Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in Europe

Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in EuropeChapter 6 examines how curricula, legislation and other official sources promote an interculturalapproach to school education, which is also an important dimension of initial teacher education and inserviceteacher training. This approach is distinct from the foregoing measures intended specifically forimmigrant children, in that it is meant to raise general awareness of different cultures among all pupils.The great majority of education systems in Europe are geared to this approach though its precise formand content vary.The comparative overview is supplemented by detailed national contributions based on a commonstructure. Each contribution sets out definitions and the demographic context of immigration, measuresfor school-based support to immigrant children and their families, and different forms of interculturalapproach, with a final section on developments such as evaluation, pilot projects, debates andprospective reforms. All these contributions are contained on the CD-ROM supplied with the publication,as well as on the Internet (www.eurydice.org).Focus and scopeThe present survey defines an immigrant child as a child from any other country (within or outsideEurope), whose parents or grandparents may have settled in the host country, or who may be seekingasylum, have refugee status, or be an irregular immigrant. Children from families who have been settledin the host country for more than two generations do not therefore come within the scope of the survey.Measures intended specifically for migrants within a particular country, such as the Roma and variouskinds of traveller, are covered only if these goups correspond to the foregoing definition. The sameapplies to support measures for groups of ethnic or national minorities.School-based measures are those devised and implemented by the education system of the host country.They do not include measures introduced from outside the education system, such as those initiated byembassies, diplomatic missions, non-governmental organisations, volunteers or other players.Information in the survey covers the pre-primary, primary and compulsory general secondary levels ofpublic-sector or government-dependent education. In the case of information on support measures, thereference year for Eurydice data, including the national contributions, is the 2003/04 school year. In thecase of demographic information, it is the most recent year for which data is available. The reference yearfor Eurostat data is 2002 and for PISA (OECD) data, 2000.The survey covers the 30 member countries of the Eurydice Network.8