Migration und Begabungsförderung

Germany did not realise until quite late that it is crucial for a society's capacity for development that migration and integration are dealt with constructively and with foresight. This is especially manifest in the areas of education, training and employment. The fall in birth rates of the indigenous population and the growing shortage of skilled workers, at the same time the unemployment of many who are able to work, but also the positive effects of integration support for new immigrants, which has at last become the norm through the Immigration Act, have facilitated a change of perspective that was long overdue. This volume makes a valuable contribution to enhancing this new perspective by looking at the potentials of migrants rather than their alleged deficits, thereby focusing on the aspect of individual educational career guidance. The reports and essays illustrate, from an academic perspective and from practical experience, but also from the authentic experiences of young people with migratory backgrounds, the need for and potential of counselling that is sensitized to the needs and concerns of the immigrants.The volume presents successful concepts from Germany and Britain that are applied at particularly critical points of individual educational biographies in the context of migration: namely at the transition from school to job training or higher education, or where a high-level qualification from another country has to be adapted to suit the local employment market.Together the contributions make a strong case for improved educational career counselling that starts out from the individual needs of people with different migratory and cultural backgrounds. They argue convincingly in favour of structural reforms in education and in vocational training for people with migratory backgrounds, but also in the way their qualifications and experiences that they bring with them from their home countries are recognised.>