engleski

The importance of host community language acquisition in the process of school integration of refugee children

As a result of EU regulations and agreements from 2016 onward, Croatia became a destination country for refugees predominantly from Syria, Iran and Iraq. Even though the number of people requesting international protection is not large compared to other EU countries, this was the first time that Croatia faced the challenge of refugee integration. One of the key stakeholders in this process is school. Therefore, a qualitative study was conducted to explore the challenges faced by refugee children (N=15), their parents (N=5), school staff (N=54) and host-society peers (N=50) in the integration process Participants from FGD and interviews highlighted the importance of language. Language was considered to be a barrier in various aspects of school integration, from procedures associated with school enrollment to everyday situations, such as attending (and delivering) classes, writing homework, engaging in social interactions with host-community peers, knowledge testing and school-parent cooperation. Participants also expressed some language-related needs and suggestions in order to improve the process of school integration. Moreover, results from a small-scale follow-up study on schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down suggest the lack of face-to-face interaction at school (i.e. direct contact with teachers and peers) prevented refugee children to practice the language and impaired their proficiency.

Refugee children ; Host-community language acquisition ; School integration ; Qualitative research

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