Integration, race and “doing good” – some critical reflections

  • Author: Gro Hellesdatter Jacobsen
  • Institution: University College of South Denmark
  • ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3070-1898
  • Year of publication: 2022
  • Source: Show
  • Pages: 179-190
  • DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/em.2022.04.12
  • PDF: em/19/em1912.pdf

This article discusses reflections on doing research with and about migrant children, focusing on addressing “race” and racialization processes as well as integrationist implications of “doing good” among both school professionals and researchers. The motivation is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how to research integration while also promoting a child-centred approach and taking children’s own understandings and opinions into account. Written at the threshold of the phase of analysing data from fieldwork with children, which is one of the main analytical tasks in the MiCREATE project, this article is a summary of some focus points and concepts that turned out to be of importance during the ongoing epistemic reflexivity process in the research project. Taking a point of departure in general methodological reflections on a structuralist-constructivist approach and on constant epistemic reflexivity, three approaches that could be useful in reflections and analyses are suggested: reflections on the concept of integration, on race and diversity, and on researcher positioning within a research project both while studying practices of “doing good” and aiming at “doing good” in itself as well.

REFERENCES:

  • Ahmed, S. 2007. A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory. 8 (2), pp. 149–168.
  • Andreassen, R. and Myong, L. 2017. Race, gender, and researcher positional­ity analysed through memory work. Nordic Journal of Migration Research. 7 (2), pp. 97–104.
  • Barot, R. and Bird, J. 2001. Racialization: the genealogy and critique of a con­cept. Ethnic and racial Studies. 24 (4), pp. 601–618.
  • Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. J. 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Brubaker, R. 2012. Categories of Analysis and Categories of Practice: A Note on the Study of Muslims in European Countries of Immigration. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36 (1), pp. 1–8.
  • Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989. 1577 U.N.T.S https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4 (18.10.2022).
  • Elmeskov, J. 2019. Derfor inddeler vi verden i vestlige og ikke-vestlige lande. Danmarks Statistik. https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/rigsstat-klumme/2019/2019-07-11-derfor-inddeler-vi-verden-i-vestlige-og-ikke-vestlige-lande (18.10.2022).
  • Foucault, M. 2013. Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings 1977–1984. London: Routledge.
  • Hobel, P., Høegh, T., Jacobsen, G.H., Piekut, A. and Sindberg Jensen, S. 2019. Political and media discourse analysis and review of public opinion. Den­mark: Work Package 3 Reception Communities. MiCREATE: Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe.
  • Horizon 2020 Work Programme. 2017. EN Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018–2020. 13. Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2018–2020/main/h2020-wp1820-societies_en.pdf (18.10.2022).
  • Jacobsen, G.H. 2017. ”Alle kræver politisk handling, og hvad kan vi gøre”? Skolehenvisning af etniske minoritetsbørn som undtagelsespolitik i den nationale konkurrencestat. Dansk Pædagogisk Tidsskrift. 3, pp. 17–26.
  • Jaffe-Walter, R. 2019. Ideal liberal subjects and Muslim “Others”: liberal na­tionalism and the racialization of Muslim youth in a progressive Danish school. Race Ethnicity and Education. 22 (2), pp. 285–300.
  • Khawaja, I. 2015, “Det muslimske sofa-hjørne”: muslimskhed, racialisering ogintegration’. Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift. 52 (2), pp. 29–38.
  • Khawaja, I. and Mørck, L.L. 2009. Researcher Positioning: Muslim “Other­ness” and Beyond. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 6 (1–2), pp. 28–45.
  • Lagermann, L. C. 2013. Racialized subjects in a colour blind school. Interna­tional Journal on School Disaffection. 10 (1), pp. 73–89.
  • Merriam-Webster. 2021. Race. In: Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race (18.10.2022).
  • Merriam-Webster. 2021. Racialization. In: Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race (18.10.2022).
  • Padovan-Özdemir, M. and Øland, T. 2020. Denied, but effective – stock sto­ries in Danish welfare work with refugees. Race Ethnicity and Education. 2 (25), pp. 212–230.
  • Proposal 2018. Proposal number: SEP-210489122. Proposal acronym: Mi­CREATE. https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021–2027/digital/wp-call/2022/call-fiche_digital-2022-deploy-02_en.pdf (18.10.2022).
  • Rytter, M. 2019. Writing Against Integration: Danish Imaginaries of Culture, Race and Belonging. 84 (4), pp. 678–697.
  • Rudiger, A. and Spencer, S. 2003. Social integration of migrants and ethnic minorities: Policies to combat discrimination. Paper for the conference ‘The economic and social aspects of migration’, the European Commission and the OECD. https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/15516956.pdf (18.10.2022).
  • Scholten, P. 2011. Framing immigrant integration: Dutch research-policy dialogues in comparative perspective. Amsterdam: Amstrdam University Press.
  • Tørslev, M.K., Nørredam, M. and Vitus, K. 2016. Doing race and ethnicity– exploring the lived experience of whiteness at a Danish Public School. Whiteness and Education. 1 (2), pp. 137–149.
  • Vertelyte, M. 2019. Not So Ordinary Friendship: An Ethnography of Student Friendships in a Racially Diverse Danish Classroom. Ph.d. thesis, Aalborg University.

migrant children integration race and diversity MiCREATE project

Wiadomość do:

 

 

© 2017 Adam Marszałek Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Projekt i wykonanie Pollyart