Education For All – or Only For Some? COVID-19 and Discrimination Against “Refugee Children” in the German Education System
Press/Media
References
| Title | Education For All – or Only For Some? COVID-19 and Discrimination Against “Refugee Children” in the German Education System |
|---|---|
| Degree of recognition | National |
| Media name/outlet | FluchtforschungsBlog / Netwerk Fluchtforschung |
| Media type | Web |
| Country/Territory | Germany |
| Date | 30.07.20 |
| Description | While all children have been affected by political regulations in education resulting from COVID-19, the pandemic did not affect all children equally. This article examines the effects of COVID-19 on the educational situation of “refugee children” and discusses new gateways for discrimination against children in school and migration society arising from the political reactions to the pandemic. The ways in which the rights of marginalized and racialized groups in so-called Western countries are currently being addressed have proven particularly ambivalent. On the one hand, manifestations of structural racism are denounced and discussed in the context of the murder of George Floyd among the wider public. On the other hand, nationalist understandings of solidarity are being inscribed into the political responses to COVID-19 promoting structural discrimination against numerous social groups. This becomes particularly evident with regard to the situation of “refugee minors”. The policies during the pandemic, current border closures as well as nation-state notions of solidarity especially threaten the children’s rights to education and open new gateways for discrimination against “refugee children” in school and society. In this blog post, I discuss this with a focus on Germany. By using the term “refugee children”*, I refer to all those children and adolescents who for various reasons were forced to flee their country of origin with or without their families. |
| Producer/Author | Netzwerk Fluchtforschung |
| URL | https://fluchtforschung.net/bildung-fur-alle-oder-nur-fur-einige/ |
| Persons | Ellen Kollender |