Three case studies were conducted, one for each of the three key institutions defined above (the Catalan education system, the Catalan police force and the Barcelona City Council), complemented by additional fieldwork as interviews with representatives of ethnic minority organizations. The data was collected through methodological triangulation, combining the following methods:
i) Mapping of diversity (due to the lack of ethnic registers, such data was largely collected through interviews with representatives of the respective institutions).
ii) Content analysis of a large amount of printed and online material, as school text books, police training content, diversity policy documents, and party programs.
iii) Stakeholder interviews: 33 interviews with representatives of the Catalan Department of Education, headmasters and teachers of public and semi-private schools, representatives of the Catalan police force with different ranks and origins, politicians of ethnic minority background, police aspirants of ethnic minority background, and representatives of ethnic organizations.
iv) Participant observation during 12 meetings and seminars with key actors representing the Catalan Government, the education system, academia and policy-makers.
v) Policy evaluation. Specific intercultural policy actions were evaluated.
The study confirms that people of immigrant or ethnic minority origin are indeed underrepresented in these institutions. Moreover, the study concludes that there is a significant gap between the general intercultural discourse that defines the Catalan integration policy framework, and multiple practices that continue to reproduce disadvantage for immigrants and minorities, though unintentionally. The project argues that there is a need to go beyond anti-discrimination policies and consider measures that explicitly address underrepresentation, as ethnic quotas in access to public employment.
