INTER Group
Research in Intercultural Education
RACISM, ADOLESCENCE AND IMMIGRATION. IMAGES AND
EXPERIENCES OF RACISM IN ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG PEOPLE
A FETE-UGT project for the IMSERSO Network for Foreign
Minors Enrolled in School
Financed by NETWORK OF MINORS. GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF
IMMIGRATION. MINISTRY OF WORK AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS.
Coordinator: Teresa Aguado
Date: 2005
INTRODUCTION
In mid-June 2005, the
members of the INTER Center received a proposal to
collaborate with the FETE-UGT2
in a short exploratory study on the perceptions and
experiences of young people and adolescents, mainly
immigrants, regarding possible experiences of
discrimination and racism in their immediate environment.
The initial specifics of
the project led us to consider a series of initial
objectives. These were extended, due simply to the
dynamics of the research process, and new nuclei of
attention and social, educational, and personal dynamics,
which may condition the experiences of immigrant
adolescents to a certain extent, were detected.
The work originally consisted of carrying out a series of interviews with adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. A total of 20 interviews were carried out, some of them group interviews. Even though this work approach was positive, we consider it to have been limited, and we believe that it would have been necessary to use a larger sample and talk to other people in the young people’s social and family environment (family members, friends, classmates, teachers, all of them, of course, with different origins, including the host countries).
This breadth that the adolescents themselves showed us has helped us to point out the limitations and the biases of our thinking, and of our social representations and everyone’s, even the members of the research group, leading us to justify excessively general and stereotyped conceptualizations. Based on this analysis, some conclusions and suggestions that can facilitate the process of adaptation and coexistence for everyone were proposed. We hope that this project will be only the starting point for our group, and that it will allow us to go into these realities in a more direct and in-depth fashion. We also hope that it has covered some of the objectives proposed and some of the hopes that the boys and girls who participated in this research process have expressed, some of their opinions about how this research could possibly be useful.
OBJECTIVES AND TASKS
This project is a result of the need to carry out a kind of analysis based on the perception of the people who are affected. It attempts to respond to questions related both to the subtle and to the explicit ways racism and its implications and consequences (discrimination, exclusion, violence) manifest themselves. The research will focus on the age-group of 12- to 18-year-olds. The purpose of the study is to provide educators and other professionals with relevant information for recognizing, understanding, interpreting, and managing these kinds of situations.
Our initial objectives were:
1. To find out young people’s perceptions regarding experiences/situations of racism.
2.
To recognize the racism that is implicit in
everyday situations, within the educational environment
and outside of it.
3. To
appreciate the difficulties that young people from
different origins encounter in their life in school and
outside of school.
PARTICIPANTS
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Faculty of Education
Teresa Aguado Odina
Belén Ballesteros Velázquez
Inés Gil Jaurena
Rosario Jiménez Frías
Catalina Luque Donoso
Beatriz Malik Liévano
Patricia Mata Benito
José Antonio Téllez Muñoz
Universidad Complutense. Faculty of Education
Caridad Hernández Sánchez
CSIC
Margarita del Olmo Pintado
Jennifer Lucko
RESULTS
Publications related to the project
- Grupo Inter. (2007). Racism: A Teenagers' Perspective. Results of Preliminary Research from Madrid [Racismo, adolescencia e inmigración. Imágenes y experiencia del racismo en adolescentes y jóvenes]. Viena: Navreme. ISBN: 9989-50-051-7. Descargar libro en pdf
- Ballesteros, Belén y Mata, Patricia. (2008). El racismo desde la perspectiva de los adolescentes: significado y experiencias, en Revue Européene d'Ethnographie de l'Education, nº. 5. Pp. 125.139. ISSN 1645-8669.
- Grupo Inter. (2007). Racismo, adolescencia e inmigración: reconocer y afrontar el racismo desde una perspectiva educativa, Emigra Working Papers, nº 78. Pp. 1-19. ISSN: 2013-3804. Descargar artículo en pdf
- Mata, Patricia y Ballesteros, Belén. (2011). La experiencia del racismo en jóvenes inmigrantes: cómo se vive, cómo se afronta. En F. J. García Castaño y N. Kressova (coords.) Actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre Migraciones en Andalucía (pp. 979-985). 16-18 Febrero 2011. Granada: Instituto de Migraciones. ISBN: 978-84-921390-3-3. Descargar libro de resúmenes en pdf. Descargar publicación en pdf