Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

A social policy one of whose objectives is the achievement of numerical group representation in schools, housing schemes, and workplaces roughly equivalent to the representation of those groups in the wider society. Another objective of integration is the mutual recognition of group differences, which distinguishes it from assimilation in which minority groups lose their separate identities in the dominant group culture. Its ultimate goal is the elimination of barriers and impediments which are based on ethnicity, gender, and disability. It is seen by the World Health Organization as a basic human right particularly for those minority groups who historically have not been accorded equal access in a number of important areas: e.g., education, housing, and sport. Of these, one of the most significant from both a political and a social psychological standpoint is education. Over the past four decades there have been a number of policies in industrialized countries specifically aimed at redressing the balance in respect of children from minority ethnic groups and children with disabilities. One of the explicit rationales for these policies has been that the increased amounts of social interaction between groups arising from integration will result in more positive attitudes towards the previously excluded groups. In the United States an important stimulus for educational integration ... log in or subscribe to read full text