Teaching that Matters for Migrant Students: Understanding Levers of Integration in Scotland, Finland and Sweden (TEAMS)

Main funder

NordForsk

Funder's project number: 94935

Funds granted by main funder (€)

155 872,03

Funding program

Nordforsk (Funding programs)

Project timetable

Project start date: 01/09/2020

Project end date: 31/12/2024

Summary

Migration has become a feature of the modern, global landscape and a central issue in international and national policy debates. According to the United Nations, 14 percent of the world’s estimated 258 million migrants are children and young people. Migration is a major life event that affects children’s education, their relationships with family and friends, and their emotional well-being. How school systems and educators respond to migration has an enormous impact on migrant children’s ability to learn and integrate into their new communities. Schools are a vehicle for social integration as main access points for learning local languages and cultures (Smyth et al., 2010). Existing research indicates that teachers are the most important in-school factor for determining student outcomes (Hattie, 2009), especially for migrants (Hirschman, 2016). Studies show, for example, that teachers are instrumental in creating opportunities for learning and for developing migrant students’ sense of belonging to the school community (Lund & Trondman, 2017). However, schools can also be a hostile environment when characterized by segregation and discrimination, acting instead as a barrier to integration. Teachers may inadvertently reinforce barriers to learning for some students due to assumptions embedded in institutional structures, pedagogical practices, or their own unexamined beliefs (Pantić, 2017). We situate our analysis in teachers’ work because of the increasing demand for schools to meet the needs of migrant students. As in many other countries, migrant populations in Scotland, Finland and Sweden have increased substantially in recent years. In this context, dealing with learners’ cultural and socio-economic diversity is a matter of considerable urgency for the receiving systems.