This paper presents a critical account of education policies and practices that focus on the education of migrants, generally grounded in notions of inclusion and/or integration (European Commission 2004, 2008). EU policies and other policies within EU member states consider the education of migrants as a transition that should not only pertain to the migrant students but to the whole community. The prevalent underlying concept of education is generally humanistic conceiving the transition as a rite of passage in becoming recognised a human being; a transition that is also metaphorically represented through the stages from adolescent stages to maturity. As various poststructuralist philosophers and feminists have pointed out such educational practices, in spite of understanding transitions in terms of becoming different contradictorily end up annihilating differences. The paper argues that this takes place in particular, through a systematisation of the discourses of inclusion in schools. One of the major problems of discourses of inclusion is their tendency to addressing difference in a general manner, of speaking of diversity as if it were one.

This paper maintains that such trends in thinking about inclusion do not reflect the complexities in educating the migrant student and particularly the migrant girl. Drawing on the findings of a research project on the education of young migrant women in secondary schools, it will discuss the teachers’ struggle with concepts of equality and difference in educating the migrant girls and how their humanistic visions of education do not address the girls’ multiple educational transitions. Referring to the migrant girls’ own accounts of her transitions towards and within mainstream educational systems it will identify the ways intersections between race, gender and ethnicity are performed. It particularly looks into how official discourses that purport to conceive the migrant girl in neutral terms or with no cultural affiliations are acted out in contexts that claim her acculturation. Postcolonial feminist critiques of education (Mohanty 2006 ) that  discuss the production of  the third world woman point at the powerful ways through which migrant women can challenge globalist trends in educational policies that purport  to “include” and “educate” them.  The philosophical and literary texts of Gloria Anzaldua (2007, 1984) and her notions of the mestiza and border crossings will be drawn upon to think about ways in which race, language, sexual difference and sexual orientations matter in thinking about becoming an educated migrant girl.

By way of conclusion the paper considers the concept of migration rather than inclusion as a way through which the educational transitions of migrant girls can be considered differently.

References Anzaldua Gloria ( 2007) Borderlands La Frontera San Francisco: Aunt Lute. Commission of the European Communities (2008) Migration & mobility: challenges and opportunities for EU education systems Brussels: COM Mohanty Chandra Talpade (2003) Feminism Without Borders Durham: Duke University Press. Moraga Cherrie & Anzaldua Gloria (1984) This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color: Women of Colour Press. European Commission. (2004). Integrating immigrant children into schools in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice.