Professor Ingrid Gogolin – International Expert on the Educational Integration of Children From Migrant Backgrounds Speaks at TCD

Posted on: 10 November 2008

Professor Ingrid Gogolin, an international expert on the educational integration of children from migrant backgrounds  gave a lecture last week  entitled,  Migration, integration, educational success: lessons (not) to be learnt from “old” immigration countries.  Professor Ingrid Gogolin is a member of the School of Education, Psychology and Human Movement at Hamburg University and is internationally renowned for her research on the educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds. The lecture was organised by the Trinity Immigration Initiative.

For some years she has researched such questions as: What determines unequal opportunities of educational achievement for immigrant minority children? And why is it that some educational systems do much better than others in integrating immigrant minority children? Her lecture will present the key results of her research and in doing so will indicate some of the lessons that Ireland can learn from “old” immigration countries.

In the course of the lecture,  Professor  Gogolin  said : “In nearly all educational systems worldwide the attainment of immigrant minority children remains persistently below the average of non-immigrant children. Why is this so? On the one hand, research has established that equal opportunity in education is an illusion; on the other, the reproduction of highly unequal educational opportunities is  not inevitable, but results from a failure to take full advantage of the opportunities available. This is clear from research like the PISA studies, which show that educational systems are capable of reducing the disadvantages of immigrant minority children by dissolving the dependency between social class, immigrant background and educational achievement.”

The lecture was organised by the Trinity Immigration Initiative, a research programme on diversity, integration and policy. The multidisciplinary research programme  focuses on the areas of employment, social policy, culture and language .

About Professor Gogolin:
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Gogolin is a member of the School of Education, Psychology and Human Movement at Hamburg University and is internationally renowned for her research on the educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds. From 1998 to 2002 she was President of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (German Society for Educational Research) and from 2004 to 2007 President of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). She has been a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town, Columbia University, the University of Vienna, and the University of Southampton.