‛We treat them all the same, but…’. Disappearing ethnic homogeneity in Czech classrooms and teachers’ responses

Abstract

This article argues that the Czech education system is structured to operate in an ethnically homogeneous society. Although the Czech Republic is becoming increasingly heterogeneous, teachers deploy discursive practices of ‛sameness despite difference’ that obscure such growing diversity. This article is grounded in the historical context of migration to and from the Czech Republic and based on ethnographic research in several ethnically-mixed classrooms. We analyze the ways in which teachers talk about their pupils. We show that in the case of migrant children, teachers tend not to see their differences and hence, their potentially structural disadvantages. On the other hand, the Roma ethnicity is perceived as insurmountable. Teachers mobilize lists of cultural and even genetic differences to legitimize their different treatment of Roma pupils. Furthermore, we analyze policy documents regarding the education of non-Czech pupils and their reception by teachers. All these strategies result in the continuing perception of Czech classrooms as ethnically homogeneous while disregarding any social inequalities.

Keywords:

• ethnic diversity
• pupils from ethnic minorities
• education
• teachers’ perceptions
• social disadvantage

Notes

1. See the section ‛Ethnic diversity in the Czech Republic since the 1990s’, in which we discuss the segregation of Roma children in Czech schools.

2. To make the analytical procedure of large data segments manageable we used qualitative analytical software Atlas.ti.

3. After the war, a total of 12.5 million ethnic Germans returned from the former Eastern provinces of the Reich to the newly established German states; almost another 2 million died in transfers. See Bade (2003).

4. Unlike the Germans, the expulsion of Hungarians was not sanctioned by the victorious Allied forces (see Frank [2011]).

5. The first 1970s intergovernmental agreement was signed in 1974 with Vietnam (see Drbohlav [2010]).

6. CZSO 2013, http://www.czso.cz/csu/cizinci.nsf/o/ciz_pocet_cizincu-popis_aktualniho_vyvoje.

7. ‛Ruská národnostní menšina’, Rada Vlády pro národnostní menšiny, n.d., http://www.vlada.cz/cz/ppov/rnm/nm-rusove-6645/.

8. Fučík, P. Forthcoming. “Co říkají vyučující o dětech migrantů a dětech z etnických menšin: výsledky dotazníkového šetření.” In Etnická rozmanitost ve škole. Stejnost v různosti, edited by L. Jarkovská, K. Lišková, J. Obrovská, and A. Souralová. Praha: Portál.

9. ‛Gadjos’ is expression in Roma language which refers to the majority (Czech) population.

10. (6) Under Order No. 73/2005 Coll. on the education of children, pupils and students with special educational needs and children, pupils and students with extraordinary talents as amended, Art.1, par 2, for the purposes of the provision of compensatory measures, a pupil with social disadvantage is namely a pupil from an environment lacking the necessary support for the appropriate course of education including the cooperation of legal representatives with the school, and a pupil disadvantaged by inadequate language knowledge.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Czech Science Foundation under Grant Educational Strategies of Migrants and Ethnic Minority Youth [grant number P404-12-1487].