Okay, on the IB and race. In my school the IB is free. COMPLETELY. Books, computers, calculators... ANYONE can - if they have the motivation complete it. My class is the class that knows the most languages. In my class we have several who live in the "bad part of town". We have several people who are either first or second generation immigrants.
What I'm trying to say is that without tons of things keeping people out race is less of an issue I guess.
And also that I feel really weird saying all of this 'cause I'm white enough that it is hard for me to find foundation in SWEDEN which is basically impossible.
Haha, I almost use that. I use the whitest one I can find because I have no brown pigment in my skin, so If I put anything brown on it it looks like some kind of slightly racist brownface. So now I look like a ghost instead. More seriously, I'm like an open book (note, I have had very intelligent Swedish people that I trust tell me that I can be VERY hard to read, but that is more because I have a constant resting-bitchface and my natural expression is 'slight anger'. [By the way, a resting bitchface is the best thing ever. If you never smile people treat your smiles like catnip. I am not kidding. I have gotten out of so many situations by just smiling at people. Not dishonestly, just by smiling at them and showing emotions ] eh, where was I...) because of my skin. If I get embarrassed the world WILL know. Even if i spend the whole summer in Sweden my cheeks are a slight red from March to October.
Like fees, administration, tests... (In Sweden if a student has good enough grades the school must admit them. I think admission is blind but I'm not sure)
Yes it is, but when you are given enough support (E.g free books, free meals, free other meal of the day if the school day is long enough, an house that is open from 7-7 to sit in and study, free bus rides around the town, a school that lets you use it's houses to have a party...) That can be negated.
It doesn't. At all. But is does make it so much better. What I mean is that when everyone's footing is more equal it doesn't negatively impact performance.
I'm thinking that it might help more that Sweden doesn't appear to have as much of a history of, ynno, systematic oppression and hate. That might help a bit. Aren't most minorities in Sweden recent immigrants? I remember you talking about some far-right immigrant hating going on over there.
We do. You know those schools where Americans put Indians? We had those for Sami people. We used to sterilize people. Like, nazi Germany thought we were cool. In fact Sweden has a history of immigration and discrimination. A long one. Remember the Vikings? In the 800s? They discovered America, and they raped and pillaged. That is not a figure of speech by the way. They would steal women and children from France and England and hold them as slaves. Trälar, Thralls. They lived in horrid conditions. In fact, I think that the opposite of what you say is true. A country WITH a history of immigration is better at dealing with it.
No, we had an institute for racial biology in the 1930, not everyone in Sweden could vote until in the 1960. It is quite recent. There is still systematic oppression of Roma people. I could go on. For fucks sake someone burned a mosque in my school town this Christmas and I have facebook friends who celebrated. And this is not recent. Sweden was VERY racist in the 1930's.
No, I do agree that racism was present, but the level of oppression in slavery and then segregation is something that didn't exist in Sweden. Almost every Western country had dabbling in eugenics when that fad went around, but (as far as I know) nowhere produced as much hate as America.
Well, no. I mean, Germany? That's Europe, not America.
Yes, but you can hardly say the US is more extreme than that.
Okay. I'm going to be mean now. Don't take it personally. You're being really annoying in a way Americans often are that I can't stand. You are taking the most dramatic moments of American history and calling that the rule, and when I bring up moments from European history you are calling it the exception. And no, it's really really not. Sweden played a part in the slave trade and owned colonies (kind of) in America before America became America. America is a REALLY young country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_colonization_of_the_Americas
I don't think so, it just adds another chain of cements. guess it depends a lot on how and when and in what conversation it is though.
Fun fact! My school does ridiculously well compared to other IB schools. Like in the Cambridge guide of excellence well. Which makes me all the madder when people talk about private schools like a good thing. AND my school is an "artists school", We have all the fun courses like dance and music at my school. And the IB. I love my school a lot by the way. It is wonderful.