Pandelis Kiprianos

Greek Policy towards Immigration and Immigrants

The policy of Greek authorities towards immigrants is the subject of this paper. By the term “policy” we mean both the legal framework concerning immigration and the practices of Greek authorities and their agencies regarding immigrants. We argue that this policy is defined by the commitments and the obligations undertaken by Greece as a member of the EU, but also by the number, the ethnic composition, the economic and social situation of immigrants, the attitudes of Greeks towards them and, also, the effects of their presence. In this context, the policy is characterized by dilemmas and hesitations. This is due to the attitudes of Greek opinion and concerns about the possibility that the immigrants could in the long term create problems of national integration. Those main concerns are counterbalanced, to some extent, by the contribution of immigrants to the economy. Like other members of the EU, Greek authorities have tried twice, in 1997 and in 2001, to legalize the illegal immigrants. Legalization seems to benefit both the immigrants and the Greeks. Crime rates have been reduced and xenophobia is losing ground. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that the situation of the immigrants has started to improve. Despite these positive developments, the dilemmas of immigration policy have already registered in everyday life and allow for various hostile practices towards the immigrant population.

Greek technical–vocational education (1870–1940): intentions and failed aspirations

From 1870 until the outbreak of the Second World War there were various attempts at educational reform in Greece, one of the most significant being the intention to establish a national technical–vocational education. The aim of this study is to examine why such a reform was deemed necessary and yet failed to be implemented. The first part examines how foreign influences played an important role in shaping the Greek educational system, both in the type of institution provided and by those Greek students who had studied abroad. Next, there is a close analysis of the official discourse on technical–vocational education, along with an examination of why it was felt that a segmented educational system constituted such a priority. Finally, a critical evaluation is provided to explain how the rhetoric and action of successive Greek governments inevitably failed as a result of ideological confusion and political patronage.

Becoming a Lifelong Learner through Life Disruptions: Exploring Motivational Pathways in Second Chance Schools’ Students

The aim of this article is to capture the generic process which shapes the reasons Second Chance Schools’ students set out for enrolling in them and for approaching lifelong learning. We theoretically frame motivations as having relational and temporal emergence and as embedded in their lifeworld experiences which have to be narratively reconstructed in order for the students to take life decisions. Through biographical interviews with adult students attending a Second Chance School in Greece, we identified the role of life-disrupting events in this process and their core dynamic in forming motivational pathways. We argue that life disruptions fuel four different kinds of biographical gestalts, within each of which students develop a peculiar narrative reasoning for their enrollment in Second Chance School. Stigma, emancipation, biographical suffering, and work improvement constitute four distinct biographical gestalts, in which specific life disruptions are tied up with how adult students construct their motivational orientation toward lifelong learning throughout their lives.

Ambivalent Biographies in Adolescence

Despite the fact that vocational adolescents are in a disadvantaged position regarding their post-secondary high school routes, research has highlighted the resistant and innovative ways they set in motion so as to grapple with their estranging schooling experiences. Our article aims to contribute to this research area by focusing on how adolescents’ narration of their schooling frames their life planning. In particular, we explore a major finding of our research—namely, their defending of vocational training—by means of the notion of ambivalent biographical identity. We argue (a) that today’s adolescents do not openly reject vocational training, and they try to transform the unofficial skills and knowledge obtained in their cultures into official cultural capital capable of making them enter the job market and (b) that their life planning is tied up with a biographical identity formation through which they try to coherently reconcile their embodied cultures with the vocational qualifications they aspire to acquire.