University of Bristol, Universite Du Mans (France)

Author

Maroussia Raveaud

University of Bristol, Universite du Mans (France)

Title

Ethnic minorities and ‘enfants issus de l’immigration’: The social construction of difference through national education policy in England and France

Paper presented at the RAPPE (Network for Cross-disciplinary Analysis of Education Policy) Seminar on Governance, Regulation and Equity in European Education systems, London Institute of Education, 20-21 March 2003

Abstract

This paper explores the social construction of difference in France and England by examining official taxonomies, education policy and practise in schools. It argues that the treatment of immigrants and their descendants is related to national ideology. The British ‘multicultural’ model and the French ‘Republican’ model present contrasting visions of the nation either side of the Channel. These models face challenges, and ethnographic research carried out in twelve primary classes reveals the adaptations and mediations they give way to in practise. Nevertheless, using a socio-cultural perspective, this paper argues that pupils in England and France experience ethnicity in different ways, which are linked with nationally specific conceptions of citizenship.

Ethnic minorities and ‘enfants issus de l’immigration’

The social construction of difference

through national education policy in England and France

Introduction

Classifications of the ‘other’ refer, implicitly or explicitly, to a definition of oneself. Persons of foreign origin in France and the UK are perceived and treated in accordance with national ideologies, which vanZanten defines as:

a set of values and beliefs that frames the political thinking and action of agents of the main institutions of a nation-state at a particular point in time. Each ideology develops in interaction with particular political, social and cultural contexts. (1997b: 352)

The UK has developed a multicultural model of society. In 1966 Roy Jenkins, then Home Secretary, defined the successful participation of minority groups: ‘not as a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance’. The UK’s multicultural model rests on the recognition and promotion of diversity and respect for different cultures. Indeed, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) considers race just as ‘real’ as biological differences: ‘Racial origin, like gender, is a matter of fact’ (CRE 2000). On the other had, the French Republican model seeks to develop national consciousness founded on universal principles. ‘Republican’ refers to the drive during the Third Republic (1871-1944) to consolidate a homogeneous French nation, built upon the rationalist principles of the Enlightenment, a shared (high) culture and political factors rather than cultural or socio-geographic communities (Schnapper 1991). Religious, local and cultural community feelings are relegated to the private sphere.

These distinctive ideologies have profound effects on policy and practise. This paper begins by examining the official criteria used to divide and classify the population, using the taxonomies of the French and English censuses as an example of the official construction of ‘difference’. It goes on to examine how official conceptions of difference translate into education legislation. Finally, it considers the mediations and adaptations of policy that occur in practise, by drawing on empirical qualitative research carried out in French and English primary schools. It concludes that the education systems on either side of the Channel continue to convey nationally specific conceptions of society and of ethnicity.

Constructing or deconstructing difference

Why classify the population? Foucault (1975) argues that the state imposes its power and authority by translating the social into categories that are governable and amenable to regulation. Others emphasize the potential of statistics – and hence classification – as a basis for anti-discriminatory policies and social change (Bonnett and Carrington 2000, Simpson 2002). The French and British censuses map the population in different ways according to their choice of nationality or ethnicity as the defining criterion.

The census: ethnicity vs. nationality

Census categories are not fixed over time. They correspond to changing social realities and needs. Eugenic concerns once motivated the gathering of data on ‘foreigners’, who were seen as a potential threat to the purity of the race (Noiriel 1988, MacKenzie 1998). Now official data collection is concerned with issues of equality of opportunity. But equality between whom? No single obvious criterion exists to classify the population. As a result, while official classifications in the UK today are based on ethnicity in the name of multiculturalism, the French Republican model of integration only recognises nationality.

The inclusion of ethnic data in the British national census is relatively recent, dating back to 1991. Attempts to collect data on ‘immigrant’ children had been made by the Department of Education and Science in the late 1960s and 1970s as part of the assimilationist ‘bussing’ policy (Bonnett and Carrington 2000). But prior to 1971 the census recorded only one’s place of birth. In 1981 both parents’ country of birth was added. Simpson (2002) suggests that the inclusion of ethnicity became acceptable in the context of positive discrimination policies which made the monitoring of ethnicity a tool in the fight for racial equality. The initial census categories were revised in the 2001 census, leading to the current taxonomy which mingles criteria based on geographic origin and colour1.

In France, the constitution states that:

France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It ensures the equality of all citizens before the law, without making any distinctions on the basis of origin, race or religion. (1968: article 2)

This has long been understood to preclude the identification of French passport bearers who are of foreign origin. Indeed, it has often been argued that immigrants and their descendants are treated much as regional groups were in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789 (Schnapper 1991): in both cases, the assumption was that the minority groups would assimilate into the dominant French culture. In the name of a universalist and rationalist view of integration, their cultural specificities are not recognised in the public sphere.

In fact the term ‘ethnic minority’ is a triple taboo in France. The concepts of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ are challenged on the scientific grounds that no firm distinctions between human groups can be established. Politically, they lost their legitimacy because of the atrocities perpetrated in their name by the Nazi regime. Finally, from a legal perspective, the French republic does not recognise the existence of ‘majorities’ and ‘minorities’, only of ‘citizens’. Referring to ‘minorities’ has even been considered to go against the French constitution (Afiouni 1999). Thus the term ‘ethnic minority’ does not usually translate into French, where the accepted phrase is ‘issu de l’immigration’ (descended from immigrants).

Because of these national traditions, the data collected in the census either side of the Channel corresponds to distinct, socially constructed realities. A British person in France will appear in statistics as a non-national, whereas a Frenchman in the UK will not feature in the ethnic minority count2. Conversely, in France, children of the ‘second generation’ become statistically invisible as soon as they acquire the French nationality – although this is no longer automatic. In the UK, no matter how many generations have been born and bred on British soil, a person whose skin is not white is still expected to identify themselves as belonging to a minority ethnic group.

The French and British typologies and their underlying philosophies face challenges in both countries: there is much debate about the appropriateness of existing classifications, and questions as to the legitimacy of their very existence. In the UK, even after the census changes in 2001 to accommodate mixed heritage and to distinguish among White groups, the current taxonomy comes under criticism (Aspinall 1996, Simpson 2002). Why does ‘British’ appear as a final category only under the main heading ‘White’ (can Black persons not define themselves as British)? Why can one be ‘Irish’ (or ‘Scottish’ in the Scottish census since devolution) but not have a corresponding box to tick if one is Welsh? Why propose only three types of mixed heritage, all of which include White, when many other combinations are possible?

In France, it is for being colour-blind that official classifications sometimes come under attack. The social sciences have been described as being subject to a ‘Republican nationalism’ (Lorcerie 1994) by virtue of which ethnicity and ‘differences’ other than those of social class are not considered legitimate research objects. This, in many ways, places the social sciences apart from popular culture, as Wievorka’s work revealing the everyday racism in French society demonstrates (1992). In the 1990s however, challenges to the tradition of ‘non-construction of difference through statistics’ (Payet 1996) came from within the social sciences: some researchers in the institute for demographic studies (INED) lifted the taboo on ethnicity by carrying out studies based on national origin (see in particular Tribalat 1995). This move was justified by a wish to identify and fight against the discriminations suffered by immigrant children, most of them bearers of the French nationality. It was opposed inside the same institution as a form of political labelling and panders to extremist parties (Le Bras 1998).

Research agendas: seeing and believing

In the political arena and in the social sciences, most debates on appropriate classifications are driven by concerns about discrimination. ‘Equal opportunities’ is everywhere claimed as the ultimate goal, although some justify ethnic monitoring in its name while others reject it. Education research provides us with an example of the impact of national ideology on the capacity and willingness to ‘see’ ethnicity.

Minority ethnic persons in the UK, those descended from immigrants in France, tend to underachieve at school. How far is this due to the fact that they are over-represented in the lower socio-economic categories? Interestingly, research carried out into this question either side of the Channel yields opposite conclusions.

A review of research carried out for the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) by David Gillborn and Heidi Mirza concludes:

The data suggest that even when controlling for social class, there remain significant inequalities of attainment between different ethnic groups. […] ethnic inequalities persist even when class differences are taken into account. (2000: 20-21)

In other words, according to these British researchers, social class only accounts for part of educational inequality. The rest is explained by ethnic belonging (the causal effect being attributed to institutional factors, not to any intrinsic ethnic characteristics).

In France, research undertaken by the Ministry of Education’s statistics department came to the opposite conclusion (Vallet and Caille 1995). The researchers measured the results of a large sample of pupils against several criteria: nationality, but also other factors such as the language spoken at home, the country of birth and the number of years at school outside France. When each of these factors was isolated, the statisticians found similar levels of educational achievement across groups of different origin. Only a recent arrival in France was negatively correlated with school results, not being of foreign nationality or being bilingual. Though the researchers acknowledged the underperformance of foreign pupils and immigrant children as a category, they concluded that their country of origin had no causal effect on individual attainment:

This underachievement at key stage3 is not specifically due to being foreign or from an immigrant family. Indeed, it disappears when the analysis allows for the influence of social and family characteristics. (1995:5)

Not all French researchers would agree with these findings, and indeed Michèle Tribalat (1995) comes to other conclusions. As Agnès vanZanten (1997a) points out, the choice of indicators of educational success lead to different results. However, there is a longstanding tradition in France that considers that most of the academic difficulties ascribed to foreign origin can in fact be attributed to socio-economic factors (see Payet’s literature review, 1996). It is significant that an edition of this journal dedicated to education policy in France (2000: 15(1)) makes scant references to immigration. Only two of the eleven articles specifically include the proportion of immigrant children as a key factor of change in French schools (Kherroubi and Plaisance), or show its influence on parental strategies of school choice (Broccolichi and vanZanten). Most restrict the issue of social inequality to social class. Two articles present data on socio-economic status without mentioning immigration (Fernández Mellizo-Soto, Galland and Oberti) and a third explicitly excludes it as a non-influential factor, saying the influence of ethnic background ‘is in fact very small’ (Duru-Bellat: 40). By contrast, a previous issue of the JEP (1998: 13(4)) publishing the proceedings of the 1997 British Education Research Association symposium on social justice places race and ethnicity top of its list of concerns, followed by social class, gender and physical ability (p.40).

It may of course be the case that the reality of the link between ethnicity and educational attainment is of a different nature either side of the Channel, in particular because of the institutional treatment of the immigrant and ethnic minority population. But one may also wonder how far the objects and methods of research, as well as the interpretations of the data, are mediated through researchers’ beliefs and values, in this case the Republican refusal to recognise ethnicity. While French findings tend to shift the focus away from the country of origin so much so as to make it ‘disappear’, ethnic differences are reified in British research. British research and policy constructs ethnic difference, whereas French Republican traditions contribute to the deconstruction of what they consider to be a social artefact.

Education policy: monitoring or labelling

The relation between education policy and the social construction of difference is a complex and partly circular one: policy is defined on the basis of a particular vision of society, and schools in turn contribute to the transmission of this model. This section examines the impact of French and British political and historical traditions on education policy relating to children of immigrants and ethnic minorities. It considers two strands: the existence or the absence of specific educational provision for minority ethnic pupils, and requirements in the curriculum to reflect the diversity of the population.

Multiculturalism: race as a reality

Lord Swann, author of the key report laying down the principles of multicultural education, traced shifts in English3 education policy from ‘assimilation’ (in the 1960s) to ‘integration’ (1970s) and subsequently to ‘multiculturalism’ (UK Parliament 1985). According to the Swann report, ‘cultural’ or ‘intellectual handicap’ were not satisfactory notions to understand the underachievement of minority ethnic pupils. Schools themselves were the key to the problem. It followed that the aim of education was not to help minority ethnic children conform and adapt to the norms of society (as in assimilation), nor even to recognise and value ‘difference’ (as in integration). The multicultural approach was to forge a new British identity, emerging as a result of the diversity of its multiple constituent cultures:

[…] a multi-racial society such as ours would in fact function most effectively and harmoniously on the basis of pluralism which enables, expects and encourages members of all ethnic groups, both minority and majority, to participate fully in shaping the society as a whole within a framework of commonly accepted values, practices and procedures, whilst also allowing and, where necessary, assisting the ethnic minorities in maintaining their distinct ethnic identities within this common framework. (UK Parliament [The Swann Report]: 253)

Policies conducted in the name of multiculturalism rarely go as far as the Swann report advocated. However, specific provision for minority ethnic children has existed since the 1960s. ‘Section11’ funding was created in 1966 to cater for ‘immigrants from the commonwealth whose language and customs differ from those of the community’ (Local Government Act 1966, chap. 42, section11). In 1999, following the Macpherson Report into the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, this funding was replaced by the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant (EMAG). As its name suggests, this grant is explicitly and exclusively for the benefit of ethnic minority children. It enables schools to employ staff to work with minority ethnic children inside the classroom or with small groups outside the classroom. All ethnic minority pupils are entitled to receive such support, regardless of their academic achievements. Indeed, part of the rationale behind the EMAG is to locate the causes of the underachievement of certain ethnic minority groups with the schools, and not (only) with individual pupils. This came across very strongly in an interview with EMAG staff in a Bristol school:

There’s been an honest recognition that the children from some minorities are underachieving. We’ve known that for a long time – Black children don’t do as well as White children. But now we’re working on the way the school has an effect on this. The baseline assessment shows the Black children doing as well or even better than average, but then they fall behind. So we’re looking at a two-pronged effect. It’s not just got to do with the individual, because if a whole group is underperforming, it’s not pathologizing. We need to look at the school’s expectations. Possibly part of the problem is stereotypes– expecting less of those children.

The official scope of EMAG staff is not limited to academic support for underachieving pupils, but is also intended to help teachers review their targets to ensure that minority ethnic children are being adequately challenged as well as to identify and counter any forms of institutional racism.

The Republican model: elusive ethnicity

The EMAG is a policy the whole conception and rationale of which rest on the belief that pupils from ethnic minorities have specific characteristics and educational needs. By contrast, no education policy in France mentions ethnicity, and rarely nationality. There is no equivalent to EMAG. Apart from special classes for foreign pupils arriving in the country speaking no French, no support is targeted specifically at children of immigrant origin or of foreign nationality4. Even the special classes for non-francophones are rarely a success, partly because of under-funding and lack of adequate training, but also because they tend to be seen as educational ‘ghettos’. Indeed, such targeted policies are suspected of discrimination and considered incompatible with Republican principles.