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Learning Migration presentation 19.10.06.ppt |
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Lotte Heerschop |
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Meike Jens |
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Dirk Lange |
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Julia Rehbein |
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20-11-06 |
There has always been immigration to Germany. The reasons for doing so have varied throughout the ages. Some came as workers or traders, others as refugees. One of the most well known and largest immigrant groups in German history was the group of the “Huguenots”, a persecuted religions community who fled France in the 17th century. Another grouping the so-called “Ruhr-Poles” was dominant in the 19th century: Immigrants of Polish background, who worked mainly in the coal mines in the Ruhr Bassin, many of whom stayed and settled in Germany. After the fall of the Iron Curtain between 1980 and 1990, many ethnic Germans from the former Eastern Bloc countries (“Aussiedler”) returned to Germany.
The relatively high number of refugees compared to other European countries, Germany had received, has decreased continuously since the mid 1990s, when the asylum law has become more restrictive.
Since the 1950s, many different immigrants came to work in post-war Germany as a result of special agreements (so-called “Anwerbe-Abkommen). Agreements for workers were signed with Italy, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia and Morocco and others.
In 1973 the government declared a so called “Anwerbestopp” which meant that no more people from these countries got a working permission for Germany. As consequence many workers decided to settle in Germany, because they didn’t have the option anymore to stay in both countries, in each for a couple of month a year, but now they were forced to choose one of them. The reason why they decided to settle in Germany was the necessity to work there in order to support their whole families back home. Due to the reason that they could not stay in their mother country for a longer period of time anymore, many of their families decided to join their working husband/father/son in Germany. These coincidences are the reasons why after 1973 there was an important increase of immigration to Germany until the mid 1990ies. In this period several racist attacks against migrants took place in Germany, e.g. the arson attack against a home for asylum seekers in Moelln in 1992.
It still took nearly a decade in the German public political debate to admit being an “Einwanderungsland” (immigration country).
The topics of migration, interculturality and immigration have become an important issue for instruction at school: Due to the migration – related plurality in society and the heterogeneity of the learning groups, the topic of migration is becoming increasingly important in the field of education. Given these results citizenship education on migration is considered an indispensable issue in the education of mature citizens living in the 21st century who need to understand the dynamics of a plural society and who must be placed in a position to manage the social and economic condition s of their lives. To achieve this, adopting an international approach and new perspectives will play a crucial role in the citizenship education on migration.
(some parts of the text are copied from the „manual Germany“ published by “Beauftragte der Bundesregierung”. http://www.handbuch-deutschland.de/book_en.html 7.05.07)
Institutions:
The German group consists of eight partners and 26 member institutions. Many different educational levels are represented:
• The level of higher education by the Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, which is the coordination institution of the Germen group,
• the level of educational authorities by the Senatsverwaltung in Berlin.
• upper secondary education by the Carl-von-Ossietzky Oberschule Berlin, which is a bilingual Turkish-German school
• elementary education by the Otto Wels Grundschule
• integrated education of different levels by the cooperative comprehensive school Rastede (close to Oldenburg)
• civic education in other educational facilities out of school by the Bildungsteam Berlin-Brandenburg and the Jugendbildungsstätte Kaubstrasse
The member institutions are mainly schools all over Germany interested in the Learning Migration theme. Also other institutions working on this theme practically as well as theoretically, eg. IBKM, Bipad etc. are part of the German group.
INFO:
Es ist jederzeit möglich “member” der deutschen Gruppe und damit des LearningMigraiton Netzwerks zu werden! Bei Interesse schreiben Sie bitte an: apoll.rehbein@uni-oldenburg.de" target="_blank">apoll.rehbein@uni-oldenburg.de