Racism, Islamophobia and trust in schools: perceptions of diversity in schools in Barcelona

This article explores how Spanish families view immigrants in an intercultural school context and how this is reflected in their trust in public schools in Barcelona. A qualitative methodology is used, based on in-depth interviews and focus groups, comparing the discourse of the parents of children who attend schools in different neighbourhoods in Barcelona, with either high levels or low levels of immigration. The data from the fieldwork indicate that the cultural and social distance perceived by the interviewees, and the different languages and religions of the immigrants in question constitute the major sources of differentiation based on racism and Islamophobia. Moreover, in my analysis, I have distinguished between two different ways that perceptions of immigration result in distrust in institutions: (i) perceptions that result in distrust within the schools and (ii) perceptions that result in distrust in higher-level institutions, such as the educational administration bodies and city-level institutions.