Brokers of the ‘Refugee Crisis’: Schools and the Integration Regime in Contemporary Germany

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 17. Schools and Education

Abstract

As the recent cohort of asylum-seeking migrants to Europe settle into national regimes of integration, schools serve as key sites for socializing and training newcomers on how to act and engage in their new communities. How are these migrants being taught to navigate their host society? What forms of participation are encouraged? How are the terms of inclusion set, redrawn, and contested?
This project addresses these questions using ethnographic data and in-depth interviews (N=30) collected between 2017 and 2018 at integration programs serving young adult, refugee students in Germany. These data reveal the emerging role of schools as “migration brokers” that mediate between students’ encounters with policy frameworks and the labor market. School actors pipe students into vocations with employment shortages, thereby supporting a broader national project of “migration utilitarianism.” School curricula articulate national belonging as upholding liberal ideals such as pluralism and gender egalitarianism and actively target students’ presumed liberal deficiencies. The practices of these educational institutions entrench an integration logic based on economic self-sufficiency, civic deservedness, and the adoption of liberal ideals.

Author

• Carol Jean Petty, George Mason University