the unequal distribution of migrants and ethnic
minorities in the different school types and tracks,
their lower educational attainments and earlier dropout
rates. On the other hand, further research will be
necessary to understand which factors determine the
differences in educational achievement between different
ethnic groups.
Aside from primary language
and cultural differences as well as differences caused
by the varying socio-economic conditions for different
groups, discriminatory practices and unequal power
relationships between the majority populations and
minority groups negatively influence the educational
attainment of minorities. Lasting experiences of
discrimination may result in distrust in the education
system by members of these groups. Such negative
relations and prejudice may also interfere with
communication between teachers and students, teachers
and parents, as well as between peers of different
ethnicities.
Other factors, which
complicate the motivation to achieve and to integrate,
may be rooted in uncertainties, such as whether migrants
expect to stay in their new country of residence. The
motivation to achieve may also be affected by cultural
perceptions of what it takes to make it in the receiving
society. An important consideration is, whether
integration into the majority culture is believed to
actually lead to advancement rather than to barriers
such as unequal chances in the employment area.
Necessary steps have to be
taken, which go beyond the mere introduction of language
programs for minorities or multicultural curricula.
Minority members not only have to believe that their
efforts to attain higher levels of education will
actually pay off, but they also must experience that the
pledge for equal treatment becomes a reality in all
areas of society.
NOTES
(1) Comparative Study On
Education - Measures of Discrimination and Integration
of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in the Field of
Education in the 15 Member States of the European Union.
Study on behalf of the European Monitoring Centre on
Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), Vienna, October 2003. To
be published by the EUMC at:
http://www.eumc.eu.int/eumc/index.php
(2) OECD (2001), Knowledge
and Skills for Life. First Results from the OECD
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
2000; available at:
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/knowledge/download.htm
(accessed 27.04.2004)
(3) Council Directive
2000/43/EC of June 29, 2000, implementing the principle
of equal treatment on grounds of racial and ethnic
origin.
