Introduction: Diversity-Engaged School Leadership in Switzerland

Reality of diversity-engaged leadership: Empirical evidence from school leaders in Switzerland

Interview of Vorstadt Solothurn in German (PDF)



Interview of Directeur d’école Mr CV in Fribourg in French (PDF)

Interview of Vorstadt Solothurn in English
 (PDF)

Interview of School principal Mr CV in Fribourg in English (PDF)

Introduction to Mr. CV’s school in Fribourg

How to learn from this case study?

Critical thinking questions:

1. When thinking about the purposes of education in the age of unprecedented migration, is integration one purpose of education?

2. Is the responsibility of a school leader to make change or to maintain stability (for both host and newcomer students and families)? Why?

3. How would a school leader’s behavior differ when using an equality approach to education and migration/diversity (“colorblind”) or an equity approach (seeing differences)?

4. How can school leaders prepare themselves and their staff for schools that are increasingly diverse owing to migration (in terms of language, culture, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.)

Class activities:

1. Create criteria/an entry “intake” for newcomer students to your school. Consider the requirements they are supposed to meet and the special requests/needs/interests they might have and how these can be combined and assessed. These might be academic or non-academic. Discuss and compare your criteria or entry intake with those of other students and critically reflect on them.

2. In the interviews, the two school principals emphasize language as an important requirement to take part actively in school life, to follow classes, to take exams, to communicate with fellow students and teachers. Can you think of solutions as to how the language barrier could be reduced? Is there such a language barrier in schools in your country context as well? How is it handled?

3. Teacher-parent meetings are important events for exchanging information about students/children. These can be fairly difficult encounters for newcomer parents who are not familiar with the culture, habits or language. In small groups, role play one such meeting. The roles to be acted out are: principal(s), one class teacher (responsible for parent relations, excursions, administrative tasks, problems), several subject teachers, the parent(s), possibly the student, and possibly an interpreter if you think that there should be one present. Try to bring out the possible stereotypes, conflicts, problems, hopes, dreams and desires of each party. Discuss and reflect on them afterward.

Self-study activities:

1. Look at the two transcripts and find 1-2 advantages and disadvantages to their approaches to welcoming refugees and migrants. Are there aspects which you would like to adopt in your own (current or prospective) practice? Do you have suggestions as to how they could do it differently?

2. Reflect on what integration means to you and write down a definition. Compare your definition with other definitions you can find in education policies as well as the (impromptu) definitions given by the two interviewed school leaders. How are they different? Can you think of (concrete) examples of what it means to integrate someone and be integrated?

3. Schools often debate the difference between integration and inclusion. Where do you see the biggest difference? To what extent is it relevant to make distinction in schools? Can you provide 3-5 examples how integration and inclusion are implemented in schools in your country? Can you think of other examples which are not yet implemented?

For more detailed information on migration in Switzerland see the following:

Policy Documents

Grey Literature

Scholarly Articles