Greece, Multicultural Education in

International economic and political globalization processes influence local societies. The current economic crisis, which has affected the United States and most countries in Southern and Western Europe, has influenced international migration patterns and educational systems and has deepened societal tensions. This entry describes how global migration has influenced education and diversity in Greece. The collapse of Eastern European Communist regimes and the recent decline in the international economic situation have led to influxes of immigrants and refugees migrating to Southern European countries from Eastern and Central Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.

Greece, like many other countries in the Mediterranean region, has gradually been transformed from a traditionally emigration to an immigration country. In its past, Greece was not a culturally homogenous society; historically it has been home to several minorities, in particular the Muslim minority in Thrace, which consists of approximately 60,000 Muslims of Turkish origin, 42,000 Pomaks (slavophone Muslims), and 18,000 Muslims of Romany origin. Sociohistorically, the construction of a Greek identity was based on the triplet “ethnos,” “ancient Greece,” and “Orthodox religion.” These have been important elements for strengthening the nation-state against “aliens”—neighbors near the borders.

In the late 1980s, Greece began facing new societal changes because of the mass influx of immigrants and has consequently had to develop strategies to deal with this cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity. The first two major migrant groups to enter Greece were immigrants with a Greek heritage (named “repatriated Greeks” because of their parents' or ancestors' Greek origins) from the former Soviet Union countries (called “Pontic Greeks”) and from Albania (called Vorioepirotes).

In 2010, about 1.2 million legal immigrants lived in Greece. This number does not include those residents who are European Union citizens living in Greece. It is estimated that 10% of Greece's population are legal immigrants. According to various sources, there are also about 200,000 to 700,000 illegal immigrants living in Greece. The greatest percentage of immigrants is in Athens, where an estimated 132,000 immigrants (17% of the city's total population) reside, and in Thessaloniki where approximately 27,000 immigrants (7% of the local population) live. Based on the National Census in 2001, the total national population was 10,964,020. According to official U.S. data, there are about 15 million legal immigrants who are naturalized as U.S. citizens and an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States—the country's overall population is over 301 million. Therefore, these data suggest that the percentage of the total population [Page 1026]that consists of “immigrant” is higher in Greece than in the United States. Because of Greece's geographical location at the crossroads between Europe, Asia, and Africa, immigration is a significant and persistent challenge.

According to recent official data, 58% of immigrants in Greece came from Albania, and the remaining 42% came from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, Georgia, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Moldavia, Iraq, and Egypt. The majority of immigrants, 56%, were young people between 19 and 40 years old, and 17% were children, called “second generation,” between 1 and 18 years old. Among adult immigrants, 59% were graduates of secondary education, and 13% were university graduates.

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