The Case of Germany – Aussiedler Students

The Case of Germany – Aussiedler Students

This essay, makes us believe that Pontic Greeks are a more privileged immigrant group in Greece, however, this phenomenon, is quite common and in other countries such as in Germany (Voutira, 2004). According to, Eftihia Voutira:

"This practise derives from the fundamentally nationalist ideology by which membership in the state presupposes membership in the nation. Like Germany, which is a better-known example, Greece includes the diaspora in the former Soviet Union among members of the nation and gives them axiomatic right of entry" (Voutira, 2004:539).

In Gremany, there is a quite common immigrant group to Pontic Greeks, Aussiedler, who are repatriated Germans from the Eastern Europe who when they returned to Germany after the Cold War, they had more rights than other immigrants like Turks and Greeks (Sainsbury, 2006). Researches in Germany have shown that Aussiedler students have a better school performance than other immigrant students (Entorf & Minoiu, 2005). It is obvious that national identity to those two countries is quite important, as a result, repatriates are more privileged than the other immigrants because nationalist ideology still exists in these countries (Voutira, 2004).

After all, we can assume that Pontic Greeks are more likely to have a better school performance than the other immigrant students, the positive attitude of Grece’s society and policy, the racist and xenophobic attitude towards immigrants in this country, the ethnocentric structure of school curriculum, the higher socioeconomic status and cultural capital of Pontic Greeks and the fact that in Germany where the national ideology is quite important like in Greece, repatriated students tend to ha...

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...t peers (Damanakis, 2005).

Moreover, we should mention, that Pontic Greeks, as we have mentioned before, have a better economic status than the other immigrants (Voutira, 2004). In addition, in Germany, which is an ethnocentric country like Greece (Voutira, 2004), repatriated students have a better school performance than the other immigrants (Entorf & Minoiu, 2005). Finally, although in Greece there is intercultural education, its character is superficial, and it does not help immigrant students to overcome their problems (Kurdi & Papadopoulos, 2003).

We can assume, that although this issue is complicated, due to these reasons, Pontic Greeks students have more chances to have a better school performance than the other immigrants. Their ‘Greekness’ (Triantafyllidoy & Veikou, 2002), is very important, in Greece’s ethnocenric society.