Language Minority Education Policy:

Turkish Immigrant Pupils in Germany

Anne Crutchfield

Introduction

As an exchange student in Tübingen, Germany from 2001-2002 I observed an

obvious segregation between Germans and Turks in the community that I belonged to.

The Turkish people that I came into contact with seemed to be torn between two cultures

and exposed to two sets of prejudices at the same time. Later, as a teacher in Germany

from 2004-2006, it became even more apparent to me that the Turkish population was

very much disadvantaged in society. My experiences prompted me to investigate the link

between language policy and the integration of Turkish minority group members into

German society.

In this paper I will survey the historical and political circumstances that have

contributed to Turkish and, in particular, language minority (LM) students being socially

and educationally underserved in Germany. I will also assess the impact of current

language policies and classroom practices on LM students. Finally, I will advocate for

recognition within the German school system of the language and educational rights of

LM students, the promotion of curriculum that encourages linguistic and cultural

diversity, German as a second language (GSL) instruction and bilingual education

initiatives grounded in theory and research, and increased collaboration between German

schools and the Turkish community.

1

Linguistic diversity in Germany

The official language in Germany is Standard German, sometimes referred to as

High German or Hochdeutsch. Unlike in the United States, where there is no official

language policy, Standard German is by law the medium of spoken and written

communication is virtually all public sectors of society.

Considering Germany’s official language policy, it might come as a surprise that

the majority of native German speakers grow up speaking a regional or local dialect at

home and in the community and are first formally exposed to Standard German once they

enter primary school and are taught to write. Throughout the country there are 16

dialects that exist in spoken form only. For the most part, they are not mutually

intelligible and many could be considered languages in their own right.

In addition to an official language and 16 dialects, Germany is also home to

numerous minority and immigrant languages. Seven percent of the 82 million people that

make up Germany’s population speak a language other than German as their first

language (L1); the most widely spoken minority language being Turkish, with 1.8 million

speakers (Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland, 2006).

1

In order to understand how

Turkish has come to represent the largest population of minority language speakers in

Germany, it is necessary to consider the historical and political circumstances behind

Turkish immigration movements to Germany.

1

Followed by Italian (550,000 speakers), Greek (300,000 speakers) and Croatian

(230,000 speakers).

2

Turkish immigration to Germany

After World War II Germany was destroyed; the country lay in shambles and had

to be completely rebuilt. Moreover, a large percent of Germany’s eligible workforce had

been killed. This created a high demand or laborers, so the Germans recruited migrant

workers from, primarily, Southern Europe and Turkey to come to Germany as

guestworkers. The term guestworker is intended to denote a person who temporarily

immigrates to a foreign country to work and earn money with the understanding that once

the work is finished and the demand for outside labor is no longer needed the

guestworker will leave and return to his homeland. When huge waves of migrant

guestworkers came to Germany from the 1950s to the 1970s, most Germans did not

imagine that half a century later, these men and their families would still be in Germany,

with grandchildren and great-grandchildren deeply rooted in German society.

In any case, the Turkish men who came to Germany and rebuilt the country were

very much a part of the German Wirtschaftswunder, or “economic miracle” (Henderson,

2002). This so-called miracle refers to the substantial turnaround that the German

economy underwent as a result of “a currency reform, the elimination of price controls,

and the reduction of marginal tax rates” (Henderson, 2002, p. 1) carried out in 1948 and

in 1949. Henderson explains:

“At the time, observers [of the post-war economic condition] thought that
Germany would have to be the biggest client of the U.S. welfare state.
Yet twenty years later its economy was envied by most of the world”
(Henderson, 2002, p. 1).

In 1990 the economic situation in Germany changed drastically when East and

West Germany reunited to become the Federal Republic of Germany. The reunification

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and the fall of the Berlin Wall marked a major turning point in the history of Germany

both politically and economically. The former Soviet occupied East Germany was

impoverished after 45 years of communism and the economically prosperous West

German government took on the responsibility of bringing the East out from behind the

“iron curtain” and back up to Western standards. This created a severe financial strain on

the country.

As result of the reunification, German’s economy crashed, leading to serious

unemployment problems. The unemployment rate was close to 25% in the former East

and about 12% overall at its worst, in 2003 (Federal Statistics Office Germany, 2007).

With the number of available positions sinking rapidly, Germans and immigrants found

themselves competing for the same jobs; jobs that would likely be considered

substandard or blue-collar jobs by many Germans. This gave rise to animosity and

discrimination between Germans and Turks, eventually developing into racism and

xenophobia on both sides.

This process of anti-immigrant sentiment evolving out of a country’s economic

instability has been observed in other contexts (Dicker, 2000) in which a nation’s

working class feels threatened by a minority group. The tendency in such cases is for an

increasingly negative perspective of foreigners to develop as well as movements that

promote language restrictionism.

Although one might expect that the Germans would show more tolerance and

acceptance toward minorities, considering the country’s history of genocide and extreme

forms of xenophobia, this isn’t necessarily the case. It could, however, be argued that

Germany’s Nazi past does feed into the negative discourses about Turkish people in

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Germany. Many Germans feel that the government, having already paid billions of euros

in reparations to the Jews, expresses too much regret and apology for the past, and that

this is actually preventing German people from moving away from its xenophobic

mentality. They feel that as long as the government continues to subordinate to the

Israeli Jews, Germans will continue to be confronted with shame and remorse over

something that most of them (i.e. those who were not alive at the time) had no

involvement in. In the meantime, German taxpayer’s money goes toward funding the

Israeli-Arab conflict. Even though most Germans deeply disagree with the ideology of

this war, they cannot openly undermine Jewish involvement in it in any way. Therefore,

unable to adequately deal with Germany’s Nazi past and move on as a nation, German

society seems to project its anger and frustration over the situation onto other foreigners

and minority groups. In a sense, the Turks end up as the scapegoats in this regrettable

situation, which might help to explain why today there are nearly two million Turks

living in Germany yet no real attempt to integrate them into society.

Turkish integration

When the results of the first Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)

were released in 2000, the blow to Germany was colossal. The PISA study measures the

reading, math and science literacies of 15-year olds in industrialized nations around the

world. In this international comparison, Germany achieved a score in the bottom third in

each area tested. Most alarming for “the land of poets and thinkers” were the exposed

deficits in reading: one in five eight-grade students (22.6%) demonstrated only

elementary-level reading abilities (Organization for Economic Cooperation and

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Development (OECD), 2007). This prompted German officials, educators and parents to

look for answers to the question: Why are German pupils’ test scores so low? The

undisputed explanation was that the immigrant pupils and their insufficient language

proficiencies were dragging the test scores down. This assertion ignited sentiments about

a major social issue in Germany: Turkish integration into society.

The three-tiered German school system

The place where many Turkish immigrant children’s initial contact with the

German language takes place is in the German school system. At the age of six, all

children in Germany go to primary school, which typically includes grades one through

four. After primary school there are three distinctive educational paths. Fourth grade

students must take a qualifying exam, which, at the tender age of ten, determines whether

they will attend a low-track, middle-track, or university-track secondary school. Each

school offers a different course of study leading to an entirely different educational goal.

See Figure 1:

Figure 1: Three-tiered German school system and educational paths

The low track entails a five- or six-year, quasi-academic, general education leading to

vocational training. The middle track involves a six-year, intermediate academic

education leading to technical or specialized training. And the university-track requires a

6

nine-year, highly academic education that prepares pupils for university studies (Führ,

1997).

Exceptions to this cut and dried categorization of primary school students are

possible, such as the so-called “orientation phase” in grades five and six that allows

students to switch schools in the seventh grade, as well as the “alternative education

path” of attending remedial evening classes in order to move up to a higher school.

However, the German system is considerably rigid, so once a path has been determined,

it is more the exception than the rule that a student changes to a school of higher level.

The German school system dates back to the 19

th

century, when its function was to sort

out potential scholars and begin university preparation as soon as possible (Führ, 1997).

Its underlying purpose was also to ensure that society’s upper class could maintain a

dominant role in the social class system. In fact, the latter objective is still carried out

today.

One of the biggest criticisms of the German school separation process is that the

bottom-tier, low-track schools become collection points for students with learning and

behavioral difficulties, under-achievers, and, most disconcerting, immigrant children.

Due to developing German language proficiencies, students who speak a language other

than German as their first language (L1), or language minority (LM) students, are often

automatically sent to low-track schools.

The misinterpretation that LM students’ linguistic deficits are indicative of low

academic potential or even mental retardation is not limited to the context of Germany.

Davis et al (2005), for example, reported on the civil rights violations of LM students in

the United States who were disproportionately placed in special education programs.

7

Statistics show that in Germany, 60% of the students in the bottom-tier are LM

students, only 12% of Turkish immigrant children end up in the top-tier schools, and an

alarming low 3.3% of LM students who are educated in the German school system make

it to the university (Young, 2006). Needless to say, this system presents a major obstacle

for students from immigrant families. It establishes socially cohesive communities of

Turkish-speaking children who are generally isolated from German-speaking

environments. This could very well affect their acquisition of German, a clear

disadvantage in a German-only school system. The short-term, quick fix decision of

school choice made on their behalves in the fourth grade can pose very long-term, far-

reaching consequences for Turkish immigrant children in terms of educational path,

social development, future qualifications, career possibilities and potential income, as

well as integration into German society. Moreover, these consequences carry over into

future generations, further perpetuating inequality of opportunity.

School language policies

LM students in Germany are confronted with school language policies that

disadvantage and marginalize them. First, the medium of instruction in schools is

Standard German. This policy is the byproduct of highly prescriptivist attitudes toward

maintaining a high standard of the German language, as well as language ideologies and

“German-only myths” that, for example, the only way to succeed in society is by

speaking Standard German, as opposed to German dialect or other variation of the

language such as Turkish-German. Further research should be done to investigate how

this Standard-German-only school language policy plays out in practice; that is, to what

8

extent non-standardized language varieties are actually used by students, teachers, and

school administrators.

A relatively new policy introduced in 2006 made English as a foreign language

(EFL) instruction obligatory for all pupils starting in the first grade. This is a prime

example of the effect of globalization and the English as an international language (EIL)

paradigm on school foreign language learning policy. Out of 38,000 schools in Germany,

about 200 schools offer bilingual education programs (Mäsch, 1993). However, the

majority of these programs are German-English or German-French bilingual programs

created to serve political agendas. Mäsch (1993) describes the rational behind the

German Model of bilingual education that was pioneered after the Second World War in

an effort to foster better relations with France. He explains that “the spirit behind [the

German-French bilingual streams] was based on the desire for post-war reconciliation

and better understanding via linguistic comprehension” (Mäsch, 1993, p. 303). Thus,

there is a noticeable mismatch between the current language policy, which supports

bilingual education for political gain, and the language needs of the country: bilingual

education programs that back minority and heritage language learning and teaching.

Classroom practices and realities

By exploring how the aforementioned language policies play out in German

classrooms, some prominent themes emerge. First of all, the German school system fails

to acknowledge the language rights and educational rights of its LM students. The

overarching attitude is that by virtue of the fact that they live in Germany, Turkish

students should automatically acquire and use the language in the same way as their

9

monolingual, native-German speaking peers. Yet, most Turkish speakers in German

schools are most likely bilingual, heritage language learners, who will undoubtedly speak

a different variety of the language and/or codeswitch between the two. Yet, when

teachers and officials observe such forms of language use, they view it as poor or

deficient.

In an attempt to deflect the responsibility for the “poor” language skills of LM

students away from the schools, finger-pointing ensues. For one, parents are blamed for

speaking only in Turkish with their children. There is a discourse operating that

foreigners who live and work (i.e. make money) in Germany are supposed to speak

German all the time, even when they share a common L1.

In addition, the Turkish culture and Islam are attacked and essentialist ideologies

about German versus Turkish, Western versus Oriental traditions and ways of life are

brought into play in classes with LM students. Is has been argued (Onder, 1996) that

Turkish children are isolated in school and treated as outsiders because they are operating

on Islamic norm-value systems. Onder writes that “Germany and German schools are not

a natural environment for foreign children […] as far as their own orientation and

behavior are concerned” (Onder, 1996, p. 20). At the same time, a form of “reverse

essentialism” can also take place in which German teachers believe that, for example, by

wearing headscarves, not eating pork, or not participating in co-ed gym classes, it’s the

Turks (other) who don’t want to belong to the German (self) culture.

This discourse points toward the possibility that Turkish children are tracked into

the bottom-tiered, Hauptschulen based on non-linguistic factors such as race, religion, or

socioeconomic status. This is often the case with African American children in the

10

United States who are placed in lower classes under similar circumstances (Delpit, 2003).

Further research should be carried out that looks at the language actually used by children

of immigrant families in Germany to see if those being held back and essentially denied

academic achievement opportunities are true second language learners who lack

proficiency in German, i.e. LM students, or if they are actually bilinguals and heritage

language learners who speak a non-standardized variety of German and are, therefore,

falsely assessed as lacking the linguistic competence necessary for academic

achievement.

An extreme example of a hegemonic school language policy in Germany that

received national attention came out of the Herbert Hoover low-track secondary school in

a predominantly Turkish area of Berlin. In this school, where 90% of the students have

immigrant parents and a mother tongue other than German, a ban on Turkish and other

languages was implemented, earning them the German National Prize and $94,000 by the

National German Foundation. The school’s director, Jutta Steinkamp, explained that

“this ban [has been introduced] to enable our students to take part in German society

through speaking and understanding the language properly,” and that “knowing the

language is a precondition for successful integration” (Hessler, p. 1). The fact that when

they register their children for school, parents must sign papers that forbid their children

to speak their own language involves powerful notions of linguistic imperialism and the

disciplining of discourses (Higgins, 2007).

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Teacher education policies

The education system for teachers ignores classroom realities. Therefore, there is

a huge linguistic and cultural gap between teachers and students. University students

pursuing a degree in teaching are required to demonstrate fluency in English and

proficiency in French and Latin. Again, there is an emphasis on scholarly, academic

languages rather than languages that will be useful for communicating with, or simply

relating to the high percentages of LM students that teachers will encounter in Germany’s

schools.

One of the biggest problems in German classrooms is that teachers are not trained

to teach German as a second language (GSL), nor are they prepared to deal with the

challenges of teaching GSL students. The current policy on German education is so that

LM students are in the same German classes as native speaking students; there are no so-

called “pull-out” classes. And since teachers have no training in GSL teaching or cross-

cultural education, the LM students are often treated as a problem and a hindrance to the

native German speaking students’ learning. Turkish students then become scapegoats for

the learning difficulties of German students, a process that further marginalizes them in

the classroom, in the school system and in the wider society.

Proposal of reforms to existing policies

In order to move toward a more integrative and collective learning environment

for all of Germany’s students, the three-tiered system of separating children into different

schools should undergo extensive reformations. Although policy makers in Germany do

agree that the system is unable to provide equal opportunities to underprivileged minority

12

groups, they also concede that “education reform is an ideological minefield in Germany”

(Young, 2006, p. 1). Changing the system to rectify the situation for the disadvantaged

would undoubtedly be met with resistance from the advantaged groups who prosper from

the current system. Nonetheless, schools with diverse student populations in which LM

students’ native languages and cultures are embraced and treated as a resources rather

than problems would be a huge step in the right direction in terms of learning outcomes,

social development and integration into German society.

Working toward the goal of embracing diversity in German schools could be

achieved by bringing students’ first language and first culture into academic contexts

within the school system. For example, Davis et al (2005) used the critical participatory

approach to examine issues associated with language, identity and academic development

in specialized courses for Filipino and Samoan minority high school students in Hawaii:

“This exploration not only aids students in considering a
possible hybrid cultural and language identity, but can also help
parents and teachers value students’ ability to draw on a
repertoire of cultural and linguistic knowledge for appropriate
language use in particular interactional situations. Through
community explorations, students begin to develop
metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness about how language
is structured and used that they then can transfer to
understanding school communities of practice.” (p. 7)

Following a similar approach in the Turkish-German context could be a valuable and

effective way to help students draw from their language and cultural backgrounds to

employ counter-discourses that challenge oppressive classroom practices that treat LM

students as illegitimate members of society.

In his study of Turkish returnees from Germany, Daller (1999) found that

compared to the control group of foreign language learners of German in Turkey,

13

bilinguals who grew up in Germany as children of Turkish immigrant families and

learned German in schools demonstrated significantly higher scores for everyday

language proficiency in German but not in academic language proficiency. This supports

key research findings by Cummins (1984, 1991) that “migrant children reach the

proficiency level of their monolingual peers in basic interpersonal communication skills

quite quickly but need much more time to achieve their level in cognitive-academic

language proficiency” (Daller, 1999, p. 157) and that it takes a minimum of five years

time for LM students to master conversational and academic literacies. Furthermore,

maintenance bilingual education programs that promote L1 literacy development

alongside second language (L2) literacy development are proven to be more successful

than transitional programs that aim to increase the amount of L2 instruction and decrease

students’ reliance on their L1 as quickly as possible. The Ramirez Report (Ramirez et al,

1991), a longitudinal study of 2000 Spanish-dominant primary school students from low-

income families in the United States, revealed that by grade six, students who

participated in late-exit bilingual programs progressed faster than those who took part in

English-only immersion programs or early-exit bilingual programs. Based on these

findings, it is likely that LM students in Germany would benefit from Turkish-German

bilingual education initiatives grounded in second language acquisition (SLA) and

bilingual education research and theory. Pedagogically sound materials and

methodologies that promote their L1 academic literacy and discourse knowledge

development alongside L2 instruction would better serve the needs of these LM students.

Research has found that teachers who do not possess an understanding of SLA

theory and practice have difficulty in pinpointing the sources of their LM students’

14

learning difficulties (Vaipae, 2001). Therefore, in addition to educational reforms and

bilingual education initiatives, improved teacher training programs at the university level

and professional development opportunities for in-service teachers focused on GSL

learning and teaching would help reduce LM student stigmatization and marginalization

in the classroom.

Finally, cooperation with Turkish organizations and associations would help to

bridge the growing gap between German schools and the Turkish community. Herlot and

Young (2005) carried out a minority language education project in Didenheim, France

that entailed parental participation; that is, teachers asked their pupils’ parents to come

into the classrooms and present on their languages and cultures in an effort to integrate

and legitimize the pupils’ minority languages spoken at home. The project proved that

collaboration among teachers and parents can be an effective way of putting the

languages and cultures of LM students on the same level as the dominant language and

culture of the school.

In recent years it has become increasingly popular in Germany for students to

attend after school tutoring sessions offered by Nachhilfeinstituten, or “tutoring

institutions.” Many of these tutoring institutions are Turkish owned and managed and

cater specifically to Turkish immigrant students. This could serve as a forum for

partnership between teachers from German schools and after-school tutors of Turkish LM

students. By working together with a common goal of addressing the language needs and

rights of Turkish immigrant children, the possibilities for improved educational

opportunity for LM students seem highly attainable.

15

Conclusion

Germany’s shortcomings in integrating a continuously growing population of

Turkish immigrants start desperately early in school systems that systematically disregard

these and other disadvantaged children. The country’s history of immigration and the

remnants of its national socialist past have had a direct affect on the disintegration of LM

students not only in German-only classrooms, but also within the segregating school

system and later as illegitimate members of society. Current language and teacher

education policies seem to maintain inequality of opportunity for this underserved

community. It is my hope that teachers, educational administrators, and parents in

Germany gradually begin to improve the situation for LM students by working together

toward raising the profile of minority languages and cultures, acknowledging the

potential of GSL instruction and bilingual education, and, ultimately, fostering tolerance

toward diverse races, religions and languages within a heterogeneous society.

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