| France |
• History of Immigration
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• Researchers
| History of Immigration |
Immigration to France has historically been tied to labor needs arising out of a birthrate that has been low for over a century. Following a period of relatively high rates of immigration in the 1970s and 1980s, today France’s borders are officially closed to im/migrants. There is, however, a flow of illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
The term “immigrant” is not used in France, as it is in the United States, to refer to children whose parents were born elsewhere. Most of the children of im/migrants enrolled in French ECEC settings are born in France. Under French laws of naturalization, which consider anyone born and living in France to be a French citizen, these children automatically become French citizens when they reach adulthood. There are also many people living in France who hold French citizenship because they came to France from a former French colony. Finally, there are citizens who became naturalized after emigrating from overseas territories with historic ties to France, such as the Reunion Island and the French West Indies.
The population
of im/migrants in France is diverse, with migration from Europe, Africa
and Asia. There was an older wave of immigration from Europe (Italy, Poland,
Spain and then Portugal). Today im/migrants come mainly from North Africa
(principally Algeria and Morocco) and from black Africa (the former French
colonies), but also from Turkey, Asia (Vietnam) and Eastern Europe. Immigration
patterns reflect the history of French colonialism, but nowadays, in part
because of the effects of illegal immigration, the population of im/migrants
in France is increasingly diverse, and includes new arrivers who have
no historical connection to France or experience speaking French.
Im/migrants make up 11% of the French population, but this percentage
does not include those born elsewhere who hold French citizenship. Im/migrants
are greatly overrepresented in all categories of disadvantage. The issue
of immigration therefore is strongly associated with the issue of poverty.
If the term “immigrant” is problematic in France, the term “ethnic minority” is much more so. Cultural, ethnic, and religious identities have no official standing in French law and are not recorded in the French census. According to the ideals and the laws of the Republic, these identities have meaning only in the private sphere, and have no place in the public sphere, where they should be unremarked and invisible. France is a highly centralized state, based on the values of the Republic (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), values that are supposed to transcend the particularities of individuals and communities. In reality, people come together to form neighborhoods and communities around a common origin, a religion, or a shared culture, but such communities are not officially recognized by the State or by any government policy, which forbid distinguishing populations according to their national or cultural origins. Anything associated with communitarianism or multiculturalism is reviled. What is preferred is a policy of integration, which aims, without consideration of race, religion, or origin, to provide everyone a place within the Nation.
This policy is no longer defined, as it once was under colonial logic, as one of assimilation. The contemporary version of integration accepts cultural differences and aims at the equal participation of all citizens in political and social life. But striving for a middle path that avoids forced assimilation while refusing to recognize the reality of religious, cultural, and ethnic communities, French policy on diversity gets reduced to the over valorization of Republican values. It is as if the acceptance of the reality of French racial, cultural, and religious diversity implies the need to fall back on a rigid reaffirmation of the core beliefs of French society, which, located as they are in specifics of French history, get defined as a strict separation between the religious and the political spheres. While the official policy towards im/migrants and diversity no longer refers explicitly to the goal of assimilation, for many people, including some public authorities, cultural assimilation is assumed to be a prerequisite for social integration. In a search for a model of integration that is neither one of colonialist assimilationism nor of Anglo-American multiculturalism, the present debate that is unfolding in France is characterized by an absence of consensus and a diversity of points of view.
As this political, legal, and philosophical debate rages, the social issue of poverty is harder and harder to ignore, especially in neighborhoods with high percentages of im/migrants. When confronted with the social problems plaguing poor communities official policy at times makes allowances for local conditions and community practices, even if doing so must be officially denied.
Within this policy of integration, schools are seen to play an essential role. The French melting pot begins at school, through the sharing of a common language and values. Cultural and religious particularisms that exist in the private sphere must remain invisible in the public arena of school. The principle of secularity calls for the absence of religious signs in public life. Religion is believed to be a private affair, and the French Republic and its schools (which are called "schools of the Republic") have been constructed from the beginning in opposition to the power of Catholicism as the dominant religion of the society. As such, this policy of secularism is widely believed to provide protection for minority religions. An understanding of this context helps to explain the logic behind the ban on the wearing of religious signs in school. But in practice this law is mostly or only concerned with the veils worn to school by Moslem teenagers, which suggests that something more than a commitment to secularism is going on here.
This debate over veils in school reveals the liveliness of republican values that are largely shared by parties of both the right and the left in their combined opposition to the racist party, the National Front. The reactivation of republican values over the past twenty years needs to be understood alongside the debate on immigration and the threat of rising racism in some quarters. After some years of welcoming foreign children and acknowledging the diversity of their cultures, attention these days is increasingly focused on integration, on similarities, and on the early learning of a shared language (French) and shared values (those of Republicanism).
The French public preschool (école maternelle), which is free of charge, welcomes all three year old children who are living in France, including those of foreign background (8%). The école maternelle aims to be the primary place of integration of the young child into the French nation, through a focus on social cohesion and oral language, which is given highest priority in the curriculum.
The école maternelle’s curriculum is highly structured, reflecting primary school model. The role of parents is limited, as they are seen as having nothing to contribute to questions of pedagogy. The central goal is to provide all young children with equal opportunity and with an equal chance to succeed in school. A key question of this research is whether the practices and outcomes of the école maternelle are consistent with these lofty objectives.
| School Info |
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| Researchers |
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Gilles
Grougere
brougere@noos.fr
Professor in Educational Sciences at Université Paris Nord, Gilles Brougère is specialized in research on early childhood education, play and games, toys, culture of childhood, sociology of childhood, comparative and intercultural education, and informal education. He is the director of the research centre EXPERICE, focusing on long life learning and education. He is responsible for two masters programs: one, vocationally oriented, about play and toys, the second, which is research oriented, is about adult education. He is the director of the Ph. D program on educational sciences at Paris North University. He published in 2005 Jouer/apprendre, (Playing/learning), Paris, Economica and in 2003 Jouets et compagnie (Toys and Company), Paris, Stock.
Sylvie
Rayna
srayna@wanadoo.fr
Sylvie Rayna, member of the French team of the children Crossing Borders project, is maître de conférences in National Institute of Pedagogical Studies and University Paris 13. She is a psychologist of early education. After having studied child development in daycare centers and implementation of some early childhood policies, she is mainly involved in comparative studies. She has also participated in Unesco and OECD projects. Among her publications with different co-authors are Infants and objects:the creativity of the cognitive development; Pretend play among 3-year-olds;Les bébés et la culture:éveil culturel et lutte contre les excluions; A comparative analysis of the function of coordination of early childhood education in France and Italy; Professional practices with infant and toddlers in French and Japanese daycare centers.
Nacira
Gunif
ngs39@hotmail.fr
Nacira Guénif is Associate Professor at Université Paris 13 and member of EXPERIENCE, the French team for the Children Crossing Borders research project. Her interest areas are postcolonial migrations, gender, and ethnicity in minority-majority contact situations, North African and African stereotypes and representations in western countries. Among her publications are: "Des beurettes", "Les féministes et le garçon arabe", "La république mise à nu par son immigration" and "The other French exception, virtuous racism and the war of the sexes in postcolonial France".
Joseph
Tobin, PR Director, Joseph.Tobin@asu.edu
Fikriye Kurban Coordinator, Fikriye.Kurban@asu.edu
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