Project Details
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Newly immigrated pupils in lower-secondary education. A qualitative study on language education during the transition from preparatory to mainstream classes

Subject Area Education Systems and Educational Institutions
Term from 2019 to 2023
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 427446374
 
Final Report Year 2023

Final Report Abstract

For newly immigrated students, Hamburg's secondary schools provide International Preparatory Classes (IPC) that focus on teaching the German language. The transition from IPC to regular classes, which is scheduled after one year, is considered a particularly sensitive stage of the educational career. The project explored the organizational and pedagogical design of the transition and the accompanying language education programs in three Hamburg district schools. One of the schools implements an "integrative model" that additionally includes IPC students into a regular class right from the start. The study was based on the approach of reflexive institutional ethnography and was adapted to the corona-induced school closures by using formats of virtual ethnography. The theoretical starting point was a concept of diversityconscious school development with a special focus on multilingualism and new immigration. The examination of the ethnographic data led to a critical reflection on processes of inclusion and exclusion as well as on institutional discrimination. The findings shed light on processes and conditions at the individual school level that lead, despite following the same educational policy frameworks, to wide variations in the design of IPC, the transition, and the experiences of students. They point to factors in school organization that facilitate the transitions for all involved and reduce the risk of institutional discrimination; these include, in particular, clarification of personnel responsibility, transparent criteria, and consultations on a regular basis. The results also show that personnel development is necessary for supporting the educational careers of newly arrived immigrant students in a professional way. Teachers who are qualified for German language teaching, multilingualism and a diversity-conscious classroom can increase the participation of new immigrants in class. Comparing the project schools, it became clear that the integrative model favours social inclusion into regular classes. The differences in the processes and conditions at the individual school level are largely due to the activity of the school management, the school's concept, and the exchange within the teaching staff about common goals.

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