Multicultural Schools and Monocultural Teaching Staff: Ethnocentric Selection as Opposed to Pluralistic Openness

Abstract

Despite all the measures that have been taken with the intention of integrating children and youths of different cultures, their situation at schools has failed to improve. On the contrary, fewer students are successfully advancing to higher levels of education. Consequently, the number of students entering higher institutions for teacher training is also declining. This results in a situation whereby an increasingly homogeneous teaching staff faces a steady diversification among students. These current trends not only discriminate against individuals of foreign cultural descent who have immigrated to Switzerland, but they are also disadvantageous for traditional Swiss schoolchildren and teaching staff, as well as for the school system, economic growth, and the entire development of society.