Reconfiguring the relationship between ‘immigrant parents’ and schools in the post-welfare society. The case of Germany

Abstract

This article problematises the discourse on ‘immigrant parents’ against the backdrop of a broader transformation of the welfare state in migration societies such as Germany. While studies have shown that post-welfare rationalities play a prominent role in shaping perceptions of what constitutes a ‘good parent’, little research has been conducted on how these dynamics influence political perceptions related to diversity in school and to ‘immigrant parents’ in particular. To fill this gap, the article presents results from a discourse analysis of the culturalist framing of ‘immigrant parents’ – in interaction with assignments regarding social background and gender – within the field of education as gleaned from political documents from the post-war period. By exploring developments in political narratives around the school-parent relationship, the study highlights how current educational reforms foster processes of parents’ ‘exclusionary participation’ in schools by emphasising and strengthening individualistic and assimilationist approaches to education.

Keywords:

• Parents
• school
• racialisation
• discourse analysis
• Germany
• activating welfare state

Declaration of interest

We declare that we have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Notes

1 The new Citizenship Law, in effect since 1 January 2000, extends the provision of citizenship (ius sanguinis) from 1913 to include aspects of territorial law (ius soli). According to this law, children born in Germany to foreign parents receive German citizenship at birth if one parent has lived legally in Germany for eight years and holds a residence permit or has held an unlimited residence permit for three years. In addition, a new legal framework to control migration and integration (Immigration Act) was adopted on 1.1.2005. This law established the targeted promotion of the integration of ‘immigrants’, particularly into employment and education, as a state task.

2 In the field of integration policy in Germany, the category ‘migration background’ has been established since 2000. According to the Federal Statistical Office in the Microcensus 2013, those with a foreign passport, all persons naturalised in Germany and all German and foreign citizens who immigrated to Germany after 1949 are considered to have a ‘migration background’. In addition, German citizens born in Germany are included if at least one parent immigrated to Germany after 1949 or was born in Germany with a foreign passport (cf. Statistisches Bundesamt 2014, 5). However, in different political contexts and academic studies various definitions of the construct of migration background are used.

3 To indicate the constructive and powerful nature of categories such as ‘immigrant background’ in this paper, we place them in single quotation marks.

4 As there were hardly any specific school policies for ‘migrant’ minorities in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), discursive developments in the new federal states before 1990 are not being considered in this study (cf. Krüger-Potratz 1991).

5 This enforces reference to the supposedly ‘general’ discourse on parents in the context of schooling, particularly when implicit majority-societal or middle-class specific expectations on normalcy are set as universal.

6 The terms Re-Patriates (‘Aussiedler_innen’) and from 1992 onwards Re-Settlers (‘Spätaussiedler_innen’) are assigned to persons born as German Nationals in East European countries, especially the former German areas east of the so-called Oder-Neisse-Line.