Conceptualising teachers’ understanding of the immigrant learner

This article examines teachers’ accounts of their experiences with Portuguese children and adolescents in British schools. Specifically, teachers’ accounts of “bright” students and students’ “needs” are examined to investigate understandings of their immigrant students. Valsinerʹs conceptualisation of the psychological construction of difference as a process that is socio-culturally constituted and value-laden and Hermans and Kempenʹs notion of “contact zones” are used as a conceptual framework. The analysis shows that processes of “normalisation” and “stigmatisation” underline the interpretation of differences. The “bright” Portuguese student becomes assimilated to the category British – the difference is eliminated. The student with difficulties, “not-bright”, become assimilated to the category other – the difference is valued as a “deficiency” (e.g. special needs). Teachers acting within different contact zones provided alternative representations, and in particular, those from immigrant background take into account the cultural dimension in their conceptualisation of the immigrant learner.