Education of Immigrant Children in Slovakia, the Concept of Inclusion and Ethnographic Questions.

Author(s):

Helena Tuzinska(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

19. Ethnography

Format:

Paper

Session Information

19 SES 06, Minorities Making Space: Language and Inclusion

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

NM-J102

Chair:

Francesca Gobbo

Contribution

In post-communist countries of central and eastern Europe, where the state is supposed to guarantee a basic human right for elementary education, the educational system strives for existence. In Slovakia series of unsuccessful school reforms resulted in current public debate about both content and form of educational process.

Within a wider socio-political context the OECD report from 2014 criticized the Slovak Republic for rigidity of external evaluation connected with reproduction of exclusive practices. Competition in ranking of all types of schools is also diversified in relation to ethnicity of its pupils.

Slovakia has been infamous for its anti-immigrant policies since the establishment of the state in 1993. The Annual Statistical Overview of Legal and Illegal Migration in the Slovak Republic provides rather restrictive numbers continuously exerting disciplinary power: only 14 of 328 submitted asylum applications were granted. Foreigners with valid residence permissions in 2014 represent only 1,4% of total population, out of which most come from the EU or neighbouring countries. The number of immigrant pupils is 0.2% of all children liable to compulsory elementary education.

The official governmental agenda in Slovakia coincides with European civic education policies promoting inclusion. Yet discriminative practices are not uncommon to witness. Legitimacy of such behaviour present in language (Bourdieu 1991) refers to „inborn mentality“ or „unwillingness to cooperate“. Naturalized and essentialized traits are mostly assigned to Roma, as they statistically outnumber foreigners, but immigrant children might be treated in the same way. Similarly to the neighbouring countries, the need for new methodologies and tools for teaching in a multicultural classroom was answered by non-govermental bodies or individual initiatives. In this paper I analyze contributions of ethnography in the project Extension of teachers' qualification adjacent to the integration of children of the third country citizens into the Slovak educational system, ofwhich I was a guarantor, co-facilitator and co-lecturer in 2010 – 2011 and 2012 – 2013.

The first research question „Which learning strategies foster intercultural sensitivity?“ stemmed from two theoretical streams: (1) notions of order and symbolic violence in education (Bourdieu and Passeron 2000) and (2) ethnographic analysis of interpreting immigrants (Eades 2010, Tužinská 2011b, 2015).

The second research question „In what ways a teacher might use ethnographic methods in education process?“ is based on methodology of asking ethnographic questions (Spradley 1979), within socialy constructed education settings (Beach et al 2004).

Being aware of „the risk of reproducing exclusion over generations in a knowledge-based society and of stabilizing stratifications along ethnic lines“ (Gobbo et al 2011), (Hrabovský 2011), the team designed research objectives before, during and after the training:

(a) to map diverse educational backgrounds of participants

(b) to evaluate application of proposed methods

(3) to reflect usefulness of the activities

(4) to identify areas in which knowledge, skills and attitudes have changed (Dráľ et al, 2011:19)

The text is aimed to present how ethnography contributed to the educational programme (Dráľ et al, 2011) in three areas: (1) fostering intercultural sensitivity, (2) acknowledgement of distinguished language registers and (3) connectivity of ethnographic interview techniques and the learning process.

Method

Due to increasingly diverse needs of both adults and children in the present I put emphasis on interaction of various fields of power within the school system and its environment (Bourdieu and Passeron 2010). This paper primarily focuses on teachers' representations about implementation of education policies as well as their contestation in practices. I draw on my experience as a facilitator in trainings of teachers who had to accommodate children of foreigners in their classrooms without institutional support. In Slovakia the situation is similar to Italy where „the education system has chosen the integrated model (children are allocated to classes consisting of children of the same age in mainstream education). However, given the scarcity of resources available for specific language workshops for foreigners, every school tries to manage this problem independently.“ (Gobbo et al 2011) The ethnographic interviews were focused firstly to identify socio-cultural context of a child, parent, classroom collective, teachers and other possible actors in education and secondly to facilitate the learning process of teachers to be able to use „bottom up“ approach. The training was designed in a manner of anthropological inquiry (Bernard 1995) and was combined with interactive teaching giving voice to all the participants. If teachers use ethnographic methods they are able to experience the process of learning and teaching simultaneously, to be partners in discoveries and modest facilitators, looking for and finding a myriad of everyday modalities. As Gobbo puts it, „the risk of cultural reification could be tackled with the teacher who acts as ethnographer“. The research training was designed both in form and contents as an intercultural encounter per se. (Tužinská 2009, 2011a)

Expected Outcomes

What the training team considered to be most relevant achievement was that teachers started to perceive their educational contexts as multicultural even without the presence of an immigrant. The teachers acknowledged changed perspectives which allowed the classroom to transform into a community of learners. A teacher became a facilitator of this process rather than lecturer allowing to expose the taken-for-granted assumptions. The aim of the series of trainings was to exchange knowledge, to acquire new skills as well as change motivation, perception and experience in the classroom (Dráľ et al 2011). In the initial stages there was a request for „a foreigner's manual“, in line with a notion of preferred or expected uniformity. Our strategy corresponded to Gobbo's conclusion (2011): „In relation to the risk of strengthening and disseminating stereotypical views of other cultures, and of ignoring the interesting changes within those group“, we chose to create a good practise handbook grounded on ethnographic principles of research.

References

Beach, D., Gobbo, F., Jeffrey, B., Smyth, G., Troman, G. (2004) Ethnographic research in multicultural educational contexts as a contribution to intercultural dialogue, European Educational Research Journal, Vol. 3, Nr. 3., p. 534-538. Bernard, H. R., (1995) Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.C. (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London: Sage. Dráľ, P., Gažovičová, T., Kadlečíková, J. (2011) Vzdelávanie detí cudzincov na Slovensku. Príklady dobrej praxe. (Education of Foreigners' Children in Slovakia: A Good Practice Handbook.) Bratislava: Milan Šimečka Foundation, Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture. Eades, D. (2010) Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gobbo, F., Ricucci, R., Galloni, F. (2011) Legislation, Projects and Strategies for the Implementation of Educational Inclusion in Italy: Results, Questions and Future Prospects. The Open Education Journal, 2011, 4, p.148-157. Hrabovský, M. (2011) Rasová mytológia (Race mythology) Bratislava: Kalligram. Okely, J. (2012) Confronting Positionality. Teaching Anthropology Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 36-43. Spradley, J.P., (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Tužinská, H. (2009) Kultúrna citlivosť. In Mittelmannová, M., Volanská, M., and H. Tužinská. Vybrané práva cudzincov na území SR a kultúrna rozmanitosť. Princíp nenavrátenia, zlúčenie rodiny a kultúrna citlivosť. (Selected Rights of Foreigners on the Territory of the Slovak Republic: the Principle of Non-Refoulement, Integration of the Family and Cultural Sensitivity.) Bratislava: Stimul, p. 79 – 110. Tužinská, H. (2011a) Questions of Description and Translation. Using Data from Anthropology and Ethnology in the Conduct and Interpretation of Interviews with Immigrants. 2nd exp. ed. Bratislava: Stimul. Tužinská, H. (2011b) Communication with Foreigners: Legal Implications of Interpreting. Comparison of Practices in the V4 Countries: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Ukraine.Bratislava: The Human Rights League. Tužinská, H. (2015) Tlmočenie v štátnej správe: deskriptívne a preskriptívne prístupy. (Interpreting in the State Administration: Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches). Sociální studia Vol. 12, Nr. 2, p. 51-68.

Author Information

Helena Tuzinska (presenting / submitting)

Comenius University

Ethnology and Museology

Bratislava

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