Concluded projects
of the Institute of Conflict Research
Integration as a policy area at community level
| Project Management: | Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Halbmayr |
| Project Team: : | Mag.a Karin Bischof Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Halbmayr Mag.a Kerstin Lercher Mag.a Barbara Liegl |
| Financed by: | Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture |
| Concluded in | December 2006 |
The project deals primarily with the responses to a questionnaire for municipalities in Lower Austria. The survey was addressed to responsible policy makers,asking for their assessment of the status quo of integration, the identification of challenges as well as needs for support at community level. It was part of the EQUAL project “different origin - common future”, which had policies at community level as one of its priorities (the aim was to develop guidelines for the integration of immigrants into the communes of Guntramsdorf, Hainburg, Krems, and Traismauer). In a further step, the results of the survey were linked with concrete data of the communes, concerning the percentage of immigrants, their national background, their activity rate, the political parties represented on the municipal council, the economic structure of the communes, etc.
Eventually the experience gathered with the EQUAL process and the data of the municipalities were analysed in an article, entitled “Integration as Community-Level Policy Field - Conditions of Development, Problems and Models” (see www.sws-rundschau.at). The article deals with the policy area of integration at community level and tries to highlight its relevance for future developments in communes and cities. Integration is understood as a two-way process but the focus is on efforts by the receiving society, which is a necessary precondition for the (active) integration of migrants. Therefore, activities undertaken by communes or municipalities to achieve equal opportunities, equality under law, and a new resource-oriented understanding of diversity are presented and analysed. Another aspect that is important for the development of integration policy are the perceptions of the majority populations (of migrants). Based on the data analysed and the experience gained during the process of developing integration guidelines, the authors assume that integration policies in communes and municipalities are becoming ever more important in the context of preventing exclusion and discrimination of migrants.
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