Growing Together—Effects of a school‐based intervention promoting positive self‐beliefs and social integration in recently immigrated children

Abstract

We present a school‐based intervention geared to foster the social integration of recently immigrated (RI) primary school children by creating repeated positive contact situations with classmates brought up in the receiving society. Coaches encouraged groups of tandems, consisting of one RI and one child brought up in Germany each, to engage in cooperative activities designed to strengthen positive self‐beliefs and perception of equal status. In a quasi‐experimental control‐group design (N = 318), we compared the 30 children (12 RI) who participated in our intervention between pre‐test and post‐test with a reference group. Self‐beliefs were measured via self‐reports, social integration via sociometric peer‐nominations. The reference group (n = 288 children) included all children who did not participate in the intervention between pre‐test and post‐test: (a) 12 children (7 RI) of a waiting control group and (b) all classmates of both the students of the intervention and the waiting control group. Post‐test self‐beliefs were more positive in children having participated in the intervention. The intervention did not affect social integration: Neither the number of classmates nominating a student nor the number of peers the respective student nominated increased. Possibly, the intervention initiated self‐reinforcing processes which support social integration over longer time periods.

The feasibility of implementing autism intervention methods in formal education settings welcoming refugee and asylum‐seeking children: A systematic review of the literature

“…More recently, Hannover et al. (2020) implemented a school‐based intervention program to support the social integration of newcomer immigrant children aged 9–10 years old in primary schools in Germany. Based on the creation of tandems with native peers, the aim of this intervention was to create “repeated positive contact situations” (p. 713).…”

Who Are Your Friends in Class?

“…Several studies proved the expectation that feelings of relatedness to peers in school are closely linked to students' academic achievement as well as to outcomes like academic motivation, intrinsic and utility values, or achievement goal orientations (e. g., Gillen-O'Neel & Fuligni, 2013;Looser, 2009;Vanwynsberghe et al, 2017). Intervention studies promoting students' sense of social belonging in school were found to increase, for example, academic achievement and positive self-beliefs of minority group students (e. g., Hannover et al, 2020;Walton & Cohen, 2011). Contrarily, feelings of aloneness or social exclusion were found to be related to a decrease in cognitive performance and graduation test scores (Baumeister et al, 2002).…”