Educational Reception in Rotterdam and Barcelona

The reception of newcomer youngsters by schools constitutes a policy issue in Europe already for decades. This book deals with how practitioners in Rotterdam and Barcelona apply existing policies for the reception of immigrant students, the dilemmas they face and the strategies they design as a response. Using a combination of discursive, organizational, and ethnographic research techniques, the author studies to what extent practices conform to policies, and to what extent they diverge from them in basic principles. This book analyzes the influence of institutional frameworks on the practices of policy implementers by comparing Netherlands and Spain -specifically Barcelona and Rotterdam-, two cases which are very different in terms of their national policies of integration, their educational systems and their programs for educational reception. Much can be learned over the reception practices of secondary schools, but above all over how policy gaps work, and the common and specific features that they present across different countries. In short, this is an indispensable reading for scholars, policymakers and practitioners alike, which offers new insights about the policy-practice gap and the role of policy practitioners in it.

Acknowledgements. 1. The puzzle: Two bodies of literature, national regimes of citizenship and the migration policy gap -- Research strategy and case selection -- Collection of data -- Outline of the book. 2. Studying practices of educational reception: Delimitating practices of educational reception -- Explaining compliance with and deviation from policy practices in the migration field -- Analytical framework to study coordination/discrepancies between policies and practices -- Questions guiding the study. 3. The institutional context of reception practices: The Netherlands -- Spain. 4. Practices in Rotterdam: Johannes Vermeer school -- Rembrandt school -- Other schools that provide reception in Rotterdam. 5. Practices in Barcelona: Salvador Dalí school -- Antoni Tapies school -- Gaudí school -- Other schools that provide reception in Barcelona. 6. Explaining gaps, Rotterdam vs. Barcelona: Comparison of cases -- Specific characteristics of the gap in Barcelona and Rotterdam -- Explaining gaps, discretionary practices inBarcelonaa and Rotterdam. 7. FIelds, embedded agency and collective practices: Main findings of the study -- The collective dimension of discretional action -- Contextual factors, towards a heuristic model for explaining degrees of institutional influence on practices and varieties of gaps -- Challenges and the future of educational reception -- research agenda. Glossary of terms and acronyms. Bibliographic references. Relevant policy documents.