When the Other Arrives to the School

Abstract

In the last 40 years, Spain became from a country of emigrants to a destination for immigrants. The 0.46% of immigrants of 1975 (165,000 of 36,012,682 people) went up to 12% (5,598,691 of 46,063,511) in 2009. The sudden demographic, economic, social, cultural, political and educational consequences of this move have been considerable. In this chapter, after offering an impressionist picture of this new scenario, we focus on the implications of this phenomenon in the educational system during two periods of the recent Spanish history, before and after the social and economic crisis. In these two periods, the arrival of immigrants was considered as a problem and maybe now could be an opportunity to rethinking schooling and develop a more comprehensive curriculum. Immigrants have arrived to school to remain, and that opens the possibility of promoting a more inclusive education for all in a more open and fair society.