The new school year is barely four weeks old, yet Sophie is already showing signs of exhaustion. A dedicated teacher at one of Vienna’s so called “problem schools,” she has long wrestled with language barriers and cultural gaps. This year, a new challenge arrived: the headscarf ban.
Vienna’s first tally tells its own story. So far, 98 families have been summoned, and 18 parents already face the threat of a fine.
For Sophie, 25, who teaches at a primary school, the ban has opened a fresh set of troubles. “In the first days after the summer break, one of my pupils kept coming to class wearing a headscarf,” she recalls. Kind conversations at the start achieved nothing. The next morning, the 10-year-old girl’s hair was once again fully covered.
Only an official warning to the family made a difference. “Once we formally cautioned them, it worked,” Sophie says. Since then, the girl has come to school without a headscarf. Still, the matter is far from settled.
“The parents were not at all pleased. I think they assumed the new law wouldn’t be taken seriously,” the teacher says. “But this family, too, is finally following the rules.”
Now, however, the parents have demands of their own. “It’s a protest we never expected,” Sophie explains. With her hair uncovered, they insist, their daughter must not appear in any class photo, and she must never be photographed anywhere without a headscarf. That is what they now ask of the school.
So the strain continues for teachers and caregivers. In the parents’ eyes, the child must still never be seen in public without a headscarf. That is their instruction.
