Migrations Programme - [10/07/2008]

Immigration, school and equality of opportunities. Should Spain be like France?

The educational disadvantage suffered by the immigrant population is more a result of their social position than of their status as newcomers: this is one of the conclusions presented by Héctor Cebolla, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology II of UNED, in the debate workshop “Should Spain be like France? Concerning the educational disadvantage of immigrants and the impact of their concentration in some schools", organised by the Migrations Programme of the CIDOB Foundation.

According to Cebolla's study, despite the harsh criticism that the French educational system has come in for recently (and particularly as a result of the events in the banlieues in late 2005), it has achieved significant levels of equality between immigrant and autochthonous students. The logic of the assimilationist model, which prioritises equality while neglecting other characteristics that could also contribute to students' educational potential, and to the degree to which global strategies are promoted at all levels (pre-school included) of the system, allows us to speak of an inclusive school society that results in the disappearance of the "immigrant" factor when it comes to determining levels of educational disadvantage. Using data obtained from PISA 2006 and other sources, Cebolla showed that unlike France, Spain does have a system where an educational inequality can be detected based on foreigner status, and which accompanies that of class inequality.

The workshop, which included comments by Silvia Carrasco, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, brought together academic experts and public administrators who pointed out that, instead of focusing attention on the introduction of immigrant origin populations into the educational system, what we should be debating is how to build an educational model that is capable of achieving diversity and plurality in our societies, in addition to other challenges.

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