This article critically examines how Malta, the smallest EU state, has developed spe- cific ‘small’ or ‘minimalist tolerance’ (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012) discourses and practices in the education of ethnic minorities and immigrants. ‘Smallness’ is one of the tropes adopted by education actors on the ground to account for the very min- imalist policies and practices currently in place. From a critical realist perspective, ‘smallness’ is seen to combine dimensions of ‘objective factors’ such as ‘fixed size’ and ‘economic size’ as well as ‘subjective perceptions’ or ‘perceptual size’ (Thorhallsson, 2006). A second discursive element that will be examined is that of a ‘Roman Catholic’ national identity (Mitchell, 2003) which to date disallows a re-conceptualisation of the ‘nation’ as culturally and ethnically diverse.
*Faculty of Education, University of Malta. E-mail: [email protected] ©Authors. ISSN 2000-4508, pp. 31–62
Thorhallsson and Wivel (2006) discuss three theoretical positions regarding small (EU) states and their behaviours: the realist position which seeks to identify the material parameters of smallness; the liberal position which is concerned with how interest groups manoeuvre relative power; and the constructivist position which explores how smallness is discursively constructed. Within the realist paradigm, Baldacchino’s (2011) comprehensive account of small, mainly island, states has moved away from the duality of ‘small is beautiful’ or ‘small is vulnerable’ to a more nuanced critical realist approach. A critique of the vulnerability paradigm is made whereby Baldacchino (2011) appeals for a positive reading of the action capabilities that such states may have through the “power of jurisdiction” or sovereign power such states usually command. More importantly, Baldacchino (2011:2) argues against the dytopic/utopic, reductionist, structuralist and determinist elements of the current realist work. Constructivists such as Andreou (2006) hold that “smallness” is “not an objectively definable category but a construction” in which the meaning actors “attribute to size” should be privileged over material factors. Whilst ‘smallness’ is considered “an empty signifier” (Andreou, 2006:2), the discourse of ‘smallness’ is seen to include not only linguistic or non-linguistic elements but “both social practices and material factors” (Andreou, 2006: 4). The spatio-temporal context is not simply a background to but constitutive of discourse/s. Thorhallsson’s (2006) conceptual framework of six categories which includes fixed size and territory, sovereignty size, political size, economic size, perceptual size and preference size combine material and discursive elements in a framework which is consistent with the critical realist (Fairclough, 2010) position adopted in this article. How ‘objective factors’ are consti- tuted discursively to produce ‘perceptual’ and ‘preference’ sizes which suggest certain policy options over others is explored here. This is not to say that ‘objective factors’ determine any one set of policy options; rather, it is to deconstruct how ‘objective factors’ and ‘subjective perceptions’ together lead actors and states to choose some options over others. Malta has currently chosen the ‘smallness’ option when it could (and should) choose an expansive or egalitarian tolerance option with regard to the education of ethnic minorities and immigrants.
Recently, Dobbernack and Modood (2012:4) and other contributors to the Accept Pluralism Project revisited the “idea of toleration”, arguing that in the face of liberal and other forms of intolerance there may be a useful engagement with toleration which “requires a qualified defence”. This would not only explore the boundaries between the “refusal and concession of tolerance” but also the limits inherent in the concept, such as the “discretionary exercise of power” vested in the tolerator, as well as “looking beyond toleration” to “more demanding responses such as equality, respect or recognition” (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012:2 passim). Tolerance and toleration are used interchangeably, although Dobbernack and Modood (2012:8) hold that tolerance “usually signifies a normative principle” whilst toleration refers to a raft of institutional and individual attitudes and practices. They explore three
“modalities of acceptance” which are intolerance or non-toleration where group or individual claims or practices “are not granted”; toleration where they are granted but always subject to the discretionary power of tolerators to grant them; and the space of accommodation where there is respect and recognition “as normal” and “admission as equal” (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012: 5, 21). In this classification of degrees of acceptance, Dobbernack and Modood (2012:21) insist that there is no “inherent telos” or moral superiority. In different circumstances different norms prevail. However, substantive equality presumes institutional accommodation and adjustment, and the removal of the threat of “interference” and “an absence of domination” (both missing in toleration) (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012:9). For ethnic minorities and immigrants to achieve this substantive equality, including respect and recognition, “a self-reflexive, re-consideration of national identity” is required (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012:7). Unless the majority population is willing to engage in a reciprocal exercise of reconstructing this identity with minorities, it is unlikely that ‘acceptance pluralism’ can develop. This conceptual framework allows for an analysis at different levels. It can be applied at the institutional level of legal frameworks, school systems and policy text analysis, as well as at the level of group or individual practices and discourses. Moreover, it is amenable to the common-sense understanding of actors who themselves often use the concept of ‘toleration’ in its different modalities to describe and justify their actions and attitudes.
The framework is used to discuss ethnicity and education through three interre- lated themes. The first concerns the way immigration and undocumented migration have shaped current education discourses, and what policy and other responses have been made to this. The second theme explores the historical hegemony of the Catholic Church and its impact on religious education and other curricula, as well as of the size of its school sector on the prospects of minority faith children. The third theme contrasts the rhetoric of education policy texts and other ‘diversity’ discourses with the mono-cultural imaginary of the ‘nation’ as Catholic (Baldacchino, 2002). It is argued that the ‘discretion’ model currently prevailing as a result of a laissez faire attitude regarding the education of ethnic minorities and immigrants, where the faire is also about a lack of fairness, is currently the hallmark of this ‘new’ host EU member state, as it is in other states with a similar profile (Jordan, Stråth and Triandafyllidou, 2003).