A Need to Activate Parents? Practices of Migrant Integration in Pedagogical Institutions in Berlin

Abstract

In this thesis, I look at various state-funded projects directed at the integration of people of migrant and refugee backgrounds into pedagogical institutions in Berlin’s borough of Neukölln. I explore how concepts of integration have been discussed in public discourse, and how in recent years, demands for integration have become more and more directed at people identified as Muslim. I discuss how the discourse about integration in relation to pedagogical institutions has become marked by slogans of “activating” parents, with the implication that people of migrant background, or often, Muslim parents, are by nature inactive in supporting the schooling of their children. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in various settings: a parent involvement project at a primary school; a welfare centre for parents and children; and the Borough Mothers integration project (Stadtteilmütter). Drawing on the anthropology of policy and on Aihwa Ong’s cultural citizenship approach, I analyse how ideas of migrant integration have been implemented by state agents on the ground, and how these practices have been affecting the life realities of people who identify as Muslim. I mainly focus on people with an Arabic-speaking background, many of whom had arrived in Berlin from 1975 on as a consequence of the Lebanese civil war. I show that this group of people have been affected by highly difficult policy conditions in Germany, which have hindered their participation in educational institutions. Against this historical background, I ask to what extent the social work projects influence people’s sense of belonging to and opportunities of participation in society. The district government of Neukölln is known for its rather rigid approach towards issues of integration as compared with other Berlin districts. I show how some of Neukölln’s Mayor Heinz Buschkowsky’s approaches towards migrant integration have influenced women who participate in the Borough Mothers project, strengthening a perceived gap between “migrant” and “German” families, not conceived in terms of citizenship, but in terms of ethnic or linguistic background. However, my material also suggests that Buschkowsky’s ideas were not shared by the local project coordinators, or by Neukölln’s overall population. Everyday interactions between people of different ethnic backgrounds or otherwise seemed to be more unproblematic than Buschkowsky and other hardliners suggested. In the parent-child centre, current progressive conceptions of migrant integration, like the one of “opening up for interculturality” (Interkulturelle Ӧffnung), which is focused on enhancing the representation of migrants in public institutions, were not well reflected on. The concept of integration was understood mainly as one where migrant and refugee parents needed to be activated, in order to be good role models for their children. This approach was not well received by some of the attendees, who felt that they were being treated more like guests than like participants or citizens. Ong’s cultural citizenship approach mainly focuses on such disciplining and controlling aspects of interactions between state agents and migrants and refugees. I supplement it by paying attention to the heterogeneity of state agents’ perspectives, and to the diversity of social relationships in each setting.