Newly Arrived Migrant Students in German Schools: Exclusive and Inclusive Structures and Practices

Newly arrived migrant students in German schools are currently the centre of attention. In 2015 and 2016 the incoming number of migrant children and adolescents of school-age has risen. Schools, the education administration as well as politics need to take action with regard to this. In the on-going debate on new immigrant students in school, German media and the public focus have been predominantly on asylum seekers from conflict zones such as Syria or Afghanistan. For schools, the increasing number of newcomers with no or little proficiency of German currently poses a challenge, even though new immigrant students at school are not a new phenomenon, but rather a permanent one. From a theoretical point of view, social participation can be discussed within the division of inclusion and exclusion. In this article we examine the potential of a theoretical framework of social inclusion and exclusion in the case of new immigrant students and establish a connection between the organisation of schooling and practices in class. The analysis of a scene of multilingual classroom interaction, held in a separate class for newcomers only, shows how a complex interplay of including and excluding effects structure the situation of newly arrived migrant students.