School Spaces and the Construction of Ethnic Relations: Conceptual and Policy Debates

ABSTRACT/RESUME This article discusses, on the one hand, the nature of ethnicity, a concept that is often taken for granted in education, but which is the subject of many debates in social psychology, anthropology and the sociology of ethnic relations, and, on the other hand, the role of education in the maintenance and transformation of its boundaries. In the first part, given the current delegitimisation of essentialism as a system of explanation for the production of ethnicity, the author reviews the strengths and limits of various constructivist perspectives, which put a different emphasis on social determinism or individual freedom, and argues that a further step is needed: a manifold perspective that better reflects the complexity of the process at stake. In the second part, the specific consequences of each of these conceptions on educational policies, programs, and practices, whether adopted or promoted by the State, school authorities, or minority groups themselves, are discussed in light of the two social functions traditionally performed by schooling: selection and cultural re/production. Finally, in a perspective that recognises that the desirable equilibrium between equality, the maintenance of pluralism, and the development of harmonious interethnic relations cannot be defined a priori, the author illustrates, with three specific examples, the complexity of the debates concerning various school policies and practices, as well as the necessity of context specific analyses in this regard. Cet article traite, d'une part, de la nature de l'ethnicite, un concept souvent pris pour acquis en education, mais qui fait l'objet d'importants debats en psychologie sociale, en anthropologie et en sociologie des relations ethniques, et, d'autre part, du role de l'education dans le maintien et la transformation de ses frontieres. Dans un premier temps, suite a la delegitimisation actuelle de l'essentialisme comme systeme explicatif de la production de l'ethnicite, l'auteure examine les forces et les limites de differentes perspectives constructivistes, qui s'opposent selon l'importance qu'elles accordent au determinisme social ou a la liberte de l'individu, et plaide en faveur de leur depassement par une perspective multivoque sur l'ethnicite, permettant de refleter plus adequatement la complexite des processus etudies. Dans un deuxieme temps, les consequences differentes, au plan des politiques, programmes et pratiques scolaires, de l'adoption ou de la promotion de l'une ou l'autre de ces conceptions par l'Etat, les autorites scolaires ou les minorites elles-memes, sont debattues a a lumiere des deux fonctions sociales traditionnellement assumees par l'Ecole, soit celles de la selection et de la re/production culturelle. Finalement dans une perspective qui reconnait que l'equilibre souhaitable entre l'egalite, le maintien du pluralisme et le developpement de relations interethniques harmonieuses ne peut jamais etre defini a priori, l'auteure illustre, par trois exemples precis, la complexite des debats relatifs a la 1egitimite de diverses politiques et pratiques scolaires, ainsi que la necessite d'une analyse de la specificite des contextes a cet egard. THE NATURE OF ETHNICITY If one phenomenon has marked the second half of the twentieth century and will probably mark the new century, it is indeed the paradoxical maintenance of the relevance of ethnicity in our social debates and conflicts. The issue of the relationship between ethnic groups is more central now than ever, (1) while different analysts, whether Functionalists or Marxists, had predicted that it would become obsolete under the effect of globalised exchanges or the emergence of a classless society (Juteau-Lee, 1979). On one hand, most Western societies have witnessed for some thirty years an accentuation of the ethnocultural and racial (2) diversification of their population resulting from, among other things, the adoption of immigration policies that are less discriminatory than in the past, the intensification of the flow of refugees, as well as a geopolitical context marked by an increase in economic inequalities between developed and developing countries (Anderson and Frideres, 1987; OCDE, 1987; Schnapper, 1991). …

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