Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Undocumented children and the right to education: illusory right or empowering lever?

Undocumented children and the right to education: illusory right or empowering lever? <jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In migration control policies, social rights are often restricted in order to discourage immigration. The right to education seems to be the exception to the rule. This paper examines whether the right to education – beyond legal technical questions of the personal scope of application of human rights treaties, and the nature and the meaning of the right – is able to provide empowering leverage to undocumented children, or rather remains a lofty ideal on paper. Empirical data are drawn from the Belgian situation. Sociological research has shown that while quantitative educational democratisation has been highly successful, qualitative educational democratisation remains problematic. With regard to undocumented children, real-life limitations to school access (both individual and institutional), as well as psycho-social and institutional impediments during the schooling process seriously limit equal schooling and life opportunities. Unequal responses to organisational and pedagogical challenges that the presence of mobile students puts to schools, reinforce institutional factors of educational inequality for undocumented children. A key factor in understanding the tension between the legal recognition of the human right to education and daily realities is the outright contradiction between the approaches towards education on the one hand, and to migration more generally on the other hand. The latter is increasingly dominated by a securisation ideology.</jats:p> </jats:sec> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The International Journal of Children's Rights Brill

Undocumented children and the right to education: illusory right or empowering lever?

Download PDF
28 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/undocumented-children-and-the-right-to-education-illusory-right-or-6MP9PgePDd

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2011 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0927-5568
eISSN
1571-8182
DOI
10.1163/157181811X570690
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In migration control policies, social rights are often restricted in order to discourage immigration. The right to education seems to be the exception to the rule. This paper examines whether the right to education – beyond legal technical questions of the personal scope of application of human rights treaties, and the nature and the meaning of the right – is able to provide empowering leverage to undocumented children, or rather remains a lofty ideal on paper. Empirical data are drawn from the Belgian situation. Sociological research has shown that while quantitative educational democratisation has been highly successful, qualitative educational democratisation remains problematic. With regard to undocumented children, real-life limitations to school access (both individual and institutional), as well as psycho-social and institutional impediments during the schooling process seriously limit equal schooling and life opportunities. Unequal responses to organisational and pedagogical challenges that the presence of mobile students puts to schools, reinforce institutional factors of educational inequality for undocumented children. A key factor in understanding the tension between the legal recognition of the human right to education and daily realities is the outright contradiction between the approaches towards education on the one hand, and to migration more generally on the other hand. The latter is increasingly dominated by a securisation ideology.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Journal

The International Journal of Children's Rights – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2011

Keywords: MIGRATION; CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS; UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN; BELGIUM; EDUCATIONAL DEMOCRATISATION; RIGHT TO EDUCATION

There are no references for this article.