Austria: Equity Research Between Family Background, Educational System and Language Policies

Abstract

This article offers a systematic review of research in Austria on the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality between 1980 and 2016. Five major research traditions are identified: (1) political arithmetic; (2) family background; (3) structures of educational systems; (4) intercultural education and discrimination and (5) multilinguality, with research on ‘family background’ and ‘political arithmetic’ being the most dominant research traditions. Most of the research conducted in Austria focuses on explaining ‘underachievement’ in relationship to ‘children of immigrants’ and ‘Turkish’ and ‘(former) Yugoslavia’ minority students and is characterized either by the use of quantitative research methods and a more positivistic approach to social sciences or by discourse analyses and a critical constructivist approach from researchers in the 1980ies, 1990ies and 2000s from political science and sociology, nowadays also rooted in socio-linguistics and related fields. Equity in this field of research addresses as much socio-economic background as family language in the Austrian context. This rich body of research is written mainly in German and developed in a context characterized by a close collaborative relationship between sociologists, political scientists, sociolinguists, education researchers and the Ministry of Education but also international bodies such as the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OECD. The common aim of these actors is the production of knowledge which should enable a shift in policy that emphasises assimilation and monolingualism over multiculturalism and multi- or plurilingualism. This does not preclude that at the same time other political actors in other Ministries follow different if not contradicting aims, the teaching force being split between those different aims and strategies.