(Re)Actions of pedagogical staff towards student's deportations. A qualitative study

Academic supervisor: Sara Fürstenau

Between the years 2016 and 2021 more than 300 schoolchildren have been deported from Hamburg¹. The number of schoolchildren threatened by deportation is far above that figure. How do pedagogues handle the deportation of their students? To answer this question in context of a PhD thesis qualitative methodology based in ethnographic research will be employed.

The aim of this qualitative research is to reconstruct how pedagogues have managed cases of deportation of students. The sample will be limited to professionals working in schools (teachers, educators, principals, social workers) and experts working in other involved organizations in the metropolitan area of the city of Hamburg. The data will be collected through semi-structured interviews, observation records and document analysis.

Research on this topic will bring light into a complex, sensitive and problematic issue which is seldom addressed in research on diversity in education (Gallo & Link 2016). Investigating the position of pedagogues, described by Meyer as a dilemma (2003, p.173), is fundamental to understand their agency, their limitations and identify possible gaps in the support structures in cases of student deportations (Gallo & Link 2016; Foitzik 2019). 

^{[1] Data from the Hamburg Senate Drucksachen 21/3954, 21/5284, 21/6556, 21/8805, 21/11644, 21/8683, 21/10203, 21/10644, 21/12540, 21/14065, 21/14623, 21/15667, 21/16754, 21/17745, 21/18728, 21/19561, 22/889, 22/890, 22/2077, 22/3040, 22/3830.}

Literature

Meyer, Frauke (2003): Unterrichten im Dilemma. In: Lernen am Rande der Gesellschaft:             Bildungsinstitutionen im Spiegel von Flüchtlingsbiografien. In: Bildung in             Umbruchsgesellschaften, vol. 3. Waxmann: Münster.

Foitzik, A. (2019): Exkurs: Umgang mit Abschiebungen. In Andreas Foitzik, Marc Holland-  Cunz, Clara Riecke (Eds.): Praxisbuch diskriminierungskritische Schule. 1. Auflage. Weinheim: Beltz (Pädagogik).

Gallo, Sarah; Link, Holly (2016): Exploring the Borderlands: Elementary School Teachers’    Navigation of Immigration Practices in a New Latino Diaspora Community. In:         Journal of Latinos and Education 15 (3), pp. 180–196.

(update 14.06.2021)