The EU and its member-states are becoming increasingly diverse. From 22.3 million people living in the EU in 2018 who were non-EU citizens, more than 5 million were younger than 18 years. This group of underage migrants, accompanied by parents, family members, guardians or unaccompanied, is a unique and vulnerable group of migrants with specific rights and needs. European countries and their education systems encounter manifold challenges due to the growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
The successful integration of migrant children is one of the key tasks of all European countries!
Stemming from the need to revisit the integration policies in the EU and its Member States, the MiCREATE research project comprehensively examined the contemporary integration processes of migrant children to empower them. More than 6,000 migrant children took part in the MiCREATE research activities, including newly arrived migrants, long-term residents as well as migrants living in camps, detention centres and asylum homes. The project created a “space” where migrant children could communicate and share their experiences, needs, desires and expectations, talk about what is important to them, what makes them feel happy and secure.
The MiCREATE study of the EU and national policy frameworks, the context of host societies, and the research among the educational community discovered different gaps and problems that shape the integration of migrant children in education, and based on that developed recommendations for policy-makers for promoting child-centred integration of migrant children in schools.
The main recommendations are:
- Improve the availability of comparable data on (integration of) migrant children in education and research and make visible the links between the EU framework, national policies and local integration outcomes.
- Promote participatory processes and inclusive visions of integration in education among the nation-states.
- Ensure that all sectors and EU bodies consider and promote not only child rights but also a child-centered approach in integration policies that recognise children’s needs and ensure their standpoints matter and are taken into account.
- Promote the understanding that cultural and language differences are beneficial and not a disadvantage.
- Introduce evaluation practices and monitoring of integration policies in education that take child-centered policy indicators (well-being, safety, agency) into account.
- Distribute the EU funds to child-centered integration initiatives in nation-states and local communities.
During April and May CESIE has organised a series of dissemination workshops for teachers and policy makers in Italy, Lithuania and Germany to present the recommendations, advocate for policy revisions and present other outcomes of MiCREATE project.
Learn more about the project, and recommendations on MiCREATE website Policy lab section: https://www.micreate.eu/index.php/policy-lab/
About the project
MiCREATE – Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe, funded by Horizon2020 programme of the European Union, aims to stimulate social inclusion of diverse groups of migrant children in EU countries by adopting a child-centred approach to migrant integration at the educational and policy level, also through child-centred research.
Partners
- Coordinator: Znanstveno-Raziskovalno Sredisce Koper (ZRS), Slovenia
- The Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France
- Mirovni Institut, Slovenia
- Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenia
- Syddansk Universitet, Denmark
- Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
- Hellenic Open University, Greece
- Stowarzyszenie Interkulturalni PL, Poland
- Universitat Wien, Austria
- HFC Hope for Children CRC Policy Center, Cyprus
- CESIE, Italy
- Udruge Centar za Mirovne Studije, Croatia
- Dypall Network, Portugal
- Fakulteta za Dizajn, Samostojni Visokosolski Zavod, Pridruzena Clanica Univerze na Primorskem, Slovenia
For futher information
Read more about MiCREATE, visit the website www.micreate.eu and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Contact Ruta Grigaliunaite: ruta.grigaliunaite@cesie.org.
