Student and teacher perceptions of school involvement and their effect on multicultural education: a Catalonian survey

Abstract

In multilingual schools students have diverse identities, cultural backgrounds, perceptions, capacities and linguistic experiences. The space for teaching and learning is also mediated by stereotypes and prejudices associated with this diversity. Diversity, stereotypes and prejudices shape how teachers and learners operate in a world of complex social relationships. In this survey we explore the hidden attitudes of immigrant students and teachers in secondary education in Catalonia (Spain). The research uses the distinction between explicit and implicit attitudes to analyse immigrant students’ perceptions and teachers’ subconscious perceptions about school involvement. The sample includes 4078 immigrant students with more than six months of residence in the host country that were attending linguistic support classes in secondary schools of Catalonia during the year 2006–2007, and also their regular classroom teachers and support teachers. The survey aims to establish if is there any statistically significant associations between the attitudes of newcomer students and teachers, and the linguistic and geographical origins of the students. We wanted to know if teacher and student perceptions agreed or differed and to characterise stereotypes and prejudices affecting positive or negative attitudes about the organisation of teaching while learning. The results show how the teachers’ perceptions about newcomer students’ involvement differ in many cases from the views of the students, and how lower expectations and subjective manifestations of racism are evident with some groups, especially with students of African origin.

Keywords:

• immigration
• anti-racist education
• hidden attitudes
• school involvement
• secondary education
• Catalonia

Acknowledgments

This research project was funded by a research grant from the Government of Spain (Subdelegación General de Proyectos de Investigación del MICINN), with reference EDU2009–12875. The authors wish to thank Professor David Hamilton for his helpful suggestions while supervising the paper.

Notes

1. As referred to in Zufiaurre (2006), the space that Spain can provide for newcomers in the educational system is based on a framework influenced by different approaches to face multiculturalism as they have been developed in Europe. These models provide a theoretical and practical basis on which to define different ways to approach, consider and interpret issues such as co-existence, tolerance, national identity, social cohesion, etc., within a common human framework. See also in this respect Aparicio (2000):The French way, which represents integrating immigrants in a context of equal citizenship in the public sphere, but not in the private one. This option defends a model of cultural assimilation.The British way, which represents a social unity approach with diversity to be integrated in a historic and socially plural, liberal empire, based on a framework of labor market needs.The German way, which represents the idea of citizenship based on family background. The labor force is therefore not considered part of the German nation and immigrants’ right to stay is limited in time.To these three, we could add a fourth model – unrelated to options of assimilation. The survey we refer to is guided under this last model: integrating school actions and activities to give a value to the language and identity of the immigrants, and to include the different cultural values of students when educating.

2. With immigration policies becoming increasingly restrictive in a European context, working and living conditions for ‘foreigners’ have become more precarious. And the fact is that while tolerance and pluralism are defended as democratic ideals, racism and xenophobia have grown. That is, human rights are being undermined in the name of national security or the need to protect existing institutions of social welfare. For this reason, Spain faces an urgent need to address the consequences of immigration in a positive way. In other words, the moment has come to create an integrative intercultural model based on democratic principles and a participatory dynamic of socialisation and school inclusion. That is what we defend and justify with our research.

3. Primary education in Catalonia and in Spain extends from six to 12 years. Many primary schools do often offer pre-schooling from three to six years of age. That is, kindergarten and primary school goes from ages three to 12.

4. Secondary education in Catalonia and Spain extends from 12 to 18 years, with the years 12 to 16 as compulsory secondary and 17–18 as post-compulsory.

5. Catalonia is one of the seventeen autonomous communities in Spain. It is situated in the north-east, and is one of the three communities (together with the Basque Country and Galicia) with their own languages, different from Spanish. Catalan is spoken by more than 75% of the population in Catalonia (more than 7 million: 33% have it as their first language, 12% use it simultaneously with Spanish – as bilinguals – and the remaining 45% use it as a language of communication although their first language is Spanish). As a bilingual territory, in Catalonia both languages, Catalan and Spanish, coexist. To understand this, it must be clarified that under 1978 Constitutional Law, Spain was organised into seventeen autonomous communities, which include regions and historic nationalities such as Catalonia, Galicia, Navarra and the Basque Country. The seventeen autonomous communities are recognised, under their statutes of autonomy, and with their own ruling according to law, as having the options to organise their own policy making and their own political and administrative structures, albeit under the framework established by the central state government.The two first communities to pass their statutes of autonomy were the Basque Country and Catalonia in 1979. They were followed by Galicia, Andalusia, Valencia, the Canary Islands and Navarra. By 1995, all the autonomous communities had endorsed this decentralised strategy, and all of them are now recognised as having rights of decentralised political administration. Typically, they follow their own policies in education and health, but do less so in their social services or employment policies.In 2005, a new process was initiated to renegotiate the statutes of autonomy in Spain, in order to strengthen the respective competences of the communities and the central state, so as to improve social and educational services. This process has become controversial in recent years and is faced with political resistance, mainly in the Basque Country and Catalonia where administrations have pushed for a clearer definition (and extension) of their own sphere of influence.

6. In Catalonia, the linguistic support classes (called ‘Aules d’acollida,’ translated as welcome classes) aim to give temporary linguistic support to newcomer students so they can develop some knowledge of the school language and be incorporated into the regular classroom as soon as possible. Newcomer students benefit from this support for a maximum of two years, and they spend just a part of the school day in these specific classrooms (in particular, when the subjects have a high linguistic content, like history or literature).