Nowadays, geopolitics and international conflicts force a significant number of individuals to leave their birth country. For the International Organization for Migration, a migrant is “a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons” (2019). Among the migrant population who arrived in France in 2017, 45% were less than 24 years old (INSEE, 2019). As human migration is increasing year by year, it is of public interest to consider them as potential workers and future citizens. To do so, educate migrant children and allow them to go to school as any children can, is considered necessary.
Finding reliable data about schooling rate in migrant population seems tough. Some of them are not even enrolled, and a lot of schools do not take into account the migrant status in their censuses; considering them as pupils having another first language than the official country’s language. For instance, in the United Kingdom, schools use the acronym EAL or “English as an Additional Language” (Reynolds, 2008). Among refugees, international data highlight the weak proportion of schooling rate: only 50% of children and less than 25% of teenagers are actually enrolled in schools (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2016).
Once the school’s doors are crossed, young migrants might be facing new issues. Educational inclusion is willing to be implemented in order to celebrate pupils’ diversity and acknowledge it as a strength, in a successful and equality perspective (Prud’Homme et al., 2011). It has been proved beneficial since the fifties, thanks to Allport’s studies and his main theory, called “contact hypothesis”: increasing social contacts between individuals belonging to different social groups decreases prejudices from one group towards the other (Allport, 1954, 1979, as cited in Pettigrew & Tropp, 2005). Nevertheless, school inclusion is not always working and may also trigger stereotypes and racism. The study conducted by Salas et al. in 2017 in Chile demonstrated that even if 75% of local students recognize the right for immigrant children to access education, 37% of them think that their presence affects negatively the academic standing of the school. Moreover, 13 to 25% of the teachers reported a negative vision of the migrants’ presence at school and felt “important negative transformations” (Salas et al., 2017, p. 7). But prejudices’ intensity towards migrant students is significantly lower in such schools where migrants are massively included, rather than in typical schools where they are a few to be in the classroom alongside the locals: confrontation with the population seems to generate a more positive attitude. Besides, it is now well established that the feeling of being treated in an unfair manner because of the social group belonging is a threat to personal development (Urzúa et al., 2018; as cited in Mera-Lemp et al., 2019). Perceived discrimination has a negative effect on psychological well-being, triggering detrimental consequences in daily life, for example in migrant children’s future employability (Mera-Lemp et al., 2019).
Several stakes are related to the ability to talk the country’s language. Some families are allophone while they arrive in the host country, and children often play a huge part in the family’s social inclusion. Devine (2009) has demonstrated the crucial position of kids and teenagers in migrant families in Ireland. In this study, it has been proven that children act as intermediaries between the society and their family, trying to translate English to their parents as they improve their own level, and having them meet Irish parents. Despite this help, social services struggle to set up medical follow-up, which can lead to several psychological and physical issues (Sime, 2015). Indeed, lack of social follow-up might trigger higher scores in psychological distress’ scales (Sandhu & Mooza, 2013; as cited in Sime, 2015).
Since these studies had taken place in different places in the world, we can’t make generalisations. However, they convey to indicate a complexity of migration situations and their challenges. The French Education Code assert the “necessity of particular actions for allophone children recently arrived in France” (article L332-4). This fact is essential to improve society well-being and a better social inclusion, which are needed today more than never. Children well-being is prevailing in society development, and politics should understand the benefits of educational schooling for young migrants: whether they like it or not, migration will increase the active population up to 71 million by the year 2081 in all European Union (Migration Data Portal, 2017). Taken together, these findings rise the necessity of understanding human mobilities and greeting this reality as a socioeconomic challenge, in which the educational inclusion of young migrants has the leading role.
Bibliography:
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