Example Lesson Plan
Migration
Overarching Question: What kind of a place is Europe and what kind of place do you want it to be?
Thematic Question: Europe 2025: who’s in, who is out and how do we deal with those, who are in?
Rationale: When we use the word European, we often have a Caucasian type of human being in mind. But the population of Europe has changed during the last few centuries (think about the migration from Europe to the Americas), during the last few decades (think about migrant workers and asylum seekers coming to Europe or have moved within Europe) and probably will change during the next few decades. Important questions are; how do Europeans deal with migration? Which views do they have on immigrants? And why, and which ideas do they have about Europe’s population in the future? Regarding the discussion about “Fortress Europe” the question could be indeed, who’s in and who’s out, but also: how do we deal with those, who are in?
Link to subject content/ This lesson explores the ideas that people in Europe have about
curriculum: migration.
Lesson Focus Question: This lesson explores the ideas that people in Europe have about migration.
Lesson activities:
1. Strategy: Chessboard (15 mins)
a) Students are arranged into groups of 4 and chessboards (see appendix) are given to each group. After being told a short story they get different descriptions and are asked to place them in the black or white squares on their chessboards. The white squares represent positive feelings about the cases while the black squares represent negative ones. The answers should be discussed and decided on as a group.
The situation is the following one: Imagine that you are going to move into a new apartment building. Read the descriptions of the possible neighbours.
Family A consists of a father, a mother, three daughters and four sons aged from 1 to 17. / Family B, mother, father and a son aged 9, came two years ago from Central-Europe to work here. / C came out of prison last month.Family D, father, mother and two daughters (twins, 16 years old) have a Gypsy background. Their grandparents still travelled around Europe. / E has converted to Islam, because he thinks that’s the right religion. / F drinks a lot of alcohol.
b) After placing the given cases onto the appropriate squares, every group gets one map from the Atlas of European Values, which is related to the statements here above. They should have a look at it and try to explain the results for their own country.
The teacher brings the discussion together and asks the following questions:
- Was it easy to come to a consensus in the group?
- Which possible explanations did they find for the results in their own country and how did they come to that conclusion (knowledge, stereotypes, guesswork)?
- Is there a pattern for why people would have a negative feeling towards a neighbour? (According to the theory, tolerance, which is measured by the ‘neighbour question’ isn’t a value that is absolute. People make a difference in what they tolerate. When asked about neighbours, they are more likely to reject those who could cause trouble, than those who are just different. But the last thing differs from country to country).
2. Strategy: Opinion lIne (20 mins)
a) Firstly pupils in pairs view 5 statements from a video (see appendix) about immigrants and the task and then position these statements on an opinion line as shown here below:
Negative attitude towards immigrants / ______/ Positive attitude towards immigrantsb) For the second step the pupils should read the statements of the 5 students again, which they have now received on paper. What explains their attitudes the most: cultural or economic reasons? The statements of the 5 students should then be positioned in the cross of values:
After having done this exercise the teacher discusses the results by asking the following questions:
- What does a positive or negative attitude towards immigrants mean to you?
- How did you decide if the reasons people gave were related to economical or cultural
reasons, or not at all related to these two aspects?
- Did the wording used in the labelling of the opinion line cause you any troubles?
- What additional information would you need to understand the attitudes of the students
more? - - What would you like to ask them?
- What did you learn about why people have certain view on immigrants?
- How do you deal with this information?
3. Strategy: Diamond ranking (20 mins)
a) For the first step pupils get nine statements about the question “what might explain xenophobia in a country?”, which they have to place in a diamond as followed:
low level of education / high age / low level of incomebeing non-religious / number of immigrants / language barrier
economic decline / similar social position as ethnic minority / rise of asylum seekers
After having made their own diamond, pupils should explain their diamond in a group of four and discuss it by using arguments. This first round should finish with a debriefing:
- Was it easy to position the statements in a diamond?
- Where was it difficult to do so and why?
- Could you give good arguments to underpin your diamond?
- Did you hear good reasons from the other pupils, which you didn’t think about?
- (For information about this see the text from part 5: Immigrants and ethnic minorities in Europe: in or out?)
4. Strategy: Opinion line – adapted version (10 mins)
The teacher(s) take a rope, which forms a genuine opinion line. According to their opinion they stand in a certain place next to the rope. The statement is:
“It is better for society if immigrants adopt the customs of the country.”
The teacher asks the pupils to give arguments for their position. He should ask why immigrants should (not) adopt the customs of the country, what adopting means, how the process of (not) adopting would end. After some minutes the following map can be shown and the results of the answers given by people in the pupils’ countries can be brought into the discussion.
5. Task: Immigrants and ethnic minorities in Europe: in or out? (20 mins)
The students get the text with the background information about migration and after having read the text, the teacher discusses the statements at the beginning of the text with the students.
Immigrants and ethnic minorities in Europe: in or out?
Before reading the text, please answer if the following statements are right or wrong:
1. Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have the highest number of immigrants in Europe. YES/NO
2. Immigrants can be seen as a threat to the original population of a country when they have different values. YES/NO
3. Xenophobia is the view that one’s own group is the centre of everything. YES/NO
4. Ethnocentrism isn’t widespread in Europe. YES/NO
5. When it comes to xenophobia, there are more differences within a country than between countries. YES/NO
6. People with a lower income and a lower level of education are relatively more ethnocentric. YES/NO
7. The number of asylum seekers in a country has an impact on the level of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. YES/NO
When comparing numbers of immigrants or percentages of ethnic minorities in a country one should be careful: there are several definitions of what immigrants or ethnic minorities are. According to the United Nation report ‘World Population Policies’ (2005) the total immigrant population was estimated to be 186,579,300. Immigrants were defined as foreign-born population. In Europe Russia had the highest number of immigrants with 12.1 million people, followed by Germany (10.1), Ukraine (6.8), France (6.5) and United Kingdom (5.4). But when we have a look at the percentage of the national population, most immigrants in Europe lived in Luxemburg (37.4%), Switzerland (22.9%), Latvia (19.5%), Estonia (15.2%) and Austria (14.9%). In the Netherlands, Spain and Italy the percentages were 10.1%, 10.8% and 4.3%.
How can we explain attitudes of people towards immigrants or ethnic minorities? Each individual needs to classify the world around him/her. A person’s awareness of belonging to certain social groups (in-groups) and not to others (out-groups) results in social identification and social discrimination (making a difference). The distinction between the in-groups and out-groups can be established in and through conflict. Those conflicts do not only arise from competition over scarce resources, but also from struggles concerning values or competing systems of values. An ethnic out-group that deviates—or has been defined as deviant - from important in-group norms and values can form a cultural threat to the in-group. An example of this is the view and anxiety that growing numbers of Muslims are a threat to established European values. Generally an attitude that emphasises the uniqueness and superiority of one’s own national group is defined as chauvinism. We can distinguish two extreme forms of a strong emphasis on the in-group: xenophobia (morbid dislike of foreigners) and ethnocentrism (view that one’s own group is the centre of everything).
Some sociologists presume that attitudes such as xenophobia or ethnocentrism will be more prevalent among ethnic majority individuals with a relatively low educational level, unemployed people, those with lower incomes, older people, members of a religious denomination and churchgoers. When it comes to differences between countries they expect that xenophobia will be more prevalent in countries with declining economic conditions, with a less extensive social security system, with a larger number of asylum seekers and a large number of ethnic minorities.
Research showed that xenophobia is not widespread in Europe today, but ethnocentrism is. The impact of a country’s economic achievements, the influx of refugees and immigrants and religious, ethnic and language barriers in a country can only explain xenophobic or ethnocentric attitudes to a slight degree. People who hold nearly similar social positions as ethnic minorities were more chauvinistic. They experience a higher level of ethnic competition and are perceived as more of an ethnic threat. As a response they strengthen the cognitive boundaries between their own in-group and ethnic out-groups. People were more chauvinistic when economic conditions had worsened during the previous five years. With the rise of asylum applications the degree of chauvinism increased, but it appeared that the relative number of asylum seekers was not positively, but rather negatively related to chauvinism. Generally for both forms of chauvinism there is much more variability within countries than between countries.
With regard to ethnocentrism on the individual level the elderly, those on lower incomes and people with a lower education are more ethnocentric. The same applies to men compared to women. Compared to people belonging to other denominations, Protestants are the most ethnocentric, followed by Roman Catholics, non-religious people and the Orthodox. Church attendance, however, has a significant negative effect on ethnocentrism. Most country characteristics have no significant effect. However, the more prosperous a country is, the lower the level of ethnocentrism. With regard to xenophobia older people are more xenophobic than young people, the less-educated more than higher-educated ones and those on lower incomes more than those on higher incomes. The wealthier a country, the less xenophobia occurs, but, surprisingly, recent economic growth increased rather than decreased levels of xenophobia.
Sources:
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2006). World Population Policies 2005
W. Arts & L. Halman (2006). Identity: The Case of the European Union. Journal of Civil Society. Vol. 2, No. 3, 179–198
Appendix: Materials
Chessboard
Opinion line
The following statements can also be shown as a video. The students in these questions were asked questions from the European Values Study. There are more videos about that issue and additionally maps with the results of the question per country available on the website www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu .
Anup/UK http://www.blip.tv/file/4827833 0:00-1:28
I don’t really think that foreigners take jobs away from the natives; I think instead that they’re doing the jobs that natives don’t really want to do anymore. I think this has been apparent since the mid 20th century in the U.K. You look at people who work in restaurants, bars and most of them are immigrants. In the sixties, people who drove buses in London were also immigrants. It seems that a trend is continuing and I don’t think that many people are too worried about it. I think immigrants really add to the culture of the country in which they settle. I don’t think it’s in a negative kind of way. You look at London today and every sort of religion, culture and country is kind of represented. All the time there are different festivals and events going on that everyone takes part in. It just makes the place a little more vibrant, colourful, and with more immigrants in the country, bearing their culture, everyone learns from each other and ultimately it leads to a better understanding of everyone around the world.
Naomi /NL http://blip.tv/file/4850454 0:00-0:40
I don’t think that immigrants steal jobs from the indigenous population. Migrants come here and they take part in the economy and workforce. It’s not a good idea to sit at home and receive benefits because then it’s someone else who is paying for this. I think it is good that immigrants work here. I do not feel that they steal jobs.
I do not think that our culture is undermined by immigrants, I see it more as a supplement to the culture in any given country. I think it is good when many cultures are together in a particular country because if you learn to accept other cultures and tolerate and learn other things then I do not think that the culture is going to suffer. I think that it is a supplement. In the Netherlands, for example, there are many different cultures and I find it just fine. In the Netherlands we know a lot of different cultures and I think it is good for the people themselves to learn and be able to handle different cultures.