Migration using a GeoCapabilities approach

How is migration seen in Flemish textbooks

Migration is studied as part of the geography curriculum, as part of the theme ‘sustainability & global shift’. It is seen from different sides:

  • Juridical aspects (migrant, refugee … - know the differences), Where (also in other regions, even more than in Europe)
  • Historical aspect
  • Via tables: also showing the advantages
  • Racial questions – prejustices
  • Is seen in more global theme
  • Also compentencies: working with maps, graphs, forced migration via push and pull factors
  • Effects on society e.g. food security
  • Most focusing on internal (and national – in e.g. Africa) and forced migration
  • When talking about climate (change) also already some links to climate refugees

The schools involved

Two Flemish schools cooperated in the project:

- RHIZO Kortrijk, a technical & vocational school with a mixture of pupils including less wealthy families & many migrants

- IVV Sint-Vincentius Gent, a technical school with a larger population of migrants.

Two teachers were associated to the project there. They have developed both a lessons package on international migration

The GeoCapabilities approach

First step: interview & ideas on social justice - migration

In January 2019 interviews were made done to get a better view on how the teachers see these themes.

What are the objectives of your course? (knowledge, know-how, skills, competences, capacities)

  • Basic objective is knowledge – to know about migration earlier and now, what can we learn from it and from there gain insight in the term ‘migration’, push-pull factors, we need to have some ideas of numbers via graphs, tables à start with this à leads to questions
  • Hopefully they learn something out of it but when you look at the election results (whereby populistic campaigns focusing on anti-migration have success) I doubt if we can make a link between the choices we made historically and bringing understanding for the ‘stranger’
  • In the course of history it is mostly taught from historical point of view: happens already for centuries and longer, that migrants always had a difficult situation, explain terms like assimilation, with tendencies inside political parties, and that integration difficult is – and do we mean cultural or juridical integration (pupils not always understand the difference)
  • About competencies techniques: ideas are needed to change your view, understanding (difference refugee and other) àfrom that basics trying to understand
  • Capacities: when pupils make the task they will be able to understand it and realize

Do you have any difficulties in teaching migration? If so, What are they and what do you do to address them? 

  •  Prejudices of pupils in technical and vocational education à rather right wing oriented and very negative about migration, feeded at home (sometime they paraphrase their parents’ expressions)
  • Also you cannot dishonor them for the sake of their opinion, you must be careful
  • How do I leave that person in value but I want to say that there are other possibilities to look at migration
  • When you have a migrant in your class: how to connect them, you have to be careful how you deal with some items due to pupils from different backgrounds (e.g. large Turkish population in Ghent and they can react fanatic)
  • When there are problems (prejudges): some pupils can be very aggressive when you confront them with other opinions

Second step:  vision on social justice and powerful knowledge

According to their own words/ideas social justice is justice  that takes into account the socio-economic position and the impact on it through the pursuit of any kind of equity, about people having equal opportunities and potential regardless of their social background in the widest possible context.

A student with developed social justice dimension according them:

  • is able to understand that his/her actions result in social (un)justice & to recognise social inequality
  • can prove that his/her actions lead to social injustice & how that inequality works and show where it comes from
  • thinks about solutions to eliminate the inequality or ways to improve the situation & thinks about consuming, i.e. buying cheap disposable products. This is only possible when there is an underpaid class of workers.

This table summarizes the KDPs developed by the teachers in their courses.

Typology 1

Typology 2

Third step:  teaching lesson

Because of covid 19, the lessons were taught online, which made interaction with the students more difficult. One teacher used an online lesson with PowerPoint, in which the pupils actively participated in a teaching dialogue. The other teacher created a lesson in the form of two surveys that they had to complete. At the end of these lessons a discussion was held with the students to check their original ideas against the new insights they had gained.

The lesson with PowerPoint started with 2 tables/graphs as artefact.

The first graph shows the total international migration of Belgium between 1948 and 2019

The second graph shows the top 10 of Flemish communities in the first row with the highest, second row lowest % of inhabitants of foreign origin.

Via the teaching dialogue pupils gained insight in the reality of migration in Belgium on the one hand, and on aspects/terms of migration on the other hand.

After the lesson students were asked to analyse this table:

The pupils interviews after the lesson came with  these results:

    What surprised you most about the information you received?

    • % many immigrants in Belgium, from many different countries
    • mostly people from Europe migrate to us, mostly from neighbouring countries

    How has understanding of migration changed?

    • Not all migrants come from North Africa but from Europe and neighbouring countries, but we don't see him as a migrant because he is white.
    • Migration is still linked to appearance (skin colour, ...) and this is how they are labelled or not

    Why is it important to teach this at school?

    • knowing why people migrate
    • we are confronted with it (e.g. in Kortrijk) and it is important to understand it

The lesson with Google forms started with as artefact the population pyramid of Qatar and it recurs regularly in the assignment that works through 2 google forms.

In the first form pupils are first allowed to form a hypothesis about the cause of the disruption in the structure. I then let them choose from the most frequently formulated hypotheses I have heard in the past. Presumably their hypothesis will fit. If they have chosen the wrong hypothesis, they should realise this from the figures provided and make a new choice (via the last section) until they get the right one.

In the second Google form Some push factors are examined for Bangladesh, one of the main countries of origin: age structure, youth unemployment, GDP, terrorist situation... Followed by a brief profile of the migrants and the problematic situation with the construction of the football stadiums, among other things. Finally, there are also 4 short testimonies of migrants from Qatar and Bangladesh.

The pupils interviews after the lesson came with  these results:

    What surprised you most about the information you received?

    • so many people moving to Qatar, being exploited

    How has understanding of migration changed?

    • now it is clearer why they migrate
    • many have a wrong idea about why people migrate

    Why is it important to teach this at school?

    • everyone should be better informed so there is less prejudice
    • We are the next generation and we have to find a solution, it is a problem in the world.