The Leitkultur Debate In Germany And Its Significance To Multicultural Education

After World War Two. a large number of immigrants flow into Germany. Currently, German society actually features immigration, and these immigrants bring about cultural and social problems, which leave Germany reflecting on the melting issues. Compared with economic well-being, how to involve immigrants in the field of culture and education is of more significance. After German reunification, the policy of multiculturalism has been formed gradually, but there are always opponents. In the October of 2000, the leader of CDU/CSU Merz proposed that immigrants should adapt to mainstream German culture, which was opposed by many critics and aroused a large-scale discussion by different social groups. And later it was called ’The Discussion of Mainstream Culture’and it stimulated different German social groups to deeply reflect on common life basis, national identity as well as the melting principles of immigrants.Although there wasn’t much discussion from the educational field about this issue, the debates over the definition of mainstream culture and multiculturalism, the attitude towards them as well as how to help immigrants better adapt to German society are all of great significance to the multicultural education in Germany. Along German history of education, from the education of foreigners to the cross-cultural education, the educational policies are always wavering between mainstream culture and multiculturalism. Therefore, how to find a balance between them, in other words, how to develop mainstream culture with respect to the diversity of different cultures will be the main topic in this thesis. Presently, there is few domestic researches about German mainstream cultural, but as a multiracial country faced with similar educational problems, it is necessary for China to put emphasis on this issue.This thesis mainly consists of four parts, namely introduction, multiculturalism and mainstream culture, discussion about German mainstream culture, and the significance of the discussion about mainstream culture and its meaning in multicultural education. To be specific, the introduction explains the reason for this research, domestic research status and the research framework; the first chapter deals with the problem of immigration, the development of multiculturalism as well as the evolvement of the concept of mainstream culture; Chapter Two gives a detailed description of the whole process of the discussion of German mainstream culture and relevant problems, such as positions of different parties, focus of the argument, evaluation of the discussion, etc.; and the third chapter connects this discussion to education and analyzes its contribution to multicultural education in Germany, including some basic theories, the development and reform of German educational policies, cross-cultural policies and practices in Germany.