Project B1

Applying a qualitative approach, this project traces the production of educational inequality by performing multilayered microanalyses of organization-specific practices of distinction/discriminatory practices in the daily routines of professionals working in educational organizations, specifically kindergarten and elementary school. Selected children with a migration background are studied throughout their educational careers, from kindergarten to elementary school (Project I) and from there to secondary school (Projects II and III). The reconstruction of individual educational biographies from a longitudinal perspective is designed to cast light on the layered formations of inequality as they build up over time.

Whereas a relatively large amount of quantitative research is already available on unequal participation in education (particularly in schools), qualitative analyses of the pedagogic daily routines in educational organizations are still lacking. As far as the production of educational inequality is concerned, these routines can still be viewed as a "black box," because there have been hardly any studies of the ways in which the everyday practices—that is, practices of distinction—of professionals in different educational organizations promote the formation of inequality, how they are manifested in the educational career, and how they are perceived subjectively by the children involved.

This research project aims to fill that gap. A longitudinal ethnographic study, it comparatively examines practices of distinction in the daily routines of professionals working in the successive educational organizations of kindergarten and elementary school, with the objective of determining whether these practices generate educational inequality for children with a migration background—that is, from the perspective of ethnic heterogeneity. The analysis of such practices, which systematically integrates the children's own perspectives on experiences of inequality, aims to reconstruct processes and mechanisms in the production of inequality that reveal themselves as layered formations, building up over time as the children move through their educational careers. The theoretical starting point is a praxeological perspective.