Conference Agenda

This symposium examines how parents navigate three European education systems — in Austria, Germany and Switzerland — that are profoundly shaped by entrenched and intersecting inequalities. Although the concept of crisis is frequently invoked in public and educational discourse in these contexts (Sturm et al., 2025), it is rarely used to address structural inequalities within these education systems. Instead, crisis is often framed as an exceptional rupture, thereby obscuring historical continuities, or selectively attached to migration-related phenomena through terms such as 'refugee crisis' or 'migration crisis'. These crisis narratives construct situations of risk and threat that are predominantly projected onto racialised and migrant subjects, thereby individualising social problems and pre-emptively legitimising interventions aimed at safeguarding the status quo of national and educational orders (Cohen & Fogelman, 2025).

Against this backdrop, the symposium examines how crisis narratives are currently being mobilised within education systems in Europe, focusing the aforementioned national contexts, and how this relates to the categorisation and marginalisation of particular groups of parents in schools. These analyses draw on extensive qualitative empirical research on the relationship between parents, schools, and broader societal discourses conducted in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The studies comprise qualitative interviews with parents, teachers, and parent organisations, as well as document analysis and participant observation.

After providing insight into how parents are addressed in crisis-driven educational discourses across the three national contexts, the papers focus on parents' practices and responses to contemporary crisis narratives and related discursive interpellations, as well as on the strategies parents employ to navigate educational institutions within societies characterised by intersectional inequalities. By foregrounding parental agency, the symposium asks: How do parents respond to and challenge deficit-oriented and crisis-driven narratives? How do they manoeuvre within the complex field of subjectifying interpellations and contestation? What forms of counter-knowledge, critique and solidarity emerge within and between parent groups and organizations? And how, in these processes, do parents reproduce, negotiate and/or redefine dominant narratives concerning intersecting inequalities in education systems?

These questions are addressed in complementary ways across three contributions:

The first paper analyzes parental self-organization against intra-school segregation at a Viennese primary school. It combines discourse analysis of Der Standard articles and reader comments on urban school segregation to trace hegemonic narratives, and qualitative interviews with members of the “Anti-Segregation Working Group” to examine resistance practices and contested forms of collective subjectivation.

The second paper examines how 'migrant parent organisations' in Germany navigate ambivalent discourses of recognition within German migration society and develop strategies to address structural inequalities in the education system. Using document analysis and qualitative interviews, it analyses how these organisations respond to current crisis narratives about migration and the welfare state.

The third paper looks at parents who are active in parental education programs of migrant organizations and how “good” parenthood and “successful” integration are entangled here. Utilizing a subjectivation-theoretically informed reconstruction of a biographical interview the paper explores how migrantised engagement, shaped by experiences of non-belonging, becomes visible as a struggle for integrity, appearing fragile and at risk and opening only narrow spaces of agency within the integration dispositif.

From a comparative perspective, the symposium concludes with an analysis of the challenges and prerequisites for critiquing institutional and structural inequalities and exclusions within education systems. Drawing on our experiences of engaging with parents and parent organisations, we reflect on the roles assigned to (educational) researchers and academia in critiquing the ongoing marginalisation and exclusion of certain parents. In doing so, we consider questions of positionality and responsibility of educational research as well as the tensions that arise in this context, and explore possibilities for critique and transformation beyond crisis-driven narratives.

The proliferating discourses on the urgent need for “integration” reflect the crisis of the difference between “them” and “us”. (Bojadžijev 2020) Schools in gentrifying neighborhoods are particularly exposed to this crisis and therefore engage in celebrating diversity and managing “difference”. (Karakayali 2020; Blaisdell 2016). The interplay of the “fears and concerns discourse” (Foroutan 2016) and evidence-based knowledge about the contribution of the education system to social inequality tends to reinforce segregative strategies in schools and also among parents. Consequently, despite iconographies of diversity and its public celebration, public schools often function as engines of segregation. Drawing on critical perspectives on the governance of parenthood (Jergus, 2019) in the context of current education debates in crisis capitalism (Adler et al., 2025) the paper examines how intra-school segregation partly evokes parental action against institutional racism. A discourse analysis of Der Standard articles and reader comments on segregation in urban schools, traces hegemonic narratives. Discourse analysis reveals a broad ideological alliance across the political spectrum, in which arguments of freedom and social justice are mobilised to legitimise segregation strategies as expressions of “good parenting”. In contrast, counter-hegemonic positions are frequently dismissed as forms of “endangering children through political correctness” or as “socially romantic”. The prevailing “fears and concerns discourse” consistently constructs migrants as the source of the problem, rendering segregation seemingly inevitable and framing structural inequalities as solvable only at the expense of “the others”. By doing so, classes with merely migrant children are reflected as “dangerous classes” for the own children. However, institutional discrimination—and intra-school segregation in particular—produces differentiated effects across the entire school, shaping contradictory processes of collective subjectivation. Bei analysing qualitative interviews with parents, this paper explores processes of community building and experiences of resistance and collective subjectivation during the self-organised “Anti-Segregation Working Group” in a Viennese primary school. The “Anti-Segregation Working Group” was organised by migrant and non-migrant parents with the aim of opposing intra-school segregation. In qualitative interviews, parents involved in the working group reflect on the dynamics and experiences of acting against institutional racism and practices of othering. In particular, parents who describe themselves as privileged experienced confronting power relations within the school as “the hardest time in my life so far.” The paper interrogates the analytical potential of a “crisis of privilege” to contribute to the “de-migrantisation” (Bojadžijev/Römhild 2014) of middle-class “educational panic” (Bude 2011) within the context of neoliberal competition.

Adler, M., Corazza, V., Falkinger, B., Gouma, A., & Mendel, I. (2025). Eltern und Schule. Die gegenseitige Enttäuschung? Schulheft, 198, 5–10. Blaisdell, B. (2016). Schools as racial spaces: Understanding and resisting structural racism. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(2), 248–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2015.1023228 Bojadžijev, M. (2021). Wohnen, Finanzialisierung und Migration: Ein ethnographisch informierter Blick. In N. Kubaczek & M. Mokre (Eds.), Die Stadt als Stätte der Solidarität (pp. 141–158). transversal texts/eipcp. Bojadžijev, M., & Römhild, R. (2014). Was kommt nach dem „transnational turn“? Perspektiven für eine kritische Migrationsforschung. In Migration, Labor (Ed.), Vom Rand ins Zentrum: Perspektiven einer kritischen Migrationsforschung (pp. 10–24). Panama. Foroutan, N. (2016). Nationale Bedürfnisse und soziale Ängste. In M. d. M. Castro Varela & P. Mecheril (Eds.), Die Dämonisierung der Anderen: Rassismuskritik der Gegenwart (pp. 97–106). transcript Verlag. Jergus, K. (2019). Eltern als Bildungsakteure und die Familie als Bildungsort: Kontinuität und Wandel des Verhältnisses von Familie und Bildung. In M. Schweder (Ed.), Bildung und Erziehung im Abseits: Erste Annäherungen (pp. 31–47). Beltz Juventa. https://content-select.com/de/portal/media/view/5c84e9cf-6078-4906-9c6d-646eb0dd2d03 Karakayali, J. (2020). Rassismuskritische Perspektiven auf Segregation in der Schule: Zur Einleitung. In J. Karakayali (Ed.), Unterscheiden und Trennen: Die Herstellung von natio-ethno-kultureller Differenz und Segregation in der Schule (pp. 7–22). Beltz.

Historically, migrant parent organisations have played a central role in post-war German migration history, particularly in advocating equal participation for their children in the education system. However, civil society organisations representing migrant parents have long been overlooked in academic research and political discourse. Until the 1990s, collaboration with these organisations was widely avoided as they were primarily viewed as manifestations of a so-called 'parallel society' (Hunger/Holz 2019; Klevermann, 2022). Since the early 2000s, however, migrant parent organisations have increasingly been recognised as important 'stakeholders' within the German education system. They are often conceptualised as playing a 'key role' as extracurricular learning spaces, 'bridges' between migrant families and schools, or 'partners' of educational administrations (Kollender, 2023). Nevertheless, these externally imposed conceptions often differ from the organisations' own understanding of their role, with some publicly resisting the 'migrantisation' of their engagement (Foroutan 2022). Using a triangulated research design, this paper examines the positioning of migrant parent organisations within the current political discourse and how their members incorporate these roles into their self-perception (Alkemeyer/Bröckling 2018; Butler 2003). Firstly, an analysis of political and administrative documents reveals the normative expectations placed on migrant parent organisations within the German school system. Secondly, through qualitative interviews with members of self-identified migrant parent organisations, the paper explores how individuals relate to the expectations imposed on their organisational activities. The analysis reveals that the current surge in populist discourse and the perceived 'crisis of the national order' within the German school system, which is linked to rising forced migration to Germany, as well as a wider 'crisis' of the welfare state, is a pivotal context for subjectivation processes of 'migrant parent organisations'. By examining the strategies that these organisations use to challenge and disrupt prevailing systems of recognition and belonging in schools, this paper illustrates how they navigate the complex interplay between neoliberal and racist interpellations. Using the example of a Berlin-based parents' organisation, the paper illustrates how it addresses the structural exclusion of parents and students in schools, while also critically appropriating the growing scientific racism-critical discourse on parents and schools in Germany. Against this backdrop, the paper discusses the role of educational researchers — including the author — not only in critically investigating continuities in the exclusion of migrant parents and their children in German school systems, but also in tackling these issues within civil society networks alongside parents.

Alkemeyer, T., & Bröckling, U. (2018). Jenseits des Individuums. Zur Subjektivierung kollektiver Subjekte. Ein Forschungsprogramm. In T. Alkemeyer, U. Bröckling & T. Peters (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Person. Zur Subjektivierung von Kollektiven (S. 17–31). Bielefeld: transcript. Butler, J. (2003). Noch einmal: Körper und Macht. In A. Honneth & M. Saar (Hrsg.), Michel Foucault. Zwischenbilanz einer Rezeption. Frankfurter Foucault-Konferenz 2001 (S. 52–67). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Foroutan, N. (2022). Das postmigrantische Paradigma: Transformation gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse in pluralen Demokratien. In W. Sievers, R. Bauböck, I. Josipovic, D. Karabegović & K. Shinozaki (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Migrantologie: Aktuelle Herausforderungen und neue Perspektiven der Migrationsforschung. Jahrbuch Migrationsforschung (S. 33–53). Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Hunger, U., & Holz, D. (2019). Das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement von Migrantenorganisationen. Ein Überblick über die Vielfalt und aktuelle Trends. Migration und Soziale Arbeit, 41(1), 18–23. Klevermann, N. (2022). Organisationen der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft. Eine Subjektivierungsanalyse von Kollektionen. Opladen: Barbara Budrich. Kollender, E. (Selbst‑)Bildungsprozesse von und in ‚Migrantenorganisationen‘. Ambivalente Kooperations- und Anerkennungsbedingungen im Kontext von Schule. Z Erziehungswiss 26, 1449–1469 (2023).

Parents, particularly those positioned as deviating from a “mythical norm” (Lorde, 1993, p. 202) of a middle-class, “white,” heterosexual, healthy, and high-performing “normal family” (cf. Fitz-Klausner et al., 2021), are responsibilised for their children’s educational participation (Jergus, 2019). Thus, parental educational effort rather than structural conditions are looked at when it comes to explaining unequal educational trajectories. This paper examines parental education programs of migrant organizations where knowledge, for example about the school system or the dominant language, is negotiated as a prerequisite for “good” parenthood and successful integration (Kollender, 2020). Based on the Swiss National Science Foundation–funded research project “Parental Engagement in the Context of Childhoods Shaped by Education: Formations and Negotiations within Migration Relations”, our paper centres on the conditions under which familial norms of good parenting and engagement are enacted within migration relations. How do parents, who are potentially marked as “non-fitting”, invoke hegemonic norms of “good” parenthood (Walsh, 2018) as well as “good” immigrant (Hackl, 2022) when engaging in educational settings? These questions are addressed through a subjectivation-theoretically informed reconstruction (Ricken et al., 2023) of a biographical interview. Biography is understood as an interface between the narrating subject and social reality, as an approach to “subject–context relations” (Dausien et al., 2016, p. 30). Drawing on an interview with a mother, the paper explores how the integration dispositif is entangled with migrant parental engagement. It shows how processes of migrantisation are often accompanied by de-qualification, channeling individuals into labour market niches marked as “suitable”. Migrant knowledge and engagement thereby become professional and social resources, and yet remain closely linked to institutions and projects aimed at migrants, where they are made productive. The analysis illustrates how, within social structures shaped by racism, ideas of “good” parenthood are bound to the figure of the “good” (well-integrated) immigrant. Engagement thus appears as both Doing Good Citizenship and Doing Good Immigrant, making it impossible to escape this figure. The paper argues that migrantised engagement, shaped by experiences of non-belonging, becomes visible as a struggle for integrity that appears fragile and at risk and opens only narrow spaces of agency within the integration dispositif.

Dausien, B., Rothe, D., & Schwendowius, D. (Hrsg.) (2016). Bildungswege: Biographien zwischen Teilhabe und Ausgrenzung. Campus. Fitz-Klausner, S., Schondelmayer, A.-C., & Riegel, C. (2021). Familie und Normalität. Einführende Überlegungen. In A.-C. Schondelmayer, C. Riegel, & S. Fitz-Klausner (Hrsg.), Familie und Normalität: Diskurse, Praxen und Aushandlungsprozesse (S. 7–23). Budrich. Hackl, A. (2022). Good immigrants, permitted outsiders: Conditional inclusion and citizenship in comparison. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(6), 989–1010. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.2011938 Jergus, K. (2019). Eltern als Bildungsakteure und die Familie als Bildungsort. Kontinuität und Wandel des Verhältnisses von Familie und Bildung. In M. Schweder (Hrsg.), Bildung und Erziehung im Abseits: Erste Annäherungen (S. 31–47). Beltz Juventa. https://content-select.com/de/portal/media/view/5c84e9cf-6078-4906-9c6d-646eb0dd2d03 Kollender, E. (2020). Eltern—Schule—Migrationsgesellschaft: Neuformation von rassistischen Ein- und Ausschlüssen in Zeiten neoliberaler Staatlichkeit. transcript. Lorde, A. (1993). Du kannst nicht das Haus des Herren mit dem Handwerkszeug des Herren abreissen. In A. Lorde & A. Rich (Hrsg.), Macht und Sinnlichkeit (S. 199–212). Orlanda. Ricken, N., Rose, N., Kuhlmann, N., & Otzen, A. (2023). Die Sprachlichkeit der Anerkennung: Subjektivierungstheoretische Perspektiven auf eine Form des Pädagogischen. Beltz Juventa. Walsh, J. (2018). Migrant Family Display: A Strategy for Achieving Recognition and Validation in the Host Country. Sociological Research Online, 23(1), 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780417747286