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Strategies for tackling educational inequality take many forms, though perhaps the argument most often invoked is school integration. Yet whatever the promise of integration may be, its realization continues to be hobbled by numerous difficulties. In this paper we examine what many of these difficulties are. Yet in contrast to how many empirical researchers frame these issues, we argue that while educational success in majority-minority schools will depend on a variety of material and non-material resources, the presence of these resources does not require school integration; indeed sometimes the most crucial resources are easier to foster in its absence. To that end, we briefly canvass the evidence from the United States on high performing majority-minority schools serving poor and minority students. Yet because these debates are so contentious in the American context, we pivot away from the U.S. to consider a different country, the Netherlands. We invite the reader to consider an analogous case where racial injustice and educational inequality are just as serious, yet where differences in the state school system might prove instructive concerning how some majority-minority schools choose to respond to existing segregation, but more importantly how educational success can occur in the absence of integration.

This article investigates whether European identity is a feasible and functional alternative to national identity. We examine the extent, determinants and consequences of national and European identification among (immigrant) Turkish and native Belgian pupils, with data gathered from 1629 pupils across 68 Belgian schools. The results show that immigrant Turkish pupils identify more strongly with Europe than with Belgium. The groups are closer to each other with respect to their European identification, while the latter is not in conflict with national identification. Moreover, European identity is less ethnically and more civically defined than national identity. Importantly, European identification was moderately related to academic achievement, though it is hard to make a causal claim.

While a growing number of studies have been conducted on European identification, very few of them have examined how children form their sense of European identity. This article investigates the impact of individual- and school-level characteristics on children's formation of a European identity. Multi-level analyses of data from 2,845 pupils (aged 10-14) in 68 Belgian primary schools revealed that family socio-economic status (SES), ethnicity, gender and the school's SES make-up influence the extent to which children identify as European; age, religion and school sector do not. The study clarifies the importance of examining how children form their European identity. Adapted from the source document.

The bulk of scholarship on multicultural education continues to focus exclusively on U.S. education. Previous studies published in this field also have focused largely on topics that are considered relevant for the United States, whereas little attention has been paid to topics that are less problematized in the United States. In this mixed-method study, we explore teachers' understanding of multicultural education in Flanders (Belgium), and we examine whether teacher and school characteristics correlate with the degree to which teachers integrate multicultural content. Survey results with 706 in-service teachers from 68 schools and in-depth interviews with 26 teachers from 5 schools are used. The results point out that teachers focus mainly on religious diversity when they were asked about their understanding of multicultural education. However, their understanding was largely limited to the "contributions approach" and "additive approach" to multicultural education. Multilevel analysis revealed that ethnic minority teachers reported higher levels of multicultural content integration than native-White teachers, and teachers working in schools with higher share of ethnic minorities and public (State) schools incorporated more multicultural education than teachers working in elite-White schools and Catholic schools. Implications for both the literature on multicultural education and educational policymakers are discussed.

In various European countries, policymakers strive for educational desegregation to enhance pupils' national identifications. Since little empirical evidence supports such a policy and social identity theorists emphasize the importance of context, this article examines the impact of ethnic school composition—measured by the proportion of non-natives and ethnic heterogeneity—on the national (Belgian) and sub-national (Flemish) identifications of pupils. Multilevel data analyses by surveying 2,845 pupils (aged ten to twelve) in sixty-eight Flemish primary schools reveal differential effects for natives and non-natives. While the proportion of non-natives at school is negatively associated with non-native pupils' identifications, it is positively related to native pupils' identifications. In general, the ethnic heterogeneity of the school is negatively associated with pupils' national and sub-national identifications. Our findings indicate that the relation between ethnic school composition and pupils' identifications is mediated by the latter's interethnic friendships. The consequences of these findings for educational policy are discussed.