The School System as an Arena of Ethnic Conflicts

Abstract

Peter Meusburger presents an overview about some of the reasons why the school system in multi-ethnic or multilingual states is a contested field and an arena of political and cultural conflicts. In states with compulsory education it is a crucial question whether and in which circumstances ethnic minorities are allowed to use their mother tongue in elementary and secondary schools as the language of instruction, whether the teachers are sympathetic to the minority cultures, whether minorities play a part in determining the location and size of elementary schools and the content of the textbooks, and whether those minorities have a say in the “memory industry”. The school can support and reinforce the cultural learning process that students have already undergone in their families and neighborhoods but can also interrupt or reverse it, eventually instilling them with serious doubt about their identity. In multiethnic states minority students entering the school system frequently experience how the values, historical experiences, and cultural practices that their parents have passed on to them are called into question, resisted, or portrayed as backward.