<TITLE: Immigrant Youth, Civic Values and Education
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: behavioural sciences
DISCIPLINE: education
EVENT TYPE: lecture discussion
FILE ID: ULECD140
NOTES: continued in and continuation of ULEC210

RECORDING DURATION: 34 min 54 sec

RECORDING DATE: 17.4.2007

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 15

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 5

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Russian; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Dutch; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

S5: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Spanish; ACADEMIC ROLE: masters student; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

S6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: masters student; GENDER: male; AGE: 24-30

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S1> okay so er i would like to introduce er doctor <NAME S2> from er london institute of education and er well <NAME S2> is dutch so but he has worked in london for quite a few five years or how many [four or five years] </S1>
<S2> [mhm no] no three years [(maybe) yes] </S2>
<S1> [three years] okay and he is also affiliated now with the free university of amsterdam so kind of double connection and also er well maybe you can tell a <S2> [mhm yes] </S2> [few words about your] research but i would like to say hopefully you don't mind er that <NAME S2> er is going to stay also er for 10 days at our department of education so if after this lecture and after the seminar and after well actually er the lecture next week will be on his last day so if you feel like somehow you know you would like to talk about some topics that <NAME S2> will discuss today and tomorrow then <SIGH> well i hope that er <S2> mhm </S2> you know you can contact <NAME S2> also at the department during his visit because er well other people were staying here just very shortly or then they are part of our permanent staff but here we have a visiting scholar , <NAME S2> has come here er through erasmus teacher exchange so it also allows him to stay here for a bit longer so if you get interested in some of the topics then you can also contact him later on , yeah </S1>
<S2> okay [yes] </S2>
<S1> [okay] so please <S2> [thank you] </S2> [the floor] is yours and as usually or as i have done already a few times i will distribute the slides er today or tomorrow at latest by e-mail so you will receive this presentation </S1>
<LECTURE ULEC210 by S2>
<S2> erm but perhaps i should stop here and give you some opportunity because you have to had to listen to my story for an hour now to give you some opportunity to have questions and remarks and yes i think [so right] </S2>
<S1> [yes yes] we (xx) </S1>
<S2> so , any questions so far on this <P:06> have you er has it been understandable yes <SS> mhm </SS> , yes </S2>
<S1> i have two <S2> @@ </S2> critiques </S1>
<S2> critiques <S1> [yes] </S1> [good] let's hear them </S2>
<S1> erm well first erm i think that one problematic thing is that erm this er quantitative research really treats erm these majority and minority groups as two very distinct groups and also as them being erm homogenous in themselves <S2> mhm-hm mhm [mhm-hm] </S2> [so i see] there's some kind of a really big problem because er <S2>  mhm-hm </S2> the the immigrant groups in themselves are also very diverse there are people not only from different country backgrounds but also different er you know <S2> mhm-hm </S2> other religious and so backgrounds <SU> [mhm] </SU> [so] is that some kind of a because i think in quantitative research as in any research i- you also need to consider the limitations or the kind of validity of your research so would that then be some kind of a limitation here </S1>
<S2> er yes it is a limitation er [but yes yes okay yeah] </S2>
<S1> [<COUGH> i just say another thing and then you] can answer and also this research that you refer to which stated that these er civic values are permanent <S2> [yeah] </S2> [you] know that they are transmitted basically through generations this is also somehow v- very s- well i think er q- questionable finding because er the meaning also of civic values change so we can talk about let's say erm i don't know respect for diversity or for women rights or for equality gender equality we talk maybe about these things also er very differently in different time-periods so for example in the beginning of the 20th century when women were still just starting to fight for example for gender equality that mean- the meaning of that term was very different in er <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [maybe] in relation to today so i'm just also and this is i think then maybe related also to the question like how these the terms themselves are understood by the respondents <S2> mhm-hm </S2> so if you just list these different you know they <S2> [mhm] </S2> [have s-] they are such broad terms in themselves <S2> mhm </S2> how are they understood also by the er by the respondents and can you really claim then on these bases that they have you know they are really passing from a generation to a generation or you can also er link it to other <COUGH> things </S1>
<S2> er well that's a yeah very a challenging question i might say er let me fir- the first is is is is rather easy @er@ w- what i haven't said in my presentation is that i actually yeah i er i completely agree you should not have a situation which you have in which the minority group is very very diverse erm because then then you you cannot make statements about about the min- the minority group or the immigrant group erm so what er i made sure that the immigrant groups that i looked at were only from non-western backgrounds so it's of course that still leaves open a lot of say diversity because it it also includes for instance serbo-croats erm and turkish and moroccans and so on but still er er based on the kind of very crude kind of huntington er philosophy all these people from all these non-western backgrounds they should all all have er a kind of authoritarian mindset a non-democratic authoritarian mindset er so i made sure that they at least are from the point of theory considered to be of one homoge- homogenous group erm the second thing yes that is of course a very erm that is that is indeed a a quite a handicap of of erm of of social research er that indeed through time or in time erm conceptions understandings of particular concepts may change erm but erm yes and that's a very valid point and that that that that er undermines erm statements about the long- longevity and the durability of phenomena erm but erm let me well let me say one thing in defence of mhm rice and feldman er their research was cross-sectional er so it it w- it was based on er a general social survey in america and er i think world value survey or something in in in europe and erm so they could erm they could see that the values that the americans endorsed of a particular ethnic descent with th- with the same or roughly the same as those or with whom they share these common ancestors so it was based on cross-sectional research it wasn't trying to make comparisons in time but the from this based on this similarity they they they said well er then obviously er if they're so similar say what the the what the swedes er support er and what the americans of swedish descent support then the that must have ha- that must have to do with their common background so they're more or less induced things from similarities in cross-sectional research and the last thing about conceptual er </S2>
<DISC CHANGE>
<S2> is er to to test for that to see if people have understood a particular concept in the same way across countries er you can do tests of conceptual equivalence and basically it means that you're trying to relate erm questions to other questions in in a kind of which are semantically almost the same and see if they're correlating correlated everywhere in the same way , if they do then the understoo- the concept is un- you may assume that the concept is understood in more or less the same way everywhere but it indeed is a very important point that <NAME S1> addressed because er if you look for instance at something like national pride erm national pride has in some contexts a very positive undertone whereas in others it has a very negative undertone in in erm and that's what actually i found also in some other kind of research that er in in america and also in the west european what i might call fringe-states ireland portugal er great britain also to some extent national pride tends to have a rather positive undertone erm er positive connotations indicating something like a committed citizen erm and somebody who's wi- who's loyal to to the country who's willing to to well to kind of er engage in activities in the general interest not not in his own interest so indeed in those countries and and and no- not surprisingly in those americans always take national pride as an indicator of civic values so they see that the er in their view the more the more proud a person is the more patriotic the more he will be er he will er commit himself or he will engage in activities for the general interest but in in in erm what we might call er continental western europe national pride has a very negative er connotation it is it is associated more with things like er erm a kind of aggressive nationalism with war with with intolerance with erm war crimes perhaps even you know with with er er so obviously er relating to things like the the second world war so there it has very negative connotations then again you have a band stretching more or less from finland straight down north to south cross central europe where national pride has again more co- positive undertones in poland as well and in in in in hungary and croatia where it is seen as as where it is associated with er emancipation with overthrowing a dictatorial regime erm of course this relates to communism erm so there it has again a- and it's associated with democracy so it is er it has completely different associations again and then another band further east er russia ukraine where national pride is again er i think associated more with negative negative concepts is is er is that true <NAME S1> from wha- what do you think from your experiences ho- ho- how do russians the ordinary russian or perhaps <S1> [mhm] </S1> [n- now] the [country is in a bit of a different mood] </S2>
<S1> [yeah maybe it's rising] now <S2> [yes] </S2> [maybe] in the beginning of the 1990s it could be a more negative than maybe now it is er <S2> mhm </S2> because there is so much talk about russia returning its status as a superpower and <S2> [mhm] </S2> [er] becoming economically more stable maybe <S2> mhm-hm </S2> and then like these developments also lead to er more positive conceptions <S2> yes </S2> er i don't know it's just a <S2> yes the </S2> subjective opinion </S1>
<S2> that could be the the the timing is also very important the the the the survey i'm talking about here was done that i (<SIC> drawed </SIC>) this data from er are er er the the survey was from 1995 i think i'm referring to here with these different zones of of national er pride and at that time of course russia and ukraine were in er shambles e- economically speaking and there was little to be proud of <S1> [yes] </S1> [so] that might have affected the answers of of respondents <S1> yes  </S1> , but er any other questions or any other remarks </S2>
<S5> you have talked about immigrant ethnic groups <S2> yes </S2> and you have mixed a little bit everything in the same <S2> [yes] </S2> [group] er there's because now there's this er group of ethnic minorities in more or less the whole europe that even they are french or german or whatever <S2> mhm </S2> er do you consider that they have non-western background and do you say that they are still immigrant or wha- what is the difference because now for example last year <S2> [mhm] </S2> [there] was these er riots <S2> [mhm] </S2> [i don't know] if was it last year or two years ago in fra- in france <S2> mhm-hm </S2> with the you have to prove that you are a friend from this third or second generation or something like that <S2> mhm </S2> erm do you think that these can be linked because now there's societies with i don't know 10 per cent or something like that of immigration that <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [are] actually german or <S2> mhm </S2> french or spanish or english </S5>
<S2> y- you mean if i- i- if there er to what extent they are still seen as as as not belonging to the to the <S5> [yeah] </S5> [society] or not [belonging to yes] </S2>
<S5> [you have talked you you talk] about the m- majority <S2> [yes] </S2> [as] the country as the <S2> [yes] </S2> [real] people of the country <S2> mhm-hm [mhm-hm] </S2> [but] i think ethnic mito- minorities there are in these groups are people that are actually , <S2> mhm-hm </S2> belong in a s- in a sense to the majority also </S5>
<S2> yes well er er in my er way of thinking i would indeed er consider it to be er er very probable that er in the end er people who came as immigrants erm are erm are accepted or i mean er are yes a- are becoming part of the part of the nation as it were right erm definitely erm but the i think the and certainly their their offspring who was born in in the country of of erm of residence the receiving country erm but the problem is more with the erm the dominant group the dominant ethnic group whether they er will in the end come to see er immigrants and their offspring as part of of the nation or whether they will continue to see them as somehow outsiders as as m- members of an out-group not not of their group so that depends on the yeah de- depends on the on on the dominant group how their yeah how they view immigrants and their offspring i think and so er well i think we can all agree that erm erm whatever you could do to to erm prevent er prevent the process from happening in which er members of the dominant group are indeed making boundaries er whatever you c- you can do to relieve that would be a very good thing because you're you're you're you want to have of course an inclusive society in which everybody can feel at home in which everybody can feel er to be treated as an equal citizen but it i think it depends on erm is that answering your question more or less yeah </S2>
<S5> mhm more or less </S5>
<S2> @yes@ </S2>
<S3> but i'm <S2> [mhm] </S2> [i'm] thinking like how many how many generations you think that a person will have this minority status or <S2> [mhm] </S2> [positions] and a- and which part like he jumps to the majority camp so <S2> mhm </S2> because if you think about france for example everybody knows these politics of sarkozy who <S2> [mhm] </S2> [himself] is a @son of the@ <S2> [yes] </S2> [immigrants] that he is now @the@ more french than @anybody@ </S3>
<S2> mhm yes exactly so i- i- i would i would say usually if you look at look into history usually a couple of generations if you look at america erm initially america er the irish and the italians were held in very low esteem er but now they're accepted as full americans er of course still there's a bit of an issue with er with african-americans or black americans </S2>
<S3> yeah <S2> [that the] </S2> [but in] that case the this model of the united states that the the the the people will hold to their home country's values to for <S2> [mhm] </S2> [generations] it's not necessarily does not apply to europe or what do you think </S3>
<S2> erm erm d- you mean if if the immigration experience of america can be </S2>
<S3> compared with (your answer) [(xx)] </S3>
<S2> [mhm in in in europe] </S2>
<S3> yeah i mean well of course the european states have different <S2> [mhm] </S2> [immigration] policies each country and the US have different but <S2> [mhm] </S2> [what was] this statement of these er two researches that you mentioned before </S3>
<S2> mhm yes rice and feldman <S3> yeah </S3> yes erm well th- there may be somewhat of a difference between erm america and europe it's that america erm has of course american identity cannot er does not rest on any erm we we might say it it's it's it's an a totally new identity it d- it is not not linked to any kind of er existing national identity in that sense european states are are a bit different because they are they they er rest on pre-existing national i- i- identities and newcomers er have to er kind of yeah the- th- th- there might be a bit more tension i guess between the i- in the european case between immigrants who who who who come here and to to try to adopt perhaps the er the dominant identity of of the country because this is this is this is a strong distinctive national identity whereas the american identity has from the very start incorporated groups of all kinds of different origin and seems to be more kind of overarching in that sense than than erm and and pretty thin you sometimes [hear that the] </S2>
<S3> [but if the] if the US is supposed to be like the melting-pot <S2> [mhm] </S2> [and] it means that they're from different cultures <S2> [mhm] </S2> [there should] the outcome should be a one sort of <S2> [mhm] </S2> [like] unified american culture </S3>
<S2> <SIGH> yes yes and , yes and and so so now that i said this i also realise that is er it has also been argued by scholars that actually american identity is not so ethnically and culturally neutral you know it is of course it's resting strongly on the english language and also it's a in some sense quite strongly on WASP identity you know the protestant er white anglo-saxon protestant (stock) i think erm identity so er t- the it has been argued that actually american identity is in that sense also pretty pretty culturally partisan we might say and that to look for erm a much thinner identity it seems to be indeed be quite culturally neutral we would have to look at c- canadian identity for instance <SU-3> mhm </SU-3> canadian identity is very er thin and it allows for the incorporation of american english culture and french <FOREIGN> québéquois </FOREIGN> culture er but you can again again ask yourself the question does it also include to what extent it can also accommodate er er the the indians the er <SU-3> [mhm] </SU-3> [american] natives so but so well er then in that sense af- maybe er america and europe are not all that different , considering these things , yes </S2>
<S6> er what indicator did you use for a a minority </S6>
<S2> minority <S6> yes </S6> yes i erm i used the indicator er so the oh yeah the there i- it was a question which best describes you <S6> oh yeah </S6> and erm in the article i i explain in detail how i erm which categories i considered to belong to the minority er group and which categories i considered to to belong to the mi- majority group so er well you can find that in the in in the article i i do have to say here by the way that er to complicate matters this question was asked differently in each in in each state which also er posed some problems erm but i i i explained that in detail but basically er what was quite nice is that i saw er despite the question being asked differently i saw the same patterns occurring in in in the various countries which gave me some indication that although this question was asked rather differently sometimes with also different categories erm that in fact er erm this did not have a huge effect on on on the outcomes <P:08> any other questions or remarks or or perhaps experiences from your own country regarding integration of immigrants or perhaps a kind of mood in your own country regarding things like civic values and and the way that the dominant group perceives the dominant ethnic group perceives the immigrant groups , and and i i'm i'm being by immigrant groups i mean here erm immigrants and their descendents so mhm in that sense i i adopt here an understa- the understa- er the the way that many members of the dominant group view immigrants for the- the- they don't make a distinction between the people who who immigrated and and their descendents who were born in the country they seem for them it's all oh they're all foreigners you know they're all er and in each almost in each west european state you have a pejorative term for this for this group you know in in er in england they're called pakis a very pejorative er t- t- er t- not a very nice term in germany i think they're basically referred to as i think <FOREIGN> ausländer </FOREIGN> right i think so erm in france w- what would would be their er is is is there somebody here from france who might know what the , popular term is for for foreigners in france , or popular but infamous </S2>
<S3> i think officially there is none because of the of this immigration policy that relies on the integration so <S2> mhm </S2> officially everybody is french but of <S2> [yes] </S2> [course] then there are different names for specific groups </S3>
<S2> mhm i i think that yes erm i i wouldn't be surprised if there is a kind of er a colloquial language that there is er this distinct term that is used to identify for instance people from er who have their roots er who are of course born and bred frenchmen but whose parents came from algeria or morocco or from north african [countries mhm-hm] </S2>
<S3> [<FOREIGN> les beur les beur </FOREIGN>] they call them <FOREIGN> les beur  </FOREIGN> </S3>
<S2> <FOREIGN> les beur </FOREIGN> </S2>
<S3> it's <S2> [oh mhm] </S2> [from it's like this slang] word and it comes from the arab but it is slang word <S2> [mhm] </S2> [they] turn the the the words like <S2> mhm </S2> @upside down or@ </S3>
<S2> oh oh that's it er oh so ho- how is it then in in er <FOREIGN> les beur  </FOREIGN> it's so so it's it's the the the retrogra- retrograded <S3> [mhm] </S3> [you have] to cut , to switch it [around] </S2>
<S3> [yeah] <FOREIGN> les arabes </FOREIGN> </S3>
<S2> oh <FOREIGN> les arabes </FOREIGN> oh @i see <S3> [yeah] </S3> [yes] okay@ <FOREIGN> les beur </FOREIGN> <S1> mhm </S1> i see yeah . any others with some questions [or regarding] </S2>
<S1> [i would have] wanted maybe to discuss more but er it's well it's <S2>  yeah </S2> running out of time so but just about the very notion of social cohesion <S2> mhm </S2> because it has become like politically also a very er kind of er i don't know fashionable and er very wised- widespread <S2> [yes] </S2> [er] term concept which is u- used in the political language and er well the research on social cohesion is supported by nation states but also by er supranational institutions <S2> mhm-hm </S2> so it it it also seems like this social cohesion is kind of maybe overtaking erm earlier national unity or or things like that or is it or to what extent it is er similar and different <S2> mhm </S2> to this earlier because it's it seems maybe that is means the same thing <S2> mhm-hm </S2> but as a term itself <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [it is] quite new </S1>
<S2> [as a term yes mhm] </S2>
<S1> [er s- so it's er] like what does it mean and and why do we talk about it now <S2> mhm-hm </S2> precisely now at this time so much </S1>
<S2> well that's that's well that's the that is indeed er er that </S2>
<S1> [that was a bigger question i think] </S1>
<S2> [that's quite an interesting issue yes it's] a big question and also tracking the understanding of social cohesion in time well it is indeed a fairly new term and i would say that erm i think you cannot see it apart from from erm the issue of of knowledge-based econ- economy and competitiveness that's where it has to do it has to do with that as as a kind of or not a- antonym but but as as erm er phenomena which may suffer from too much c- knowledge-based economy and too much competitiveness so th- th- that er it is in that sense it is not coincidence that you find this this use of social cohesion er as a as as the second objective in this lisbon er objectives right er the first one is to europe should become the number one knowledge-based er competitive economy and the second er followed immediately by erm er but er it should also er but also social cohesion should be strengthened in socie- in european societies so there seems to be i think it is mainly inspired by social democratic thinking although also to some extent by conservatives i think and there might be and and the interesting thing is that erm conservatives may have a rather different understanding of social cohesion than social democrat than social democrats for conservatives it means law and order loyalty to the nation erm and everybody's doing erm erm everybody's yeah obeying to the law er and erm there are different groups in society er women perform their roles men perform their roles that's the idea of that's more or less the in very broad terms the i think the conservative view of of social cohesion whereas for social democrats it's more er equality you need to have equal society not much difference between low erm between in income in skills in assets as well er not and and and er socially mobile society so not not er a stratified society where it's impossible to move from from a being er from being raised in a working class family to become part of the middle class that's more a social democratic way of looking at social cohesion so even there indeed you find different understandings of er the concept so th- th- i yeah i should say that also of course the the topic of of today it is all and that what that's what makes for me social science some- so interesting is that it's always so close to politics it's always so sensitive to to poli- particular political views and erm and so whatever almost no result of your research is politically neutral it always suits one political argument and always er it's uncomfortable for other politicians that's what makes it very nice and so er i also prepared some questions but let's leave them for the seminar erm tomorrow right </S2>
<SS> mhm-hm yes </SS>
<S1> same time [same place] </S1>
<S2> [yes] same time same d- would you like to say something else or er or just [final words yeah] </S2>
<S1> [er no i just] erm i just </S1>
<S2> before the sem- </S2>
<S1> just a some kind of erm erm also like a a reflection that er last week we discussed er in the in the previous lecture we discussed er double citizenship and multiple citizenship <S2> [oh yeah] </S2> [which has] er rapidly become really a kind of political and legal norm <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [also] accepted by states so it it would be interesting also to link what we heard last last week to this also to these er matters of civic er values because i think <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [there are] some connections and i- it's just a some kind of hint for those who are writing a a lecture diary that er you could explore also these er two issues i think er together so er yeah <S2> [yeah] </S2> [and] i think what this is really related to is er when we move to the questions like multiculturalism and diversity then we are kind of balancing between this er national identity er homogenous nation state <S2> mhm-hm </S2> versus er diverse groups and so we we kind of i think also in your presentation this idea was implicitly at the background and this is <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [also] why why these issues have raised such political interest <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [like] what is is it this er s- is it this social cohesion that replaces this nation national unity and then what are the the categories the content of this social cohesion <S2> mhm-hm </S2> in diverse societies so it's this kind of broader questions we can also discuss them tomorrow but just for those who are not in the seminar they could explore these questions er <S2> exactly </S2> in the ess- in in the diary <S2> mhm-hm </S2> yeah <S2> yes </S2> okay <S2> yes </S2> so let's stop now and er tomorrow in the seminar please those who have not yet made the presentations also be ready to to to make the presentation tomorrow or then er in the last seminar at latest if there is some preferences if some of you want to be tomorrow and others would prefer next week you can also erm voice your preferences or do you just i- i suppose that you are prepared anyways so just er you'll need to refresh , yeah it's okay for you [also] </S1>
<S5> [fine] fine </S5>
<S1> yes okay </S1>
