Which researcher presented an anti assimilationist model

Thereby, before being studied in the new context, this management model of diversity is reviled, sticking —without questioning— to the inter-cultural and or multi-cultural models.

Cultural assimilation is therefore perceived as a poorly accomplished social integration, since it implies renouncing the supposed cultural difference, with the consequences of losing one's self-esteem and dignity. On the other side, the scope would be the good intercultural integration. There are historical reasons —fundamentally a homogenizing past tinted by the Francoist dictatorship— that tend to distrust those policies that do not make an emphasis on respect for diversity, and that do not reclaim the cultural and linguistic plurality of each one of the Autonomous Communities which the Spanish State is based upon.

Facing the order based on cultural homogeneity, which at one time was perceived as the result of a repressive political power, and which critical sociology pointed as the cause for social and educational inequalities, an exaltation of cultural differences arise as a libertarian process, and consequently, cultural assimilation, understood as a similar development Brumbaker, of the native population, is reviled by critical sociologists and by progressive political sectors.

This explains some contradictory discourses and practices of exaltation of the difference. In Spain, from the most sociological pedagogy, which proposed a critical theory of the curriculum, assimilationist and integrationist or compensatory educational policies were reviled, and the American melting-pot model was criticized as it was considered a model of cultural imperialism.

Thing is that sometimes we don't go further the folkloric acts and this is embarrassing me. It is not what all the center wants, the teachers, is more just few people's desire. In line with what Savater mentioned before, the majority educational discourse is excessively monotonous with the concept of diversity putting it before the concept of assimilation since the latter is considered standardizing.

However, it is of the utmost importance to ask why the decision of maintaining the cultural identity is so respectable and must be promoted at school, whereas the option of assimilate oneself, in the sense of sharing certain values of the majority society is not so promoted and it is even interpreted as a failure in the integration process. It is, then, necessary to reinterpret the concept of cultural assimilation.

To this end, the simple and essentialist vision of the cultural dynamic that come from a static and closed conception of the identity and ethnicity must be reconsidered.

Separately, this simple and closed conception of cultural identity is associated to an also very limited and static conception of socialization processes. The reproductionist scheme of anti-assimilationism defines socialization from a more intergenerational rather than intra-generational perspective, hence it ignores the powerful and multiple socializing influences in a globalized world, at the same time that it underrates the active role of the individual in these processes.

What is more, from reproductionism cultural assimilation processes are analyzed from a perspective of a selective dichotomy as the one that is established between the hosting culture and the visiting one. This is, therefore, an excessively simplistic binary model of cultural identity. Such thesis, however, is overcome by the reflexive sociologic perspective represented by the contemporary sociologists such as Beck , Giddens , Castells and Touraine , especially the latter when the individual is thought as a social actor and subject at the same time.

Park and Burgess , in the second half of the XX century, already defined assimilation as a dissolution process of external signs that produce superficial homogeneity —in the fashion, in the manners— perfectly compatible with criterion and attitude differences.

This secondary or superficial homogeneity, for Park , is a condition for applying the laissez-faire, laissez-aller principle because this establishes an elementary solidarity that allows individuals of different minds to coordinate their actions and provide the group with a corporative character. After all, for Park the capability of independent movement was the base and symbol of all forms of independence. Assimilation fosters two types of different social solidarity and connections that differentiate premodern from modern societies.

The former are based on primary connections and the latter on secondary connections. This means that the bases of social life and interdependence change in modern "civic societies", where differently from pre-modern societies, what matters and is relevant is citizenship and not family relations.

It must be highlighted that this conception of assimilation, located in a socio-historic moment different to the current one, already has the seed of citizenship over cultural and familiar presence. Located at a different time and geographic context from that of Park , transnationalism has to be added to the concept of citizenship Portes, , as a back-and-forth process that allows, in a globalized world as ours is now, continuous extraterritorial transfer, which enables the children of immigrants to have a double or even a multiple presence in different cultures and societies, namely: the host and immigrant ones.

The different types of assimilation Portes and Rumbaut, will give way to different forms of adaptation, participation or integration of the children of immigrants into the recipient society. From this new perspective that assumes the challenge of redefining the concepts of socialization and identity from new parameters, cultural assimilation is defined as a complex concept, in contact with multiple variables.

Many of these variables are unconnected to characteristics associated to familiar origin or nationality of the children or their parents, because all the variables that have an influence in the social incorporation process cannot be isolated or controlled. Therefore, the weight of a factor depends on the configuration of the sociohistorical relations into which the individual is inserted.

It is fundamental, in the necessary debate on cultural diversity management that is still due in Spain, to introduce analysis elements such as equality, more often than not ignored by the prominence of the right to the difference. This theory of the difference, excessively defended and justified by the multicultural model, is also occupying a central place, leaving behind much more important debates; those that must decide over the equality of men and women, locals and foreigners, and mostly on the individual freedom and the intents of imposing communitarianism.

In order to do so, educational centers must use —in both their organizational and managerial forms and also in the curriculum— the tools for democracy: dialogue, vindication and protection, enjoyment and observance of the same rights for everybody, this is, the same kind of access to citizenship. And since in the conception of democracy Sartori, is the expansion of its own limits, this is to say, its improvement, it is just and necessary not to reluctantly accept its current limits.

Aja, Eliseo et al. Bauman, Zygmunt , Comunidad. Madrid: Alianza. Bereiter, C. Bonal, Xavier et al. Brubaker, Rogers , "The return of assimilation?

Castells, Manuel , El poder de la identidad. Lambert, Wallance E. Park, Robert E. Table 1: Educational Theories and Models. Holder of a Degree in Psycho-pedagogy and a Ph. She is the director of the research team Education Observatory. Research lines: Education, gender, inequality and immigration. Educational success, equality and socio-labor insertion of young Maghrebian women Servicios Personalizados Revista. Similares en SciELO. Scientific Articles Intercultural discourses and assimilationist practices: some contradictions in the Spanish educational system.

Abstract: This article analyzes the degree of coherence between the legal, theoretical and formal speech about diversity management and the reality of the pedagogical practices in formal educational institutions. Introduction The presence of a student body with various cultural backgrounds in the classrooms of the Spanish educational centers has led the institutions to, little by little, take political and pedagogical measures to take into account this new reality, resulting from a much more plural society.

The management of multiculturalism and the concept of citizenship It is well known that the concept of multiculturalism, as a model for the management of cultural diversity, is understood differently in Europe and in the United States or Canada. Public policies for the management of cultural diversity in the Spanish educational system In order to investigate how cultural diversity in the Spanish educational system is dealt with, it is important, in the first place, to analyze the current state of the public policies in terms of cultural diversity, in the context of a decentralized political model, as the case of Spain.

The treatment of cultural diversity in the Autonomous Communities The autonomous educational policies are conditioned by the very decentralizing process and by the autonomous government's ideological orientation Bonal et al. Between assimilation and integration: models to manage cultural diversity in the Spanish educational system In order to learn the situation of the Spanish state, it is useful to begin from studies carried out in Spain which analyze thoroughly the existing theories and models relating to the management of cultural diversity and their results in different educational policies.

Such theories propose different solutions that refer mainly to the treatment of linguistic differences: -Deficit theory. The assimilating educational model This is the model that opts for the discourse on equality sacrificing the difference, since it is seen as a menace or an obstacle for the individuals' integration and social cohesion.

The compensatory educational model This model combines the assimilation of the segregation, creating groups at the schools that receive a specific attention to deal with concrete deficits, so that they reach the same level as the normal group.

The multi-cultural educational model This model is linked to the difference theory as it does not look for cultural assimilation but rather it facilitates the preservation of identity and its differential linguistic and cultural features.

The intercultural educational model Although it is also linked to the difference theory, similarly to the multicultural model, the significant contrast is on the fact that the inter-cultural model intends to act over the entire community, not only over the children of immigrants.

By these definitions, the Western and non-Western immigrants were about equal in size in there is an almost , person difference, see table 1. These reports offered a great deal of information. Ranging from to over pages, they contained statistics and research methods. Gleaning data on a regular basis, researchers tried to establish trends, but they could hardly do so, given the fact that the data available before was scarce.

Since we have the advantage of hindsight, I will offer an overview of the key statistics. Having already analyzed the statistics pertaining to the size of the ethnic minority population, I will now focus on the statistics on the job market, education, and housing. Minority policies were a political issue. Therefore, specific details within a particular category would change over time, and new types of data would be collected to answer new questions.

If sometimes the research became more detailed, it offered new insights as well. Overall, though, the major trends are clear. The first statistics concerned the rate of unemployment. It was always higher among ethnic minorities than among the Dutch. This was due to a surge in prosperity in the Dutch economy. Although after unemployment numbers remained higher among ethnic minorities than among the Dutch, the gap was not as dramatic as in the early s.

This positive development could be interpreted as a sign of integration of Turks and Moroccans into Dutch society.

Women as a gender group scored overall lower in the category than men. In the s and s Turkish women had a higher labor market participation than Dutch women, but since the former scored substantially lower than the latter.

Moroccan women always scored a great deal lower and Antillean women slightly lower than Dutch women. Surinamese women scored at the same level as Dutch women. After , the participation rate of women in the workforce was used to show how modern or integrated certain ethnic groups were in Dutch society. Surinamese women were seen as very emancipated, since they had about the same participation in the labor market as Dutch women. Table 2. Unemployment by ethnic group.

Total population. This refers both to teaching immigrants the Dutch language and introducing them, especially the second-generation immigrants, to Dutch culture. The statistics divided education into vocational training and advanced secondary education, the latter including university preparatory education. Over the years, participation of all ethnic groups in advanced secondary and university preparatory education increased steadily. In , the majority of the Turkish and Moroccan immigrants had only an elementary education at best.

This meant that almost 3 out of 4 children of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants finished secondary education. While it is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze the factors leading to the success of Dutch public education, over the last thirty years the Dutch school system, at all levels, has been very successful in getting more students to higher levels of education.

The basic question was whether ethnic minorities lived, on average, in worse housing conditions than the Dutch. The Minorities Policy asked for the following information: how many people lived on their own or shared a house, how many people shared a room, how many people lived in houses with only a little luxury, how many people lived in houses built after World War II, and how many owned or rented their house.

Answers to some questions, like the one concerning house ownership or rental, were predictable since most ethnic minorities rented their house.

Other questions, for instance the one about the luxury of the house, were hard to answer or to quantify. Many did not know when the house they lived in was built.

This question was relevant, because, for instance, many pre-World War II houses had no bathtub, shower, or central heating. During the s, many housing associations had begun to build mostly showers in the older houses. Maybe because the questions about housing did not deliver clear answers and because not only the government but also institutions like the housing associations played an important role in housing, starting from , housing was not included in the statistical reports anymore.

Instead of social problems, statisticians discussed immigration and the concomitant problems mainly in terms of culture. In , the authors of the SCP report began to pay attention to minorities and Dutch culture. This interest in ethnic culture within Dutch society would later develop into the question whether and to what extent immigrants could or would integrate.

They pointed out that the debate about immigration and settlement was not limited to the United States, but played out in the Netherlands as well. Their partial understanding or reading of the American sociological studies led not so much to a better insight into the problem of urban immigrants, but only slightly nuanced the negative media portrayal, without challenging the theoretical assumptions underpinning the media-generated image.

Following the American example, the Dutch government believed that the immigrant problems in the Netherlands had to be addressed in the way policy planners already proposed ; otherwise, the social problems might get worse. They took some basic ideas from these American authors, but missed out on some of the nuances of their scholarship that could have created more insight into the Dutch situation.

Park was convinced that the second-generation of an ethnic group adapted to American life. He also posited the idea that diverse communities in big cities contributed to the happiness of individuals and would offer geniuses and adventurers the opportunity to play a significant role in society.

As Park wrote:. The processes of segregation establish moral distances which make the city a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate. This makes it possible for individuals to pass quickly and easily from one moral milieu to another, and encourages the fascinating but dangerous experiment of living at the same time in several different contiguous, but otherwise widely separated, worlds.

The small community often tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary, rewards it. He also looked at the city from the perspective of individuals, while the statisticians were, naturally, expected to think in terms of groups, rather than individuals. Park, with his attention to the relationship between individuals and ethnic groups, was able to see the advantages of cultural diversity, an option never considered by the Dutch government officials. Consequently, they overlooked different perspectives and helpful insights in the debate about immigrant culture, city life, and government policies.

Park based his ideas on Social Darwinism, taking social conflict as the central assumption underlying his scholarship. He believed that it was not government interference but natural selection that would lead to the assimilation of ethnic minorities. He had little interest in the study of social inequality. He believed in a heterogeneous, culturally pluralistic society.

According to Wirth, social planning was important— because it was bad government policies and lack of corporate responsibility, rather than the urban residents themselves that caused high crime rates and poor health in cities. Dutch politicians and policy planners did not even contemplate such concepts. They used American Apartheid to show that the living conditions of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands were not as bad as in the United States.

Caucasians controlled the housing market, and it was their racism that created segregation. This argument could also be relevant for the Dutch situation, because it emphasized not so much the role of the ethnic minority, but the attitude of the majority toward the minority. In the Dutch statistical research on accessibility and equality for ethnic minorities occasional attention was paid to discrimination and the attitudes of the Dutch majority toward ethnic minorities.

Overall, though, the research was about whether and how ethnic minorities in the Netherlands were assimilating into the lifestyle of the Dutch. Detailed research in Amsterdam showed that all neighborhoods were ethnically mixed, which meant that the Dutch and ethnic minorities lived together. Nationally, only in 5. The authors believed that the geographic dispersal of ethnic minorities at the micro-level was a consequence of the municipal housing policies, which in its turn was due to a housing shortage in the bigger Dutch cities, municipalities have policies to allocate housing to all citizens, both ethnic Dutch and immigrants.

Since there were hardly any one-parent families among the Turks and Moroccans, the SCP research focused on the Surinamese, Antillean, and Dutch families. As regards the Surinamese and Antilleans, half of the families were one-parent families, but in poor neighborhoods, the proportions were higher: two thirds of the Antilleans and three quarters of the Surinamese families were one-parent families. For about three quarters of the one-parent families, the head of the family was unemployed. If they had a job, they earned less than a two-parent family with one income.

Members of Dutch one-parent families had more to spend individually than members of Surinamese and Antillean two-parent families — that might have been caused, in part, by the number of children per family, which was higher among Surinamese and Antillean families. Compared to the American context, the situation of Surinamese and Antillean one-parent families was much better, even though the latter were in a disadvantageous position in the Dutch society, stated the SCP report.

Almost half of the Surinamese one-parent families were working women. The Dutch parents believed that the educational level of these schools was below standard. Referring once again to American studies, they saw crime as a possible reason why poor neighborhoods turned into ghettos.

The researchers mentioned that they could not establish whether the crime rate increased because of the ethnicity of the criminals, or because of the low incomes of criminals i. Whereas age and gender were the likely determinants of crime, the researchers could not verify the relationship between crime and the place of residence. But the sense of insecurity and fear of crime were higher in poor neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods, leading to a tendency for all ethnicities to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible.

Given the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in these neighborhoods, and a relatively high presence of younger members of certain groups in crime, the researchers found this flight from the neighborhoods understandable. One policy would be to counter the concentration of ethnic minorities by moving them to other neighborhoods. A possible policy was busing. Yet no such policies were implemented at the national level.

Some cities, mostly smaller ones, did try to prevent high concentrations of ethnic groups, both in education and in housing. Such policies were not necessarily aimed at ethnic minorities, but were more general programs concerning crime prevention, the creation of jobs, and the emphasis on the idea of community in poor neighborhoods.

Most of these policies were also executed at the level of city governance. The SCP would write the report on the results of the policies.

Originally, the focus of the debate was creating successful policies to minimize and preferably erase the disadvantageous position of minorities in Dutch society. The statistics presented in the traditional fields of education and un employment showed a positive trend among ethnic minorities since The politicians who asked for more information, a request that led to the Monitor, wanted to check if the government policies for minorities were effective.

They ended up with a new type of report that showed more categories in which Dutch people and immigrants were different. It is debatable whether these new categories were always relevant. The authors of the Monitor implied that a uniform population would form an ideal society; they did not consider whether diversity would offer any advantages, and they ignored the various lifestyles and social ideals among the Dutch.

Originally, the questions were mainly aimed at establishing whether ethnic minorities were actually in touch with the ethnic Dutch. For instance, members of ethnic minorities were asked which ethnic groups they met most often at work overall In , the ISEO researchers concluded that 9.

While the focus of the report was on the extent that immigrants tried to be part of Dutch society, the report emphasized the lack of social interaction of immigrant groups with Dutch society. The idea of a multicultural France is under threat following the November 13 attacks on Paris.

In France, the issue of assimilation emerged in the 19th century. Such discussions are best understood within the context of the time — they took place during a drive to erase regional and linguistic differences in France through free schooling and compulsory military service.

This took place during the colonial era, so the question arose: should the people in colonised countries such as Algeria be included in the policy of assimilation?

They held that some indigenous populations had cultural and racial characteristics that made them unable to accept the universal social pact. Political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville made a voyage in to study Algerian tribes. Nationality and citizenship were thus separated based on religion, effectively legalising this hierarchy: to be eligible for citizenship, immigrants were effectively required to renounce religion in the public sphere.

In the late 19th century, France began to bring in immigrants — mainly from neighbouring countries such as Belgium, Italy and Spain — to compensate for its declining population.

Algeria and Tunisia also attracted a large number of immigrants in this time, mostly Spanish and Italian, threatening to make the French a minority there. During the colonial period, there were three key components of assimilation policy: school, the army, and the right of soil. But it was a selective policy, racist and unequal, that built its notions on assimilability on the hierarchy of races and religions.

The next chapter begins after World War I. With economic growth strong, France needed labour.