Between the force of prejudice and the Pygmalion effect: "cultures of origin" and school results of the children from immigrant families

This article focuses on the children of foreign immigrants in Catalan primary schools, establishing linkages between their academic performance and their teachers' views on their family origin and cultural background. The research, carried out in a culturally diverse public school in the Maresme, a coastal area north of Barcelona with significant Moroccan and Latin American populations of relatively recent arrival, revealed points of connection between the dominant cultural(ist) imaginaries shared by teachers and the grades received by their students. The discussion focuses on how student performance is evaluated in an area especially vulnerable to prejudice and cultural stereotyping: the child's "character and personal development." The case study presented allows us to observe closely the processes through which immigrant children in pre-school and primary school classrooms are constructed as "minorities," caught between the " force of prejudice" (Taguieff 1988) and the " Pygmalion effect" (Rosenthal and Jacobson 1969).