Greek education policy and the challenge of migration: an ‘intercultural’ view of assimilation

Abstract

This article explores the policy responses and conceptual underpinnings of intercultural education in Greece. In the past two decades, and as a result of migration, Greece has seen its demography significantly and irreversibly altered in social, cultural, economic, ethnic, racial, and religious terms. Faced with an increasingly diverse student population, novel education policies are required. This article addresses the following questions: How has intercultural education been designed in Greece in response to growing immigration? What are the main objectives of Greek educational policy as regards contemporary Greek society overall and the immigrant population in particular? Are these changing, and if so in what direction? Is intercultural education perceived differently on the part of the various stakeholders? Based on our empirical research we highlight the connection between education policy approaches, practices and national identity discourses in order to explore the conceptual confusion of intercultural vs multicultural education approaches and the importance of the national context. We also raise a number of issues that we consider merit further examination both in policy and research terms in order to expand and enrich intercultural education in Greece

Keywords:

• multicultural
• intercultural
• education policy
• migration
• Greece

Notes

1. For more information, see the website of DG Education and Culture of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/index_en.htm and the website of the Council of Europe on Cultural Cooperation: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/education/.

2. The Greek‐Turkish Protocols of 1954 and 1968 and Law 19 of 1972 set the framework for bilingual education for the Muslim minority in Thrace. Since 1997, the Ministry of Education has invested significant funds, personnel and programmes in improving the standards and methods of the education provided to the Muslim youths in the north‐east while trying to address the challenges of encouraging intercultural education and avoiding effective segregation between the majority and minority populations in these regions (Damanakis 2005, also http://www.museduc.gr/index.php).

3. Pontic Greeks who migrated to Greece from the former Soviet Republics (Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Armenia) after the end of the Cold War are referred to as co‐ethnic returnees. In addition, ethnic Greek Albanian citizens (Vorioepirotes) who migrated to Greece also after 1989 are identified as immigrants of Greek descent, while a smaller number of returning Greeks from northern Europe, the US, Canada and Australia also returned to the country during the 1990s. Finally, Greece’s immigrant population includes large communities from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, The Philippines, Syria, Egypt and Sudan.

4. Twenty‐six intercultural schools have been set up in six Prefectures throughout Greece (www.ipode.gr).

5. According to law 2413/1996, article 5, IPODE’s objective is to conduct research and studies on educational issues pertaining to Greek education abroad and intercultural schools in Greece. It has been responsible for collecting data relevant to expatriated Greek pupils and foreign/ repatriated students in Greece since 2001.

6. Full details are available from the EMILIE Research Project that ran from July 2006 to September 2009 and was funded by the European Commission, DG RTD, 6th Framework Programme (project web site: http://emilie.eliamep.gr/).

7. There are two categories of reception classes. The first includes students who are taught Greek and some core other classes and who are joined with the other classes for gymnastics, music and foreign language courses. The maximum period during which a student can be enrolled in these reception courses is two years and the decision to enrol a child in these classes is taken by the school in collaboration with the parents. For the academic year 2002–3, 548 reception classes of this type were organised with 7863 foreign students enrolled; 39.05% of these were organised in the Athens metropolitan area and 27.4% were organised in the region of Central Macedonia (where the city of Thessaloniki is situated). The second type does not involve separate classes but takes the form of support classes and tutorials on the part of teachers who give special attention to foreign students, thus permitting them to follow class with the rest of the pupils. For the same academic year, 127 support classes catered to the needs of 1,663 students with the highest rates in Central Macedonia (35.4%), Attica (15%), and the southern Aegean and Crete with about 11% (Hellenic Regional Development Centre 2007, 59–60).

8. In this paper we use the terms foreign pupils/students, immigrant pupils/students and non‐Greek mother tongue pupils interchangeably although these terms are not completely synonymous. In terms of educational policies and needs, the term adopted is non‐Greek mother tongue pupils, which includes children who are Greek citizens from co‐ethnic returnee families and children of foreign citizenship. The terms immigrant and foreign students are still used as roughly synonymous in Greece since there as yet no provisions for the second generation to acquire Greek citizenship through a preferential path. The colloquial term used is immigrant rather than foreign children though, while the term non‐Greek mother tongue pupils is confined to the research and educators’ community jargon.

9. There are also a number of foreign schools in Greece that operate on the basis of bilateral treaties and in their majority, though not exclusively, enrol children of embassy and corporate personnel (for example there is the French Lyceum, German High School, Japanese school, etc). The Filipino and Polish schools were created by Filipino and Polish immigrants respectively who came to Greece on guest worker schemes in the 1980s and the Inter‐Cultural Day Care Centre was set up by immigrants from Sierra Leone in order to assist African immigrant families who cannot afford day care (see Dimitrakopoulos 2004, 35–6).

10. These programmes were initially conceived for the period 1997–2001 and were renewed in 2002.

11. Interviewees: Director of Primary Education, Ministry of Education; Director of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education; and Head of the Office for Secondary Education of the First Prefecture of the Athens Metropolitan Region, Ministry of Education. Interviews were conducted in Athens on 5–6 June 2007.

12. Interviewee: Head of the Center for Intercultural Education (KEDA) and former coordinator of the EPEAEK Programme. Interview was conducted in Athens on 25^th May 2007.

13. For more information about the programme and training seminars organized in this context see: http://web.auth.gr/eppas/.

14. A complete list of the positions of the Ministry of Education officials that we interviewed is provided in the appendix.

15. Interviews conducted in Athens on 24 May 2007 and 21 September 2007.

16. All excerpts are taken from our interviews and have been translated from Greek into English by the authors of the report.

17. The debate on the secularization of schooling and the separation between Church and State falls beyond the scope of this research.