Immigration and the Ambivalence of the School: Between Inclusion and Exclusion of Migrant Youth

Abstract

This article examines the perceptions of young migrants (and non-migrants), their parents, and teachers to discuss whether the school is a device of inclusion or a device of exclusion that produces inequalities. It presents qualitative and quantitative data collected in the urban areas of Lisbon and Porto. First, we analyze data from 14 focus groups, involving 94 participants, and 12 interviews. Second, we consider survey data from a sample of 1,010 youngsters of Portuguese, Angolan, and Brazilian origin. Findings suggest the school plays an ambivalent role; however, participants emphasize mostly its discriminatory and segregating role.

Learning Portuguese as a Second Language

“…On the other hand, the parental investment explanation advanced still in the 90s was attributed, mainly by non-Western authors, not to the school but to the nationality of the parents (Chao, 1996;Hynie, Guruge, & Shakya, 2013) and to habits in relation to reading at home (De Graaf, De Graaf, & Kraaykamp, 2000). Recently, Portuguese authors, although with very scarce studies, have assessed the importance of the role and resources of Portuguese schools for their immigrant students (Ribeiro, Malafaia, Neves et al, 2016). Similarly, European authors have recently analyzed how minorities behave in European schools when it comes to choosing further education.…”

Democratic Citizenship-in-the-Making: Dis/Engagement Profiles of Portuguese Youth

“…Profiles of participation are not individually crystalized, and nobody is either active or passive in every circumstance. Rather, and in line with the "standby" notion (Ekman and Amnå, 2014), participation can be activated at any moment, framed by specific contexts and triggered by specific factors, such as particular moments of economic hardship (Malafaia et al, 2017) and perceptions of discrimination (Vrablikova and Linek, 2015;Ribeiro et al, 2016). Also, researching disengaged groups-or, better said, those who display, at a given time, a disengaged profile-requires a closer look, considering that they often hold low levels of cultural capital, coming from poor backgrounds, standing on the weak side of the digital divide, profoundly politically disenchanted and tending to react very negatively to cultural diversity (Sloam and Henn, 2019).…”