Intercultural schooling in Greece :a study of schooling processes and teaching practices in four urban intercultural primary schools

摘要

This is a school based ethnographic style inquiry that took place in four interculturaludprimary schools in a major metropolitan area of Greece and extended over a period ofuda school year. Intercultural schools were introduced in Greece by Law in 1996 andudthat was the first official recognition of the educational needs of children coming fromuddifferent cultural backgrounds. The overall aim of this thesis is to uncover teachers'udbeliefs and practices and explore by an in depth analysis, the everyday operation ofudintercultural schools in Greece by identifying both their explicit aims and hiddenudagendas in relation to the education of 'foreign' children. It aimed to unravel theirudeveryday schooling processes and examine intercultural ideology in practice. Theudstudy used a mixture of qualitative methods that included observations, interviewsudwith the head teachers, classroom and bilingual teachers and analysis of school basedudand educational policy documents.udThe findings suggest that the educational practices identified, treated the diversity ofud`foreign' children as an educational problem that hindered their progress and had toudbe altered in order to fit the school's culture and norms. As a result, 'foreign' childrenudattended bilingual classes that focused mainly on the teaching of the Greek languageudand aimed to integrate them quickly into the mainstream classroom, in order to matchudthe school's criteria of 'normality'. Children's previous educational experiences andudcultural capital were neglected, as was their first language which was seen as audconstraint to their integration in the mainstream classroom and, in effect, to Greekudsociety more broadly. Overall the study suggests that intercultural schools, despiteudtheir rhetoric, still work within a monocultural and monolinguistic framework and actudas sites for the reproduction of State ideology and culture. The study concludes byudproposing a different model of education for all children, based on democratic valuesudand citizenship education, aiming to prepare competent and active citizens withudmultiple identities to meet the challenges of the national, European and globaludcontext.