Whose children? The EU and Member States’ integration policies in education

Abstract

A gap exists between the EU’s professed guarantees of the rights of migrant children and Member States’ individual practices concerning integration. The EU promotes policies claiming to be based on the rights of the child, children’s best interests, and a child‐friendly integration system. Both theory and the EU framework also insist that integration should be understood as a two‐way process. Yet national practices and policies shift responsibility for integration from the reception community to newcomers. Pressures on immigrants, hate speech, and the closure of borders have become the main features of migration policy. The article points out inconsistencies between the EU and its Member States’ own policy frameworks regarding the integration of migrant children in education. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders, we look at the primary triggers for these inconsistencies to learn what they reveal about the EU and its Member States’ integration policies for migrant children. We argue that nationalism and the denial of rights prevent policy processes from becoming a two‐way process and we demonstrate the consequences this has for child‐centred approaches to integration.

theoretical framework of the integration and well-being of migrant and refugee minors in Europe

“…These results are, if possible, even more relevant in the case of migrant children. As migrants and children, they cannot be appropriately understood regardless of their educational and developmental contexts, the orientation towards the inclusion of their proximal communities and the more extensive processes and structures of the society in which they live (Jalušič & Bajt, 2022). As a result, recent research on migrant children's integration is leaning upon adopting more child-centric frameworks with the double aim of on the one hand understanding the different needs 4 to be addressed from a policy-making and governance approach, and of developing practical courses of action leading to positive integration and well-being outcomes on the other hand (Adserà & Tienda, 2012).…”

Competence of Latvian Preschool Teachers to Include Newcomers in Education

“…The inclusion of newcomer children in the educational system is based on meeting their emotional, social and learning needs (Jalušič & Bajt, 2022). A teacher is one of the supportive mechanisms for the social adaptation of newcomers to the new learning environment, being a support for safety to mitigate the effects of the past (Soylu, Kaysili, & Sever, 2020).…”