Anti-racist education

Under anti-racist education refers to all educational efforts against racism . This definition includes very different and sometimes contradicting educational efforts.

aims

Anti-racist education can have different goals. In addition to breaking down prejudices and preventing racist violence, it is also about overcoming structural injustices that disadvantage members of minorities. Specific goals can be, for example:

Conveying values such as tolerance
Development of courses of action to u. a. To support moral courage
Promote intercultural contacts
racist propaganda reveal
Awareness of your own racist aspects
Minority strengths

Promotion of minorities through structural measures analogous to gender mainstreaming

Educational approaches

According to the different objectives, different approaches for an anti-racist education have been developed in Germany since the 1990s :

Providing information about minorities, but also about racism and right-wing extremism, is intended to reduce prejudice
Education for moral courage, as z. B. Civic Education is aimed at empowering people to take active action against racism
Anti-racism training is available in different forms, usually it is about the sensitization of the mostly young or adult participants to questions of racism, but also about the development of alternative courses of action or the healing of psychological trauma
Intercultural approaches try to encourage children of different origins to learn together and to promote mutual understanding through contact
the introduction of protective measures against racial discrimination and violence should at least make educational institutions a safe place to learn for everyone
this also includes making teachers more aware of the problems faced by minority children

In the international discussion about anti-racist education there are other approaches such as:

The Shoah Education tries to impart knowledge about the Holocaust to children
mainstreaming, i.e. the targeted promotion of minorities, is z. B. pursued with the approach of affirmative action in the USA
Empowerment approaches are intended to enable minority members to articulate their interests and to achieve them through increased participation

Obstacles

The enforcement of an anti-racist education stands in the way of the legal unequal treatment of some students from minorities. In addition, there is the lack of equal opportunities; this means that children from discriminated groups find out at an early age that they hardly have any opportunities for social advancement. Furthermore, anti-racist upbringing encounters problems due to the deterioration in the educational and social sectors, which generally hinder innovation.

history

Compared to other western industrial nations , the discussion about anti-racist education in Germany is still relatively young. Despite contradictions, education under National Socialism was largely in the service of conveying the ruling racial theories . The exclusion of particularly Jewish teachers and students and their deportation happened in public and their murder was ideologically prepared in the education of the NS. After the liberation from National Socialism, the allies discussed possibilities of upbringing that oppose racism and, above all, hostility towards Jews , as well as possibilities of a democratic upbringing . The first approaches related primarily to reducing prejudice through information or student exchange programs.

Theodor W. Adorno's radio contribution Education after Auschwitz ( 1966 ) spurred the academic discussion and at the same time also the approaches to anti-authoritarian education . 1970 was the United Nations ' International Year of Education , and within this framework the Federal Government made its first efforts to improve the schooling of the increasing number of children of migrant workers who were coming to Germany. This foreigner education was done on a voluntary basis with the aim of compensating for the differences understood as deficits or adapting foreign children to the needs of schools (e.g. through homework help).

Intercultural education developed out of the criticism of this deficit view in the early 1980s . It is about issues of learning together for children of different origins and the development of educational approaches that children with different cultural backgrounds can adequately meet. At the same time, however, in areas with a particularly high proportion of migrant residents, there is segregation of students and the like. a. in so-called foreigner regular classes .

The discussion about forms of anti-racist upbringing became particularly topical due to right-wing extremist and racist violence after German reunification . It became clear that such approaches have been in existence in other countries for 30 years and more, and some approaches have been adapted for German conditions. Other forms of education were specially developed here.

criticism

Anti-racist approaches often criticize an imprecise concept of culture in intercultural education, which is sometimes seen as a simple replacement for the word race (cf. cultural racism ). At the same time, it is difficult for anti-racist education to develop an independent theory in which, on the one hand, the societal constructive nature of racism is taken into account and, on the other hand, an educational approach is developed.

Concrete educational approaches often tend to individualize the social problem of racism, that is, to ascribe it to individual individuals. The condemnation of children as racists cannot be the goal of a theoretically based pedagogy. At the same time, the question arises as to which form of authority and repression is legitimate to combat individual forms of racism.

Some advocates of anti-racist education therefore plead primarily for a democratic education based on the structural transformation of society. For this purpose, among other things, the abolition of the special laws that only affect non-Germans is necessary at political level. In addition, new forms and materials of teaching are particularly important in the pedagogical area , which are suitable for all students in increasingly heterogeneous classes.

literature

A. Aluffi-Pentini, P. Gstettner, W. Lorenz, V. Wakounig [Eds.]: Anti-racist pedagogy in Europe. Theory and Practice , Klagenfurt / Celovec: Drava, 1999
P. Braham, A. Rattansi, R. Skellington [Eds.]: Racism and Antiracism. Inequalities, Opportunities and Policies , London: Sage, 1992
L. van den Broek: At the end of whiteness - Overcoming prejudices , Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1988
P. Cohen: Forbidden Games. Theory and Practice of Anti -Racist Education , Hamburg: Argument, 1994, ISBN 3886192148

M. Einig: Models of anti-racist education , Nordhausen: Bautz, 2005, ISBN 3883092347

P. Essed, C. Mullard: Anti-racist education - Basics and considerations for an anti-racist education theory , Felsberg: migro, 1991

H. Essinger, A. Uçar [Hrsg.]: Education: Intercultural - Political - Anti-racist. From intercultural to anti-racist education , Felsberg: migro, 1993

M. Griffith, B. Troyna [Eds.]: Antiracism, Culture and Social Justice in Education , Stroke: Trentham, 1995

F. Hamburger: Practice of anti-racism. Experiences from working with Sinti and analyzes of antiziganism , 2nd edition, Logophon, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3922514596

Klaus Holzkamp : Anti-racist upbringing as a change in racist "attitudes"? - Function criticism and subject-scientific alternative , in: S. Jäger [Hrsg.]: From the workshop: Antirassistische Praxen. Concepts - Experiences - Research , Duisburg: DISS, 1994, pp. 8–29.

M. Huth [Hrsg.]: Teaching and learning - intercultural / anti-racist, The fast AOL reference work Vol. 5 , Schneider, Hohengehren 1997, ISBN 3871168734

Siegfried Jäger [Hrsg.]: From the workshop: Antirassistische Praxen. Concepts - Experiences - Research , DISS , Duisburg 1994, ISBN 3927388459

M. Lange, M. Weber-Becker: Racism, Anti-Racism and Intercultural Competence , Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Göttingen 1998

C. Meier-Mesquita: Racism and anti-racist education. A theoretical and empirical study , Universitätsverlag, Friborg 1999, ISBN 3727812338

H. Müller: Antirassistische Pädagogik , in: A. Bernhard, L. Rothermel [Ed.]: Handbook of critical pedagogy , Deutscher Studien Verlag, Weinheim 1997, pp. 357-370

T. Quehl: School is not an island. British perspectives on anti-racist education , Waxmann, Münster 2000, ISBN 3893259171

Charles Rojzman: The hatred, the fear and the democracy , Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialpolitischer Arbeitskreis AG Spak, Munich 1997 ISBN 3930830051

GJ Sefa Dei: Anti-racism Education. Theory and Practice , Fernwood, Halifax 1996, ISBN 1-895686-63-6

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