The project "Ethnic Differences in Education", funded by the National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), aims at examining mechanisms and conditions leading to the development of ethnic differences in educational participation, performance and attainment and at uncovering fields that have not been investigated so far. The intention to document the state of scientifically verifiable interconnections for public and political debate and thus provide a sufficiently strong explanation of existing causal effects for future measures forms the background to this investigation. The statement will focus on the documentation of sound scientific evidence in this area, the identification of previously open fields, a number of public controversies, and proof of the effectiveness of specific measures, for example, the impact of educational systems, the effects of pre-school attendance, social and ethnic concentrations or specific supportive measures, such as linguistic support programmes, summer schools or "multicultural" programmes.
