High potential

Advantages for teachers with a migrant background

(Bild: contrastwerkstatt - stock.adobe.com)

Politicians have long been calling for more people with a migrant background to enter the teaching profession. At the Vienna University of Teacher Education (PH), the proportion of immigrants among first-year students recently reached 35 percent. These would bring several advantages, explains PH Rector Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger.

If teachers themselves have a migration background, many culturally related misunderstandings can be avoided. It is true that at her PH, with its focus on diversity competence, there is an attempt to prepare all students for as many scenarios as possible and they are also taught to explain things that may seem obvious to people with Austrian roots. "But it's something else when you know from your own family what it means to bridge these differences," says the Rector

"Parents are almost never disinterested"
Parents are "almost never disinterested" in their children's educational success, says Herzog-Punzenberger, citing a common misinterpretation. If parents do not attend school appointments, it is often because they are not familiar with the system or believe they do not understand or communicate well enough. They would then rather send someone who they assume can do it better. Shame, for example because of their own bad experiences with school, can also play a role. "These are all things that have nothing to do with a lack of interest, but with the fact that you don't feel picked up for who you are."

It is important for the educational success of children and young people that the teaching staff get the parents on their side. "But in order to do that, I need to know what the hurdles are so that parents can trust the system in the first place." In order to anchor this knowledge as broadly as possible in the teaching professions, a professorship for parental cooperation and social space orientation has also just been created at the Vienna University of Teacher Education.

Teacher training not yet very diverse
Overall, Herzog-Punzenberger believes there is still room for improvement when it comes to diversity in teacher training. An analysis of the curricula a few years ago showed that there were only a few compulsory courses in this area for teacher trainees, regardless of the type of school they chose. Plurality in connection with migration or religious diversity were almost nowhere mandatory. "That's a big gap."

After all, the entire school culture is shaped by the majority society and this needs to be dealt with consciously. Herzog-Punzenberger believes that families living here with a different cultural or religious background should also be able to see themselves represented, for example by celebrating their different festivals together.