Page 336 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

314 Albert Scherr

ditional meaning they could not otherwise have: they signify rejection of the of-
ficial program of ethnically neutral schooling.
In England and Canada, on the other hand, ethnic identification is seen in the
political and educational spheres as a legitimate reference to distinctive cultural
differences, and – differently from Germany and France – it can legitimately be
invoked as an explanatory or justifying factor in official documents and pro-
ceedings. One reason for the acceptance of ethnicity in Britain is that immi-
grants from former colonies often possess British passports, and in Canada citi-
zenship is attained with relative ease after immigration. Hence, immigrant
groups cannot be excluded on the basis of legal status, and in Britain and Ca-
nada ethnicity tends to become a category that merely distinguishes groups
within one and the same body politic.
In British schools ethnicity can be invoked in the context of proceedings that
involve social inequality, social distance and racial discrimination. Pupils are
categorized according to ethnically formulated criteria, which are also em-
ployed in gathering official statistics. The criteria are based on a heterogeneous
set of attributes (race, nationality, religion, language, self-defined ethnicity) and
are actually not strictly ethnic categories. A document from the Department for
Education and Skills (DfES 2003: 8) prescribes the following set of categories:
White, Mixed, Asian or Asian British, Black or Black British, Chinese. The cat-
egory Asian is further sub-divided into Indian, Pakistani, etc. In schools such
categories are used for collecting statistics on attendance, discrimination cases,
and the treatment of racially motivated conflicts.
The guidelines established here for official and for self-classification are
hardly suited for educational contexts, nor for characterizing actual cultural dif-
ferences. They make evident a fundamental problem with proactive multicultu-
ral and anti-discriminatory programs: in order to observe and record specific
difficulties that immigrants and minorities face, it is first necessary to obtain un-
ambiguous categorizations or self-categorizations of all individuals who might
be affected. This, however, indulges and confirms precisely the same categoriz-
ations that the programs are meant to overcome. No way out of this dilemma is
visible, for all proactive measures must necessarily be directed to specific dis-
advantaged and discriminated groups.

3.4. Compensatory and anti-discriminatory policies
In Canada and Britain schools participate in actively combating the disadvan-
taged status of immigrants and minorities. Special importance is given to
measures directed at linguistic deficiencies. In the framework of an anti-dis-
crimination program, the guidelines of the Ontario Ministry of Education for
development of an ‘inclusive curriculum’ prescribe that pupils whose first lan-
guage is neither English nor French shall receive adequate offerings to learn a