Familiarity in Europe

Swedes Begin to Question Liberal Migration Tenets:

But increasingly, Swedes are questioning these policies. Last fall, the far-right party — campaigning largely on an anti-immigration theme — won 6 percent of the vote and, for the first time, enough support to be seated in the Swedish Parliament.

But researchers have found that immigrants do face discrimination in jobs and housing. Malmo’s mayor, Mr. Reepalu, believes jobs and schooling are critical, though he notes with disappointment that as soon as a school has more than about 20 percent immigrants, Swedish parents take their children out.

I doubt the parents pulling their kids out of school can be attributed just to the 6 percent who voted for the right-wing party. Revealed preferences versus avowed I suppose….

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3 Responses to Familiarity in Europe

  1. RandyB says:

    Yeah, in Bradlaugh’s book he comes real close to saying that few American schools are between 25 and 80 percent Sun People (blacks and Hispanics, or NAMs) because once the former threshold is reached, the Ice People parents start pulling their children out.

    Public schools are the ultimate expression of NIMBYism — “the minority students will just have to learn through the osmosis of some other white’s kids.”

  2. Mike H says:

    At some point, the welfare of your own kids just trumps political preconceptions.

    If only the political consequences of that were realized by many of these parents.

  3. Clark says:

    Mike H makes the point well. I actually favor mixing of kids from different economic backgrounds, cultures and so forth within school districts. I think it’s the best way to help the disadvantaged, although I think there’s only so much school can actually do. (My criticism of conservatives is that they expect school to do too much and blame schools for problems that ultimately are elsewhere)

    All that said as a practical matter some kids will demand more teacher time than others. A teacher has two choices. They can either marginalize these kids ignoring their needs or else they can attend to their needs more (which isn’t necessarily the same thing as helping them). If you have kids in class with more home problems, with behavioral problems or with language problems then there’s a good chance that the other kids aren’t going to get as good an education as a classroom without kids with those problems. It’s perfectly rational for parents to try to avoid those problems. Although in doing so it’s also true they may be making poor judgments. (After all just because there are a lot of minority kids doesn’t mean the classroom dynamics are actually like that; and lots of long time Americans have speech issues – my son is in speech therapy and requires extra attention by his teacher)

    It’s a difficult balancing act. But while the parents might be acting against what’s good for the country it may well be they are behavior quite rationally on the limited knowledge they have for their own family.

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