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Diversity at school as a lever for success?

Notes de la rédaction

This is the press release related to the article from Emmanuelle Lenel, published on September 6, 2010. Read the article.

For several years now, social diversity has been at the heart of the debate on education. According to many, it “should be promoted” in order to achieve more justice at school – a crucial issue in Brussels if ever there was one. But is it always the best instrument to encourage success and – more generally – the future integration of students in society?

This is the question raised by Emmanuelle Lenel (FUSL/CES) in the 40th issue of Brussels Studies through an ethnographic study of two schools in Brussels which represent two different approaches to social diversity.

The first school, which the author calls the “school of diversity”, provides the three educational pathways offered in secondary education. Great care is taken to maintain maximum diversity: the mixed population, the inclusion of repeaters in regular classes and a defence of social diversity are some of the school’s key features. Diversity is seen as a precondition for equality.

However, a tendency towards social segregation is observed, for example, with a gradual relegation of the more disadvantaged populations to the less prestigious pathways. Furthermore, the coexistence of the three forms of education does not prevent the vocational pathway from being considered as the “rubbish pathway”, where those who “do not want to study” end up. The experience of otherness therefore does not protect against closed-mindedness and rejection.

The second school, referred to as the “school for girls”, is radically different. This school is traditionally an all-girls school, and for the past few years boys have been allowed to attend as well. There is very little diversity from a gender-based and social point of view. This weakness is linked to the will to create a protected environment for the girls who live in the neighbourhood, most of whom are of north African or Turkish origin. The pathways offered are essentially intended to provide access to the job market. The gender-based and ethnic homogeneity of the school is in keeping with a particularist approach to integration. This social grouping is aimed mainly at protecting students whose lack of cultural resources would be unfavourable to competition with other young people. Mutual assistance through strong relationships of solidarity is thus emphasised in an atmosphere of equality, considered here as equivalent means.

The study leads to a fundamental question regarding the model of the “good school” which should be favoured. Is it a school which prepares “good students” for university? Or is it a place which is open to different models of success? Beyond the ethnic and philosophical debate regarding diversity and communitarianism, differentiation and lack of differentiation, and beyond a simplistic opposition between open schools and closed schools, the two models of school may be considered to favour a certain type of success.

The author raises essential questions which are neglected in the current debate, and which will have to be dealt with if we intend to overcome the challenge of education in Brussels.

References
Lenel, Emmanuelle, “Diversity at school as a lever for success?”, Brussels Studies [Online], General collection, No 40, 6 september 2010. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/789
Contact
Benjamin Wayens, Senior Editor: bwayens[at]brusselsstudies.be

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