One of the few schools aligned with the agreement between the UdG and the Bofill Foundation is the La Farga School in Salt, where virtually 100% of the students are of migrant origin and, in the management plan, explicitly includes an anti-racist approach to addressing the needs of its children. "Educating against racism doesn't just mean stopping the insults or violence that occur in the classroom, but also providing training and becoming aware of the subtle facts that we constantly perpetuate, in our methodologies or in our curriculum, which is focused on a Eurocentric perspective, since we don't explain all the stories of the world, or we explain all the stories of the world, of the school. "We must make it clear that our curriculum is focused on a Eurocentric perspective, that we don't tell all the stories of the world, and knowledge must be built from the contributions of people from all over the world," he adds. And finally, Nadal sends a message to the Department of Education: "It must be clear that anti-racism is a priority issue, not a voluntary project for each school; it must become the norm," he concludes.
Racism causes early school leaving: "I didn't start studying until they looked me in the eye."
The University of Girona and the Bofill Foundation promote an agreement to incorporate an anti-racist perspective in the fight against school expulsions.
Being a child of immigrant origins makes it harder to pursue a satisfactory educational path, with a secondary school diploma and formal post-compulsory education. In Catalonia, for example, three out of ten adolescents of immigrant origin drop out of school prematurely, three times that of young people of Spanish nationality, and the case of Roma students is particularly flagrant, with a dropout rate exceeding 80%. Miguel Jiménez, Hatim Azahri, and Déguène Eufemia Seck are three young people who have experienced these abuses firsthand, but, despite the difficulties, have managed to move forward: they have completed university studies and now work as activists to ensure that new generations have more opportunities. Roma students as problematic, which means they no longer dedicate themselves with the same effort, and it generates frustration and a very low self-perception among us Roma, which reproduces this stigma," explains Miguel Jiménez, member of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano. And, speaking of his experience, he adds: "I'm from Terrassa, 4th year of ESO, a teacher looked me in the eyes and told me and to make it clear that I was here, in class, and from then on I started studying, first a higher degree and then social integration at university." However, Jiménez points out that there is still a lot of work to be done because now, when he wants to enroll his daughter in school, he has seen how the community.
"Go back to your country!"
Déguène Eufemia Seck, whose father was Senegalese, attended the Jacint Verdaguer School in Barcelona and completed her secondary education with average grades until, realizing that she had always been treated as a "non-normative woman" and that her abilities had not been recognized, she took the plunge and studied. "The devil's advocate," they called her. "Many teachers have the notion that children of migrant families should not be educated in a way that tame and they do not communicate with the families,So we have to break with this dynamic, which involves humanizing people of immigrant and diverse origins, especially women, who are a minority within a minority," defends Seck, who continues: "We have to understand that, for immigrants, the decision to take our children to school in the host country is a true act of generosity." "We have heard ourselves say, 'Go back to your country!' when we weren't even born in Africa and our country is this one."
Hatim Azahri is a resident of Poble-sec, a very diverse neighborhood in Barcelona, and remembers how his high school teachers tried to dissuade him from the idea of studying for the baccalaureate: "They told me it was too complicated, that I should look at something else, like welding, and since the teachers are people in whom you have delegated trust and confidence, you have delegated trust and confidence to them; there they really motivated the whole group, we had good role models and I have studied a career that I would never have imagined."
Agreement to incorporate the anti-racist perspective
To combat this educational neglect among the migrant community, the Chair of Anti-Racist Analysis and Action at the University of Girona (UdG) and the Zero Dropout Platform of the Bofill Foundation are collaborating to incorporate an anti-racist perspective in the fight against early school leaving. Both institutions aim to analyze how the educational system influences educational trajectories based on racial constructs and how an anti-racist perspective can help address the grievances of academic failure. The study will result in a guide for professionals and municipal entities to improve, from an anti-racist perspective, the school dropout rate among 18- to 25-year-olds. The rate in Catalonia stands at 13.7% overall, one of the worst figures in Europe.