CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Koeck, Markus Georg |
|---|---|
| Title | 'Are You Trying To Become German Or Something!?': Entrenching The Native/Migrant Binary In A German Civic Integration Class |
| Summary | This thesis explores and challenges the alleged re-configuration of German national belonging in connection to Germany’s shift towards civic integration. By zeroing in on civic integration classes, this thesis counters assertions about a civic-political reformulation of German belonging as well as the polarization between diversity-embracing and rejecting societal camps. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a civic integration class in Southern Bavaria, I argue that doxic notions of native belonging and migrant non-belonging are re-produced not despite, but within civic integration classes. This analysis scrutinizes the practices of two teachers with differing political persuasions (conservative vs. leftist) and attitudes towards migration (skeptical vs. embracing). I show that their shared doxic self-positioning as natives informed their interpellations of migrant students as standing outside and opposite of the national community. I demonstrate how they entrenched a native/migrant binary throughout their teaching of history and the political system, the racializing, Islamophobic centering of liberal culture and values, and the sidelining of labor as a central dimension of students’ life and self-identification in Germany. Moreover, by pointing to the resistances of the students I highlight their agency in the shaping of civic integration policy on-the-ground. |
| Supervisor | Geva, Dorit; Dafinger, Andreas |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/koeck_markus.pdf |
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