The Trouble begins
Immigrants'children cause trouble and get scolded by teachers because that is the only option left to them. The way for them to win status and recognition lies in the school yard, not the classroom, according to recent research from the DPU.
By Jesper Nissen (jesni@dpu.dk)
They are tough cookies, those boys. At least they act like they are. They huff and they puff, they tumble and play and they challenge each other in their immigrant lingo, or raghead-Danish, as some call it. Many find them threatening. They are certainly boisterous. They noisily crowd the hallways at school. A football ricochets resoundingly off the age-old walls. A pupil from the lower grades is hit as he tries to pass by. "Ouch" he mutters, as he scoots off. The older boys laugh loudly, right up until the first teacher shows up. Then the trouble begins. They know they are not allowed to play football inside, or harass the smaller ones. Have they no compassion?!? Relax; they are just bouncing the ball around a little. It's not like it was on purpose or anything. And why is it ALWAYS them who get the scolding?
Why DO the minority children turn out to be the tough cookies, those who are noisy and get scolded? Is it because the teachers are prejudiced or even racists? Many seem to think so, not least the troublemakers' parents. Is it due to poor upbringing in general, or the product of a particular Muslim upbringing and culture? Many teachers say this is the case. Or is it just that the Muslims cause trouble and that the Danes behave well? That is what many of these boys think. One thing is certain: The meeting between ethnic minorities and the Danish Folkeskole is deeply problematic.
Anthropologist Laura Gilliam from the Department of Educational Anthropology at the DPU has tried to look beyond the superficial explanations. For seven months, she observed a fourth grade class and a sixth grade class. She asked the boys why they caused trouble, she spoke with the teachers about their view of the boys and she observed how the well-behaved and skilful girls were praised for their efforts. The observation was a part of her PhD-project, which she recently successfully defended at the DPU. Laura Gilliam has identified a core of truth in many of the preconceptions and prejudices that make up this minefield. She also, however, identified a lot of simplification and poorly supported arguments.
The Upside-Down Pyramid
"Teachers think that the boys behave as they do due to personal problems," says Laura Gilliam. "They think that the boys lack respect, empathy and self-awareness, and that this is all due to problems on the home front. Furthermore, they often refer to the so-called upside-down pyramid model. This model claims that when they are very young, Muslim boys are free to do what they want, which makes them ill equipped to deal with rules and regulations that are imposed on them when they grow older."
Is the model valid? Perhaps. Laura Gilliam is not ready to rule out that there may be differences in the upbringing children get in immigrant homes and that in 'old Danish' homes. But then again, there are vast differences between immigrants and Muslims. Differences so vast, according to Laura Gilliam, that the notion of a particular Muslim upbringing that inevitably produces troublemakers has little to do with reality.
"It's not like there is a certain type of family that produces this sort of boy. There are many different sorts of families. Most of the boys' families emphasize the importance of behaving properly and listening to your teacher and to be industrious. The funny thing is that once the boys meet at school, they behave in a very similar manner, regardless of the often huge differences in family background and upbringing. This tells us that the school setting, and what goes on there between the children and between children and adults, plays a very important role."
A new Mohammad
Are the problems caused, then, by the teachers' prejudices about Muslim homes? According to the boys and their parents, yes. "They don't like us," the boys say, while the parents say things like "I can't believe what they say about how my sweet boy should behave." And do they have a point? "Perhaps, at least to some degree," replies the anthropologist, although she finds the explanation lacking.
The reason is that she met the teachers during her seven months of field work. "The teachers I have met were very keen on including the minority children, and they worked hard to ignore ethniticity and focus on the individual." But ignoring your senses is not an easy thing to do.
While Laura Gilliam was conducting her field studies at the Copenhagen grade school, the headmaster gathered the teachers from all the fourth grades at the school to tell them that one of them was going to have a new boy in their class. "What's his name?", one asked. "Where's he from?", asked another. The answer to the first question was Muhammad, and that made the second question redundant. And it turned out that the new boy already new one of the tough boys at the school. That was all it took.
"You know, we already have quite enough to see to in our class," one teacher said. Another chimed in: "It's probably not a good idea to put him in with the boy he knows already." But one teacher eventually had to give in, and Mohammad was assigned to a class.
But then it turned out that Mohammad was in fact a quiet and intelligent boy. He was a bit shy, and obviously had no desire to end up in a conflict with the teachers, and so one should think that all was well and that someone had learned a lesson. But the lesson was maybe different from what one might have hoped for. "What's interesting is," says Laura Gilliam, "that Mohammad tried to make trouble anyway and to do what all the other boys did. Before Mohammad came to the class, I often asked myself whether it would in fact be possible for a boy from an ethnic minority to join such a class and be a model pupil? This question is essential for an understanding of the dynamics that lead to trouble."
Why does it happen this way? Why could Mohammad not have stayed the nice and well-behaved boy? Part of the answer, according to Laura Gilliam, is the discourse among the teachers. "They don't know him at all, and yet they don't give him the benefit of the doubt. They claim to see individual children and not ethniticity, and yet that is what they ask about. His ethniticity and his name, and the fact that he knows a boy the teachers don't like is enough for them to brand him and to meet him with negative expectations."
Although there is an element of racism in the teachers' negative expectations, it would be simplistic to just write them off as racists. They want nothing more than to be able to ignore Mohammad's dark skin and his dialect. But they are only human, and when their experience tells them that the name Mohammad spells trouble, isn't it only natural that they hesitate to make room for him in their class? "Of course it is," says Laura Gilliam. "We categorise according to categories we find relevant in the context, but that is exactly what the teachers have to stop doing."
The problem is that their negative expectations get in the way of Mohammad's need to be recognised. Like any other child, Mohammad needs praise and to feel welcome and good at something. Many of the boys from various ethnic minorities can easily get praise from home, where they find it easy to behave. At Koran school they also generally do fine; they can, for instance, get praise for their mastery of Arabic. Praise is also easily won in football, where the path to status is well-defined: rule the ball and you are someone.
But at school, it is difficult. Even for Mohammad. Not just because of the teachers' expectations, but also because the things he has to do to win the teachers' recognition are difficult for him. His ethno-dialect may win him some respect among the boys in the street, but an educated guess would be that H.C. Andersen never intended his fairy tales to sound like that. Mohammad's knowledge also falls just short of the teachers' expectations. He is very willing to speak up when the class discuss the problems of the Middle East, and he gladly chips in on the ethical discussions, but when it comes to Astrid Lindgren he is absolutely clueless. And then there is the trouble, of course.
Good boy or a genuine immigrant
Mohammad is quite aware that his teachers respect can be won through good behaviour. Why, then, does he stray from the straight and narrow, even after he had followed it for a while?
According to Laura Gilliam, the reason is that that particular road actually leads away from social recognition. "There are vast social, ethnic and religious costs involved in behaving well for the boys from ethnic minorities," says Laura Gilliam, and continues: "The boys have adopted an identity as troublemakers. The identity exists as an opposition to the good, well-behaved, skilful, nice and civilised. There is no way to be both a cool and masculine Muslim immigrant boy and a model pupil in school. The two positions are defined in mutual opposition, leaving no space in between."
Mohammad has to choose: Will he act like a Dane and behave well in school, or should he be a troublemaker and win the respect and recognition of his peers? This may sound like a choice between two options, but in fact it is not. Or one might say that others have made the choice for him. As Laura Gilliam says: "When teachers automatically assumes you make trouble, and it is impossible to become a model pupil, behaving well and doing what you are told is not an attractive option, because it leads to social exclusion. Most in that situation will opt for the status they have a chance to win, and so the boys become troublemakers."
Education needed
What we have here is a vicious circle. The teachers feel they need to discipline the boys when they make trouble, even though the teachers know what it may do to the boys' self-interpretation to be scolded all the time. "The teaching must go on," as Laura Gilliam says.
But no matter how many harsh words are used, and how many times the troublemakers are sent off to the principal, trouble continues because the boys do not feel they have an alternative mode of behaviour open to them. They have no way to win recognition in school except to make trouble. And the more they are scolded, the more they feel like stupid immigrant boys disliked by the teachers, and that they can never be as good as the 'real' Danes. And the more they adopt the role as tough and anti-social immigrant boys, the more the teachers will treat them as - tough and anti-social immigrant boys.
There are, in other words, no bad guys in the encounter between teachers and immigrant boys. People just act out the parts that have gradually evolved for them. And the play is older than Moses. The cast may have changed over the years - the troublemakers have been played by black American boys from the ghettos and working-class boys both in England and in the very same working-class neighbourhoods that the immigrant boys now grow up in. The manuscript, however, is unchanged.
How to break the vicious circle?
"Education is called for," says Laura Gilliam. "You can't expect children at that age to break the circle on their own. Education must work, but you also have to show the children that they are welcome and recognise them for what they can do. One way to do this is to work with issues that are familiar to them, and let them contribute so that they can experience that they are just as intelligent as other children. And the teachers should start off by recognising that they are not blind towards ethniticity, because ethniticity is relevant, both for the teachers and for the children. And this must be addressed. As an institution, the school must look beyond the limited interpretation of what constitutes intelligence and become less mono-cultural. It is an incredible experience to see what happens to the boys when they get a little bit of praise."
About Laura GilliamLaura Gilliam earned her post.doc. at the department of Educational Anthropology with her PhD, "The impossible children and the proper person. A study of identity, troublemaking and Muslim communities among ethnic minority children in a Danish school". Visit Laura Gilliam's website