Italian Second Generation in Germany: Forms of Ethnic Discrimination at School

The relationship between racism and education is a challenging perspective in order to investigate the characters of contemporary racism inasmuch it affects not only social representations but also everyday practices already in the socialization processes. Forms of discrimination and racism in children’s and young people’s educational path are often characterized by violence – psychological and symbolic – and are the expression of a power asymmetry perpetrated by a social institution whose purpose, instead, should be of forming a good citizen within liberal democracies. These forms have a particular relevance when pupils and students have foreign origins and, what is at stake, is the elaboration of effective integration policies supporting a pluralistic society. Does school foster racism in spite of representing the arena for equal opportunity and democracy? Which are the effects of an early discrimination based on ethnic diversity on second generation’s sense of belonging? Which is the relationship between an early discrimination based on ethnic diversity and the political participation of the second generation? How do migrants’ descendants manage early discrimination and their formal citizenship in host societies?

In order to tackle these questions, my presentation will move from the preliminary results of a qualitative research on the Italian second generation in Germany and its (still difficult) integration path. Having the German educational system a selective character, children (very often migrants’ children) with linguistic and learning problems are directed, in some Länder, to attend special schools (Sonderschule), compromising their future careers and their social recognition. This can be seen as a form of early discrimination based on ethnic diversity. The effects of such an early discrimination is analysed in relation to Italian second generation’s ambivalent sense of belonging and its disaffection towards public life and civil-political engagement, though many Italian descendants are formally German citizens.