ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that racism in Europe needs to be analysed within its historical context, dating back, at least, to the Atlantic slave trade and the ages of imperialism and colonialism. It suggests that poverty is ‘the greatest impediment to learning the minority communities face’. The book discusses educational policies developed within the EU, take ‘on the role of passing on an official and highly selective version of European culture’. It examines the extreme world of Northern Ireland, and also suggests that a ‘pyramid-segmentary’ structure was created ‘in which different categories of a social, political, cultural and theological nature rarely cut across one another, and segregation in the North of Ireland became the norm’. An ever-increasing proportion of ethnic minority populations are now European-born and citizens of the countries in which they live and work.
