Teacher’s ethnic teasing: Playing with ambiguity and exploiting in-group communication

Abstract

This article discusses the issue of ethnic teasing used by a teacher and his students in a multiethnic classroom of a German middle school. The teacher and his students exploit the resources of the racist discourse for multiple in-group rituals. Based on a school ethnography and conversation analysis, this case study attempts to interpret the teasing practices, which are performed in a classroom where ethnicity matters greatly. The teasing interactions here, questioned in the local context, seem to be a part of a working consensus, helping to regulate interpersonal relations in class. These vague and risky practices infringe the politeness norms: they are based on a daily face-attack ritualization through which a partial weakening of the discriminatory effect might be achieved.

Beyond ‘migrant background’: how to select relevant, social justice oriented, and feasible social categories in educational research

“…Experiencing discrimination from teachers has been linked to lessened school engagement among ethnic minority youth in multiple European settings (Artamonova, 2018;D'hondt et al, 2016). Importantly, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment are often intertwined (Reijerse et al, 2013), meaning, Muslim youth face heightened discrimination, including in educational settings (Colak et al, 2020;Welply, 2018).…”