Responding to institutional discrimination: the local management of inclusion into the education system

Abstract

Educational systems in the OECD countries are undergoing an institutional change emerging from two sources: 1) The political and social recognition of ethnic differences challenges schools to be responsive. The concept of "ethnic studies" and "multicultural education" brings not only differentiation of the curriculum but also seems to stimulate a tendency to educational (self-) segregation to the end of separate schooling along religious and ethnic lines. 2) The emergence of neo-liberal market ideology and the questioning of the social welfare state have created a new debate about pluralism in education, decentralisation and privatisation, school autonomy and parental choice which might be understood as an implicit answer to the process of ethnic pluralisation in schooling. This development, too has an inherent drive to social disintegration. This paper will examine if and how these two reform strategies are interlinked and the empirical evidence from some of the "deregulation countries" showing the intended and non-intended effects of both reforms. To explain the mechanisms of disintegration, the paper will advance a theory of institutional discrimination combining two theoretical concepts: the theory of the organisation in people processing organisations and the concept of ethnicisation and minorisation of social groups in functionally differentiated societies.