Vortrag beim Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Washington D.C.

In many peripheral areas, the existence of public educational provision is threatened by demographic decline and consequently shrinking numbers of pupils. As a reaction many states withdraw from their obligation to locally provide adequate educational offers, by shifting the responsibility from the national to the local level. As a consequence many public schools have been closed or taken over by non-state school providers, private companies or parents’ asscociations, eventually leading to a privatization of educational provision in rural areas.

The arrival of new migrants in Europe since 2015 has interrupted the demographic decline in many peripheral municipalities. At the same time a new demand for educational offers has been created – especially language and integration courses. Even though the participation in these courses is usually imposed by the state, they are not provided by the national education systems, but by non-state educational providers, non-governmental organizations, private associations or local volunteers.

In the presentation we will analyze how the arrival of refugees in rural areas and the mobilization of new non-state actors and volunteers has impacted on the existing educational landscapes in rural areas in the German-Danish border region. Methodologically we apply a comparative perspective on two municipalities on both sides of the border in the context of their respective national regulations and multilevel governance structures.
The paper is part of a broader research project which focusses on the access to education and participation opportunities for young refugees in rural border regions in Germany and Denmark.