Educating to belong: Policy and practice of mother-tongue instruction for migrant students in the Danish welfare state

Methods and materials

Our point of departure is around 1970 when European welfare states began paying policy attention towards migrant children’s schooling, which signifies the beginning of a distinct educationalisation of migrant families. The trajectories of these policy measures are initially the focus of our comparative policy analysis of four European welfare states, while we in this paper focus specifically on the Danish policies as a primary case for the pedagogisation of the policies. The selected comparative perspectives include (West) Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden and serve to illuminate and nuance how European policy trajectories unfold over multiple sites and scales in countries with both labour market affiliation and an (at least) eventual EU membership. We therefore draw inspiration from Bartlett and Vavrus’ (2017) work on three axes to illuminate these European policy trajectories at the compulsory primary and lower secondary school level. ⁶ The vertical axis encourages comparison between the different levels, here micro and macro levels. The horizontal axis refers to investigation into how similar policy points develop differently across sites and contexts, while the transversal axis draws attention to changes over time, historicising the analysis. The axes are intertwined and can be applied to varying extents (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2017). We start by horizontally comparing how the bilateral agreements between the countries and guest-worker migrant countries go on to unfold across different national policy sites, and we transversally investigate the policy developments across time in the selected European policy contexts. Vertically, we dive into investigation across the micro and macro levels by applying a rare pedagogised student perspective on the migrant education policies of the 1970s and 1980s.

This approach allows us to focus on MTI policies across different European welfare-state trajectories and, ultimately, offers valuable insights into how certain developments in migrant education are not unique to Denmark. We investigate by means of publicly accessible national policy documents where possible, supplemented by literature on the countries’ migrant education policies. We then trace the pedagogisation of these policies through the lens of former migrant children in Denmark. While the analysis at the micro level is empirically exemplified by the lived experiences of former migrant student Yildiz in the 1980s, the analysis is based on 20 unique oral history interviews with adults who arrived in the Danish school system as children of migrants during the 1970s and 1980s. The interviews were conducted in Danish by the first author taking between one and two and a half hours in 2019–2020. It was conducted in the informants’ private homes or in public places, such as a library, at the participants’ discretion. The informants were between age 40 and 60, and they went to school in different geographical areas of Denmark – both rural and urban. They were approached through public posters in Nørrebro (an inner-city Copenhagen neighbourhood where a big part of the population has a migration history), postings on social media and by references from people who had already participated in the interviews. The notions of difference and sameness that are used in this article as anchors for the findings are empirical categories that will be coloured through the analysis on micro and macro level. These are categories we have observed through our readings of the policy and oral history materials.

In relation to oral history interviews, memory should be understood as an active process of making meaning rather than as a passive bank of facts (Perks and Thomson, 2016). Memories of the past are thus selective, fractional and not fixed. It means, working with the oral history interviews as material entails the complexity of the multilayers of time: The past in recollections, the past construed through the life experiences that happened since, the present seen in the light of the past, and the future imagined qua the memories that are evoked and processed. These layers are interwoven and have to be taken into account while analysing how the memories of a particular past is made and re-made in the present. We have chosen the case of Yildiz to illustrate the social consequences of the problematisation in policies because her articulations help us understand and animate the patterns of how migrant students in our sample experienced schooling in the 1980s in Denmark. Yildiz is a woman in her 40s, and she heard about our project through a friend whom we interviewed. The interview took place an autumn day in 2019 at her home in the countryside lasting about an hour and a half.

Furthermore, Yildiz’ move between two geographical locations in Denmark makes for an interesting case allowing us to trace how problematisation follows the group of migrant students as a categorisation and can have ‘real’ consequences for their schooling. Thus, the case of Yildiz illustrates the social consequences when these migrant students were treated and regulated in schooling policies as a group rather than as individuals, as previously noted by Øland (2011) In this article, neither Yildiz nor the names of places and institutions are anonymised or pseudonymised (with Yildiz’ consent) for two main reasons. Firstly, these places and institutions are records that aid in capturing the picture of the historical practices of migrant education in Denmark. Secondly, by documenting the former migrant students with their real names, our study seeks to give voice to a minoritised experience that is not part of the standard history (McLeod, 2016).

Mother-tongue instruction: A marker of sameness and difference

In the following cross-welfare-state policy analysis, we investigate how migrant students’ mother tongues become problematised and how this problem is to be remedied through an educational emphasis on the national majority language in schooling (the educationalisation). We horizontally trace across sites how mother-tongue instruction (MTI) policies create varying notions of migrant students being different from the linguistic majority students – and how these welfare-state policies aim for migrant students to be the same as their linguistic majority classmates.

(West) Germany

Migrant children gradually garnered attention in West German Länder (states) as their parents requested exemption from compulsory German schooling in favour of schooling in their mother tongue organised by the embassies and consulates of their country of origin (Lehman, 2019). The first Länder recommendations were published in 1964, following the 1963 Standing Conference. ¹⁶ While migrant children would be admitted to segregated classes in German-language instruction during the mornings, the recommendations encouraged states to make embassies and consulates responsible for instruction in the mother tongue during the afternoons. ¹⁷ Congruent with the Danish assumption, the guest workers (Gastarbeiter) were perceived to be temporary. Compared to other migrant groups, they were therefore largely assumed to merely need their mother tongue to repatriate. ¹⁸ The non-German children who might potentially stay simply ‘needed enough German language to integrate socially and be able to hold an (unskilled) job’ (Lehman, 2019: 135). The Standing Conference’s recommendations therefore fully supported these ‘temporary’ migrant children’s right to develop their mother tongue language skills. ¹⁹ However, the consular instruction was not permitted universally for migrant children. As early as 1962, in North Rhine-Westphalia in West Germany, only guest-worker children deemed ‘culturally distant’ from Germany were allowed to receive consular instruction about their home country ²⁰ (Lehman, 2019). This meant that the ‘culturally different’ (temporary) migrant students from Italy, Greece and Turkey could receive politically supported lessons in their home country’s language and culture. Dutch guest-worker children, however, were deemed ‘Germanic’ and did not receive this privilege, but were instead relegated to the regular German classes. The ‘culturally other’ migrants were portrayed in the media as both economically and culturally poor and hence problematised as different from perceived Germanic peoples (Faas, 2008; Lehman, 2019). While the 1971 Standing Conference recommended that all foreign children receive instruction of some sort in their mother tongue, leaving this up to the different states led to huge variations in provision (Crul et al., 2019), overcrowded classes and overdependence on the different embassies and consulates to finance it and provide teachers (Willke, 1975). At this time, the focus in the individual states was already directed towards these children acquiring German-language skills, even though (non-educational) national immigrant policy emphasised the perception that labour migrants would return to their home country (Qureshi and Janmaat, 2014).

By the 1990s, MTI was recommended in national guidelines, but the quality and quantity remained uncertain, due to differing Länder interpretations of the guidelines (Duarte, 2011). When bilingual programmes or mother-tongue instruction was halted, after the 1990s this was often due to ‘feasibility, financing and the prioritisation of German language skills’ (Miera, 2007: 20). Nowadays, MTI legislation is delegated to the Länder, which has resulted in some Länder ensuring broad access to MTI (e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia) while others have abandoned it (e.g. Bavaria) (Olfert and Schmitz, 2018), similarly to the effect of municipal autonomy on MTI in Denmark. Only in schools for minorities, such as the Danish and Sorbian schools, is MTI as a subject integrated into the timetable and fully supported both financially and politically (Olfert and Schmitz, 2018). The four official Germany minorities receive special status and federal support. ²¹

The Netherlands

There are two primary reasons why migrant education did not receive much public or scholarly attention in the Netherlands until the 1980s (Stevens et al., 2011). Firstly, the Netherlands’ status as a coloniser meant that the post-WWII influx of citizens from the former Dutch-speaking colonies (particularly Suriname and the Dutch Antilles) were assumed to blend into the school system relatively smoothly, as the structure was largely comparable to that of their home country (and language) (Rijkschroeff et al., 2005). Secondly, since as early as 1967, larger cities had left embassies, NGOs and private entities in charge of instruction in the mother tongue, similarly to the German approach (Braster and del Pozo Andrés, 2001). This resulted in migrant children living unproblematised parallel lives to their Dutch counterparts (Driessen, 2004; Driessen and Van Tier Grinten, 1994). In the late 1960s, a social democratic public discourse suggested that the state had a moral obligation to help socially disadvantaged people in the country, also benefitting migrant students (Bonjour and Duyvendak, 2018). From 1970, the government began partly financing mother-tongue education offered by embassies and consulates and, through the Educational Incentive Policy (EIP) of 1974, migrant students’ right to schooling on an equal footing with nationals and to mother-tongue instruction was established and encompassed the same right as in the Danish legislation (Rijkschroeff et al., 2005). The purpose of the 1974 EIP was twofold; on the one hand, it attempted to cater to migrants assumed to be settling permanently and on the other to those who were assumed to be in the Netherlands merely temporarily. In this regard, MTI could serve as a mediator for learning Dutch, but also to facilitate return to the home country, as emphasised in the Danish case (Driessen and Dekkers, 2008). The government wanted to ensure that migrant students were prepared for both outcomes: integration and repatriation.

During the 1980s, there was a widespread realisation that the guest workers would not return to their countries of origin, and in the political debates the emphasis shifted to migrant students’ future as permanent residents in a predominantly Dutch-speaking society. The Ethnic Minorities Policy of 1983 recognised the permanency of guest-worker migrants and simultaneously framed them as a group with ‘poor prospects’ and thus in need of help (Bonjour and Duyvendak, 2018). This problematisation (and distinct educationalisation) of migrants and other minorities was closely linked to their perceived socioeconomic situation, and they were therefore lumped together as having the same ‘difference’. The 1983 Ethnic Minorities Policy, for example, applied to Southern Europeans, the four major migrant groups ²² and Roma and Sinti groups. However, it did not apply to Chinese migrants, for example, because they were not seen as the same kind of minorities (Vasta, 2007). In 1985, the Dutch weighted funding system (from 1974) for schools therefore included migrant children as a category, thereby releasing additional funding (Bruquetas-Callejo et al., 2011; Guiraudon et al., 2005). During the 1980s, certain large migrant groups were therefore considered to be distinct ethnic minorities ²³ (Guiraudon et al., 2005). The migrant category and special provisions were removed again in 1998, when the reins were transferred to the municipalities and the focus returned to socioeconomic factors (Driessen and Dekkers, 2008: 452). Part of this policy change emphasised early intervention, enacted as special attention being paid to migrant children learning the Dutch language rather than their mother tongue (Rijkschroeff et al., 2005). The argument was similar to the Danish case, in that all children should speak the same language. The sameness argument was also used when the cultural component of MTI was removed in 1991 (Rijkschroeff et al., 2005).

MTI was mostly received by students with a Turkish or Moroccan background until the removal of all government support in 2004, by which time the effect of MTI on the national language as a second language had been questioned for decades. The focus was instead explicitly and legislatively moved towards learning Dutch, so that all students spoke the same language (Driessen, 2000; Driessen and Dekkers, 2008; Vasta, 2007).

Sweden

With Sweden’s post-war introduction of the universal social democratic welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990), policies were initially characterised as ‘Swedifying’ assimilatory policies (including enforcing Swedish as the national language). Only during the late 1960s did Swedish policies begin to emphasise equality across social groups, including (old) minorities, who benefitted from the emerging group of labour migrants (Borevi, 2014). In 1966, MTI with a cultural component was extended to migrant children ²⁴ (Bajqinca, 2019). The distinction between minorities and migrants is important in the Swedish context. Firstly, it is important due to the (widely regarded as shameful) history of ‘Swedifying’ groups such as the Sámi minority (Borevi, 2014; von Brömssen and Olgaç, 2010), which meant that, by the late 1960s, the government was keen to avoid similar policies. Combined with concerns over the potential ‘semi-lingualism’ ²⁵ of Finnish Swedes, researched by Niels Erik Hansegård, the historical treatment of minorities was pivotal in convincing Swedish legislators to adopt a more multicultural and integrationist approach (Salö, 2018). This multicultural approach was increasingly backed throughout the 1960s by both scientists and officials in an appointed Commission of Immigration (Wickström, 2015). Concurrent with (especially Finnish-speaking) activists’ persistent push for extensive and explicit rights for migrants in order to preserve their cultural and linguistic identity, 1975 saw the introduction of the ‘immigrant and minorities policy’ (Borevi, 2014; Salö, 2018). This policy favoured ‘equality, freedom of choice and partnership’ (Borevi, 2014: 710), and, unlike the other countries in this article, Sweden explicitly assumed that at least some migrants would stay permanently. However, as evident from the policy’s title (immigrants and minorities), migrants and minorities were differentiated, although they initially received similar rights relating, for example, to MTI, which was officially endorsed from 1976, similarly to the Danish case. From 1976, MTI lessons were thus guaranteed for all migrant children, from pre-school all the way through secondary level, ²⁶ while MTI at the primary level had existed locally since the early 1970s (Kupsky, 2017: 54). In 1977, the Home Language Reform was put into effect, legislatively considered to be the ‘cornerstone’ of MTI in Sweden for students speaking a language other than Swedish at home (Salö, 2018). The home language reform was mainly aimed at the ‘new’ migrant minorities and not those minorities with a long history of living in Sweden (Cabau, 2014). The distinction between ‘minorities’ and ‘immigrants’ was further clarified over the next couple of decades. In 1986, the government declared that immigrants were not minorities – minorities were groups with a long history in Sweden. ²⁷ In 1999, five minority languages were recognised as belonging to the ‘historical’ minorities: Finns, Tornedal Finns, Roma, Jews and Sámi ²⁸ (Cabau, 2014). Clarified again in 2009, official minorities’ languages are regarded as official national minority languages, including receiving special status (Salö, 2018: 593).

An evaluation of MTI in 1990 suggested that too much was being spent on the subject, and a concurrent law decentralising school funding meant that it was no longer mandatory for municipalities to offer MTI if fewer than five students requested it, or no qualified teacher could be found. In 1994, this regulation was altered, so that these restrictions do not apply to ‘minorities’, but only to ‘immigrants’ (Axelsson, 2005). The latter therefore had to exist as a group of a minimum of five to receive MTI. This, much like in the Danish case with its EU/non-EU distinction, resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of both hours taught and students receiving MTI (Bajqinca, 2019), as migrant students outnumbered minorities. This also indicates that the different languages of minorities are considered more legitimate than those of migrants. Furthermore, a government report in 1996 described how MTI had inadvertently become low status among teachers and that the subject generally was suffering due to administrative and financial problems. ²⁹

In 2020, Sweden still offered MTI for students speaking a language other than Swedish at home. The argument legislatively remains that MTI facilitates the learning of Swedish, which in turn is seen as the ‘key to Swedish society’ (Bajqinca, 2019: 158), meaning that speaking the same language is the ideal. Migrant students’ mother tongues are then problematised as creating difference, which needs to be resolved through MTI that facilitates the learning of Swedish. Mastering Swedish is seen as enabling migrant students to attain the ‘sameness’ of the national majority language speakers. While municipalities should ensure that students have full access to MTI, in practice, they tend to receive only a few, scattered hours of such instruction (Salö, 2018).

Is Denmark a unique case?

Like the other three countries, Denmark distinguishes between migrant groups (by EU membership) and, as in the other countries, this has resulted in a decline in mother-tongue instruction rights for migrant students originating from non-EU countries, or without a minority history in the country in question. None of the four countries has included labour migrants as official minorities, in spite of their numbers being larger than those deemed official minorities. This excludes them from European legislation, which ensures the rights of recognised minorities, ³⁰ thus balancing between ensuring equal rights for some citizens and the exclusion of others (Joppke, 2005). The initial ‘phase’ of generous support for MTI in Denmark is similar to that seen in the other welfare-state cases in this article, which is largely due to a united European framework aimed at tackling the issue early on, illustrating the origins of fundamental structures and dilemmas. The generous support in Denmark was contingent on the perceived temporariness of guest-worker migrants as a group, and this was seemingly also the case in (West) Germany and the Netherlands. Being guests alludes to being different and belonging to a different nation, which results in a lack of policies aiming for sameness with the linguistic majority students. Over time, MTI policies in all four countries have become rooted in the notion of being able to facilitate the learning of the national majority language, using the students’ difference to enable their linguistic ‘sameness’ with the majority, non-migrant population (Cabau, 2014; Salö, 2018). This can be perceived as the contours of a sort of second ‘phase’ following the early generous policy ‘phase’. In recent decades, a new third ‘phase’ can be detected, where using MTI to facilitate learning of the national majority language was renegotiated in Denmark and the Netherlands in favour of an even greater emphasis on the national majority language. Although Sweden explicitly acknowledges migrants’ right to difference, MTI is still – as in the other countries’ ‘second’ phase – argued to serve as a tool to facilitate the national majority language, and migrant students as a group are perceived as distinctly less legitimate than their recognised minority classmates. The Danish initial support for MTI, followed by the notion of MTI serving as a mediator and then, lastly, MTI being considered an actual hindrance to learning the national majority language, specifically for migrant students, can therefore be understood as contours of ‘phases’ that are by no means unique to the Danish context. By investigating the problematisation of migrant students’ mother tongues, we show how welfare states do not necessarily embody a ‘school for all’ sentiment, as the ‘differentness’ of migrant students’ mother tongues goes against the emphasised ideal of sameness.

In the next, micro-policy, section, we will investigate how the embodied lived experience of the migrant can nuance this perception of the policies and their intertwined ‘phases’, illustrated through the experiences of former migrant student Yildiz.