Eleni Anagnostou, Niki Apsokardou, Lia Figgou

Temporal Comparisons and Constructions of Immigrant Students’ Integration and Intergroup Co-existence in Educators’ Discourse

Introduction

Temporal comparisons and constructions of immigrant students’ integration and intergroup co-existence in educators’ discourse. Explore how Greek educators construct immigrant students' school integration & coexistence over time. Finds family socioeconomic status impacts integration, and while racism is seen as inevitable, it lessens. Uses Critical Discursive Social Psychology.

Abstract

The present study explores the way in which educators construct immigrant students’ school integration and intergroup coexistence in the context of school as phenomena shaped over time. The analytic material consisted of 12 semi-structured interviews (10 individual and two group ones), with 15 Greek educators, who work in the primary and secondary education, aged between 37 and 62 years, while the analysis was based on the principles of Critical Discursive Social Psychology. Based on the findings, time comparison indicates strong connection between the school integration of immigrant students and the socioeconomical status of the family, since it is maintained that immigrant families that have assured an adequate standard of living, show increased interest in their childrens’ school integration and performance. School is constructed as a context of acceptance, while racism and discrimination as inevitable, but lessening over time. Nevertheless, the construction of racism’s inevitable nature coexists with the construction of (west or east) immigrants’ origin as an important factor in the development of racism and their marginalization. Discussion highlights the contribution of findings, in particular and Critical Discursive Social Psychology, in general to a) the literature on immigrants’ social integration, since interesting conflicts concerning the prioritization of socioeconomical or cultural criteria are raised and b) research on the denial of racism in discourse and its ideological implications.

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