On 3 and 4 June, the Auditorium of the Parc Científic de Barcelona (c/Baldiri Reixac, 4-6) will hold a pioneering debate on policies to enhance the social integration of ethnic minorities around the world; an issue that has received little attention in Europe.

The debate, which will be held during the VI Conference on Educational and Social Change, organized by the CREA, will focus on the so-called positive discrimination. These policies originated in the U.S.A. and have proved to be one of the most effective measures to increase social integration. The sessions will address the viability of applying positive discrimination in Europe, where policy makers are considering application of this measure for the Romany or immigrant collective.

Positive discrimination has been one of the most important and controversial policies adopted by the U.S.A. in recent decades. Initially, these measures aimed to countervail the discrimination that certain communities suffered in the past (such as the slavery endured by the Afro-American community). Later, these policies were oriented to ensuring the presence of all collectives in distinct spheres. In fact, positive discrimination opened up universities, such as Harvard, and other ambits, such as the employment market, politics and the armed forces, to groups that had traditionally been segregated.

Given that Europe has an increasingly multicultural society, measures like positive discrimination are being proposed as a way to enhance the social integration of these groups, which, by tradition, have been socially excluded. Legislation that prohibits any kind of discrimination for reasons of race, ethnic group, creed, nationality or sex is insufficient. Positive discrimination takes a further step by ensuring that universities and the civil service favours these groups, thereby facilitating their access. These measures will therefore allow traditionally disadvantaged groups to be recognized and compensated.

To discuss the challenges and viability of positive discrimination in the European Union, the debate will include the participation of the professor of Education and Social Politics at Harvard University and founding director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, Gary Orfield, considered an expert in positive discrimination and whose work receives considerable coverage in the New York Times or on CNN. His research has been repeatedly cited in recent cases on positive discrimination in the U.S. Supreme Court and he has been called on several occasions to give an affidavit as an expert on positive discrimination. To contrast this presentation, the European perspective will be addressed by Jesús Gómez, professor at the Dept. Research Methods at the Universitat de Barcelona, Boladji Omer Bertín Oke, the director of Immigration of the Regional Government of the Basque Country, and Mohamed Chaib Akhdim, member of parliament of the Regional Government of Catalonia .

For more information please contact the conference secretariat at: 93 4034549. Email publicrea@pcb.ub.es