There is No Difference, We Are All the Same. Migrant Children, their Schoolmates and Teachers in Czech Primary Schools Cover Image

Žádná různost není, všichni jsme tu stejní. Děti migrantů, jejich spolužáci a vyučující na českých základních školách
There is No Difference, We Are All the Same. Migrant Children, their Schoolmates and Teachers in Czech Primary Schools

Author(s): Lucie Jarkovská, Kateřina Lišková, Jana Obrovská
Subject(s): Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Nakladatelství Karolinum
Keywords: education; ethnicity; migrant pupils; ethnography

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the ways in which the Czech education system deals with growing ethnic diversity. We focus both on the perspective of teachers as well as that of children who have migrated to the Czech Republic from Ukraine, Russia and Vietnam, and their classmates. We conducted ethnographic research in selected schools across the country that includ¬ed interviews with teachers and focus groups with children. We identified discursive strategies and repertoires that make ethnicity invisible and thus reproduce the idea of an ethnically homogeneous whole. We show how teachers employ the humanistic discourse to achieve this end while migrant children perform normalcy and problem-free status that, however, requires certification from their ethnically Czech classmates. We argue that ethnic diversity in Czech schools is performed through the discourse of sameness despite differences.

  • Issue Year: 8/2014
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 97-100
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Czech