PO/CU334 - Migration, Ethnic Minorities, and Multiculturalism in Europe

In the first part the course focuses on the recent developments in asylum migration and the political reactions on the European level. With displacement of people and public reactions in mind, the course reflects critically on the term refugee “crisis” and evaluates its meaning for the EU and its member states. Furthermore, it introduces the students to major theories of migration and to the history of European migration, including labor migration in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as postcolonial migration. Two sessions on internal and irregular migration demonstrate the variety of migration in Europe. In the second part of the course, different policy approaches of EU member states towards immigration and the resulting economic, political, social and cultural conditions for immigrants’ integration are analyzed in a comparative perspective. By getting to know the social realities of different European minority groups, the class investigates integration policies and multiculturalism from a transnational perspective and gets a glimpse on the experiences of migration itself. An outlook to the wider context of European concepts of multicultural society, comparing it to the U.S., and the future of immigrant societies in a globalizing world order will close the seminar.