Refugee and migrant children’s views of integration and belonging in school in Ireland – and the role of micro- and meso-level interactions

ABSTRACT

Schools are chief among the social institutions impacted by migrant flows as key sites of integration and support for migrant children. This article focuses on micro-and meso-level interactions and their importance to experiences of belonging and socio-educational integration for migrant children. It explores outcomes from qualitative research in Ireland conducted as part of a European research project investigating the socio-educational integration of refugee and migrant children in schools. The research uses participatory and co-creation methodologies, including a Children and Young People’s Research Advisory Group. Child-friendly and age-appropriate focus groups were conducted with migrant children. The content and focus of these were informed through discussion with and insights of the project’s Children and Young People’s Advisory Group. Findings of this study highlight a range of factors impacting on the students’ experiences of belonging and unbelonging in schools including, host language support, school environment and centrality of children’s relationships with teachers as well as concerns among children about experiences of bullying, racism and intolerance. The finding highlights the importance of allowing children to describe their lived experiences using participatory research methods as children can speak to their own realities which may not be as visible to adult observers of children’s social worlds.

KEYWORDS:

• Belonging
• refugee children
• migrant children
• integration

Introduction

In this paper, we explore research on the educational integration of refugee and migrant children in Irish schools, undertaken as part of a larger ongoing EU Horizon 2020 study ‘Integration Mapping of Refugee and Migrant Children’ (IMMERSE). Education has been identified as having a complex intersection with migrant integration (Mohamed and Thomas 2017). It has the potential to be a stabilising force, offering routes to achievement and confidence building for migrant children and youth whose communities often place a high value on education (Ager and Strang 2008; Kohli and Mather 2003). It also acts as a route of access to a range of social services (Konsta 2019). However, these factors cannot be simply read as positive as they intersect complexly with the migratory experience and its, often fluid, nature (Hart 2009). Positive factors are limited by teachers’ poor knowledge of migrant community contexts (O’Riordan et al. 2013) and time taken by children to adjust to host country norms and practices (Smyth, McCoy, and Darmody 2004). Educational integration is also hampered by limited information available to migrants about educational systems (Ager and Strang 2008), bullying and exclusion (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010), rigid school norms and practices (Smyth, McCoy, and Darmody 2004) and contradictory surveillance and monitoring roles played by schools (Martin et al. 2018). Raabe (2019) describes the need for belonging and social acceptance as fundamental needs, which are particularly important for adolescent wellbeing. According to Raabe (2019), children from ethnic minority backgrounds may be at higher risk of not forming stable friendships, particularly if there are limited opportunities to befriend someone from a similar ethnic background. A key aspect of socio-educational integration for migrant children is belonging and its opposite unbelonging. Puroila et al. (2021) contend that these ‘are phenomena that concern humans at both individual and societal levels’ (Puroila et al. 2021, 2). With these contentions at the fore, this paper focuses on micro- and meso-level interactions as articulated by children and young people in this research, and their importance to socio-educational integration for migrant children in Ireland. Their views highlight the lived experiences of migrant children and the challenges they face as they navigate their educational contexts, associated interactions and environments.

The findings presented here are based on qualitative data collection through focus groups with refugee and migrant children, aged 6–18 years, which took place between May and September of 2019. In a recent article on academic achievement of migrant children in Irish primary schools, McGinnity, Murray, and Darmody (2022) suggest that Ireland presents an interesting case study ‘as there was substantial and rapid immigration of a diverse group of migrants, many of whom were European, to a school system that was predominantly White, Catholic, Irish and English-speaking’ (131). Ireland was historically a migrant-sending rather than a migrant-receiving country; economic growth in the first half of the 1990s triggered a significant change to in-flows and out-flows of people. In the latter half of the decade and particularly after 2004 following the enlargement of the EU, immigration numbers began to surpass emigration numbers, peaking in 2006/7. The recession of 2008 brought widespread economic uncertainty and prompted a dramatic, though temporary, reversal of this trend. Immigration numbers began to climb slowly again in 2010 and began to re-outstrip emigration in 2014/15 (McGinnity et al. 2018, 10). Approximately 17% of Ireland’s population is foreign-born, the majority of whom come from the UK and Eastern Europe. Refugees make up only a small proportion of migrants in Ireland, approximately 9500 in 2021 or less than 1% of the total migrant population (Migration Data Portal 2022). Darmody and Smyth (2017) highlight the uniqueness of the immigrant group in Ireland. Firstly, the immigrant group is a highly educated one (Darmody and Smyth 2017), so immigrants in Ireland may not lack the educational and cultural capital which can act as a barrier to cultural participation. Secondly, it is a heterogeneous group in terms of national and linguistic origin. The overall approach to integration policy by the Irish government according to the national Migrant Integration Strategy 2017–2020 is one of mainstreaming access to public services for migrants on the same basis as Irish citizens, with some additional support in place related to identified need (McGinnity, Murray, and Darmody 2022).

In addressing integration in education, the Irish government developed the Intercultural Education Strategy 2010–2015 (Department of Education and the Office of the Minister for Integration 2010, p. 56) that laid out goals around intercultural learning, capacity building for schools and teachers, language support, parent and community engagement, and gathering data for monitoring purposes. Despite these goals and the accompanying evaluative mechanisms, it is unclear whether the proposed monitoring ever took place, and evidence from this research project suggests the onus for achieving the outcomes was left to the initiative of individual schools and teachers. Education professional participants, for example, were critical of the lack of funds for translation services, so school staff must improvise often resorting to translation apps or an intermediary like the child, a friend or another parent (Horgan et al. 2022). Migrant children including those in the asylum process or who were granted refugee status, had the same right to primary and post-primary education as Irish Nationals.¹ Concerns about access have been raised with respect to children living in emergency accommodation due to an overextended Direct Provision² (Hennigan 2019) and children who arrive late in the school year (Ni Raghallaigh, Smith, & Scholtz 2019). According to McGinnity, Murray, and Darmody (2022) the 2018 PISA results indicate the importance of English as an Additional Language (EAL) support as reading scores at age 15 were significantly lower for first- and second-generation immigrant students who speak a language other than English in the home compared to Irish nationals. The Migration Integration Strategy (Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth 2017) again stressed the importance of and action around similar key issues, such as language support, enrolment policies, teacher training, addressing racism, promoting intercultural attitudes, curriculum reform and encouraging parent participation.

Theoretical framework regarding children’s socio-educational integration at the micro-level

This research has adopted a systems-based approach, influenced by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and this article focuses on micro-systems which are contexts or settings where the individual is involved in face-to-face interaction with others and the environment, and the meso-systems comprise the interrelations among two or more settings in which the child actively participate (Bronfenbrenner 1979). Bronfenbrenner’s theory (1979) provides a framework to capture these interconnecting environments and relationships and how they impact on children’s lives (Egan and Pope 2019). The research also draws on Heckmann’s categorisation of integration as being multi-dimensional which includes structural dimensions, cultural dimensions, social dimensions (relationships) and identificational dimensions (Hek 2005). The social and identificational dimensions are most relevant to this article as the social emphasises the importance of the relational dimension and the ‘identificational dimension separately facilitates analysis of the factors which particularly affect individuals’ sense of belonging’ (Spencer and Charsley 2021, 10). Spencer and Charsley (2021) suggest that Heckmann’s work highlights the need to study integration at the different levels of macro-, meso- and micro-level factors that shape integration processes while Marcos, Serrano, and Garcia (2022) suggest that the ecological paradigm is particularly suitable to understanding the social (relational) and ‘identificational’ dimensions of migrant children’s integration.

A critical element of the micro-system is that it is experienced. This fits with the concept of socio-educational integration which can be understood as drawing from a culture of inclusive education which both acknowledges ‘every child’s developmental uniqueness and, at the same time, knowing that all children have a lot in common’ (Galkienė 2017, 32). This understanding of socio-educational integration emphasises the importance of exploring socio-educational relationships in a learning community such as the teacher–student relationship or peer relations. Examples include child’s face-to-face interactions with important people in his/her life including parents and teachers. The meso-system encompasses links between different elements in the microsystems where the developing person actively participates such as home and school and linkages between the microsystem and the exosystem. Migrant scholars such as Correa-Valez et al.’s (2010) have highlighted the importance of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory in research with migrant children and families.

Focusing on supporting wellbeing and socio-educational integration of refugee and migrant children at the micro- and meso-systems level draws attention to the individual level factors which have been shown to support the wellbeing outcomes and socio-educational integration of migrant and refugee children including: individual resilience and coping styles (Mohamed and Thomas 2017); educational success in school; living with supportive family members (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010); feelings of belonging to one’s ethnic community (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010); and being able to develop positive relationships with the broader host community. Puroila et al. (2021) contend that children’s belonging is a relational phenomenon which concerns ‘not only children’s social relations but also their relations with material, cultural, and political contexts’ (4). The degree to which migrant children feel they belong in school intersects with their relations with staff, other students and the overall school environment (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010; Hart 2009). Research has identified bullying and racism towards migrant students as a problem across European countries (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010; Mohamed and Thomas 2017). For example, Manyena and Brady (2006) in their large-scale UK study, found racism and bullying was identified by refugee parents as one of the main issues negatively affecting the performance of their children at school. Darmody and Smyth (2017) identify several factors which influence the social-educational integration of migrant children including ‘English language proficiency, and the quality of social interaction with peers and teachers’ (420). Support for host language acquisition of migrant students is important in facilitating participation and achievement, as are the expectations and assumptions teachers have about them. Puroila et al. (2021) raises some important issues for our understanding of how children experience belonging at the micro-level in schools, for example how curricula support belonging through facilitating the development of foreign-language-speaking, children’s language skills and cultural identities. So, while cognisant of the interrelationships and connections between the micro-, meso- and macro-systems, this article deals primarily with the micro and meso as it facilitates a focus on relations and interactions in children’s lives.

Methodology

Participatory research with children

This project uses a child-centred participatory approach as part of the research design. This involved the establishment of a children and young people’s advisory group and child-friendly participatory research methods informed through the active involvement of the Advisory group. The Children’s and Young People Research Advisory Group (CYPAG) was established to advise on design, data collection instruments, data analysis and dissemination. The use of such a group is central to grounding the research in children’s experiences and adhering to the spirit of Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The CYPAG was formed at the beginning of the project through the researchers’ network of associations with refugee and migrant communities through their academic, community, volunteering, advocacy and activist roles. The research team have been involved in organising and facilitating child and adult migrant participation in a diverse range of activities over the course of several years and are, thus, considered trustworthy and have the confidence of migrant communities.

Initially, contact was made with a range of Refugee and Asylum-Seeking migrant parents whose children were in the relevant age group and who were attending school in Ireland. The focus of IMMERSE was explained to them, as was the role and details of the proposed CYPAG. Written information on the project and the CYPAG was then sent to those parents who responded positively to a request for their children’s participation. Parents were advised that they should proceed only if their children were interested in participating, following which the research team sought consent from the children and young people. Ultimately, a group of 18 migrant children and young people consisting of 7 girls and 11 boys aged from 7 to 16 years became the IMMERSE CYPAG. The CYPAG has ‘diverse intersectional identities’ (Collins et al. 2020, 5) comprising children of different nationalities, first- and second-generation migrant backgrounds and citizenship status, gender and age.

The CYPAG had input into the research methods and themes that guided exploration in the qualitative data collection and piloting of data collection methods and instruments. They engaged in discussion on the draft methods, offered feedback on their appropriateness and relevance to them as migrant children. For examples when piloting the Lifeline Activity, they recommended that an individual rather than a group lifeline activity would work better with the younger children.

Image of lifeline activity with the Children and Young People’s Research Advisory Group.

Recruitment of child and youth research participants

The migrant population in Ireland is concentrated in urban centres, so the research team conducted focus groups in Cork, Dublin and Limerick. Recruitment of participants was initiated through contact with sector representatives, school principals and educators, in order to identify relevant groups of children and these adults served as the initial gatekeepers to the children and young people. The gatekeepers contacted parents and parental consent for their child’s participation in the study was sought. All issues related to the study were explained to parents both through the study information sheet and verbally. The gatekeepers assured the parents that participation in the research was voluntary. Child-friendly information and consent sheets were developed, and the children’s assent was sought prior to their participation in the research. In addition, the researchers created a visual guide to the research which they used to explain the research to the children at the beginning of the focus groups.

Participants were all functionally fluent in English, therefore interpreters were not necessary. In total, 35 children aged from 5 to 18 years who have diverse migrant backgrounds and experiences and are at various stages of the integration process participated in the focus groups. The majority of the participant students had lived in Ireland for five years or more and originated from Eastern Europe, South America, Asia and Africa. There were also some newly arrived children in the interviews with second-level students, but they had been in Ireland for over one year. The aim was to include as diverse a range of child migrant participants as possible in order to identify the maximum range of integration indicators.

The research took place in primary and second-level school settings with 35 children (20 boys and 15 girls). Two focus groups were held in primary schools with younger children aged 5–12 years. One was held in an Educate Together³ school in a satellite town and the other in an inner city DEIS⁴ school. Three focus groups were conducted with students in second-level education aged between 13 and 18: one in a Catholic secondary school, one in a Community College and one workshop was held in a Youth and Education Service for Refugees and Migrants.

Research methods

Children’s focus groups

Focus groups which were activity based were held with children as a means of engaging with them in an active way and as a method that facilitates participants to identify and raise issues that are not pre-determined by the research team as well as facilitating uncovering their perspectives and ideas through discussion (Alder, Salanterä, and Zulmstein-Shaha 2019; Bagnoli and Clark 2010). They are also thought to be a research method that decreases research power hierarchies (Shaw, Brady, and Davey 2011).

The focus groups were conducted by a research team which consisted of five female researchers: four of whom were white Irish, one white North American. While all team members were white and only one a migrant, the research team were all familiar with child-friendly research methods and have extensive experience of working with children. Focus groups took place in formal education settings and the research team were introduced to the children and young people by their teachers. It is recognised that the process and make-up of the research team as well as the research sites have implications for power dynamics (Horgan et al. 2018). Throughout, researchers emphasised the importance of children’s comfort with the research process and their ongoing consent and reminded them that they need not continue if they did not wish to. While this, in some way, lessened the power balance, it is recognised that the formal settings and different status of the researchers and participants have an influence on the findings.

Focus groups with children ranged from less than an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the age of participants, and followed a participatory research methods approach designed to reflect the ages and language competencies of the children in each group and facilitate children in raising and exploring issues pertinent to them to come to a grounded understanding of belonging in education. At the outset of focus groups children were introduced to the project, the importance children’s views on matters that affect them was emphasised and their consent to the process was confirmed. Warm-up exercises were used to assist in creating an open forum whereby children would be enabled to express their views.

For the younger groups, the researchers used ‘talk and draw’ methods and activities based around the ‘imagined child’. This approach was chosen as it enables children to raise issues in a manner which does not personalise them. The first exercise involved two posters that showed a child and asked, ‘What helps this child feel happy at school?’ and ‘What makes this child feel unhappy at school?’

The children were invited to write or draw on post-it notes their ideas about what would make the child on the poster happy or sad at school and then stick them to the poster. One of the researchers then facilitated a discussion of the children’s ideas, and the children and the researcher together grouped the post-it notes into categories, following the children’s lead. The second activity – an individual lifeline – involved asking how the imagined children can be supported to feel happy at school at three different stages of their school experience – preschool, primary school and secondary school.

In the focus groups with the older children, a similar post-it note activity was used to explore what helps young people generally feel like they belong in school, as well as what creates barriers to their sense of belonging. The researchers then used a group lifeline approach to discuss how children and young people can be supported to feel happy at school at different life stages. Finally, young people were invited to vote on the most important issues on their life-lines to help identify the critical themes emerging from the data (Horgan et al. 2018; Pirskanen et al. 2015).

Analysis of data

Analysis of data from the workshops and interviews was undertaken using a systematic thematic method (Nowell et al. 2017). Initial readings of transcriptions revealed several broad issues arising from the younger (5–12) and older (13–18) cohorts and verbatim quotes from the raw data transcriptions were identified. Extracts were coded into supports for belonging and integration and barriers to belonging and integration. Some issues were relevant to all participants but the manner in which they arose differed across the age groups, reflecting their interests and how they interpret and prioritise aspects of belonging at the different educational levels. While some of the issues could relate to more general aspects of belonging in school, key factors arose that are key to recognising and addressing the children’s migratory circumstances. Important aspects of education that are central to the integration of migrant children are the relationships that they form, which contribute to feelings of belonging, and facilitation of achievement and support, including classroom and institutional environments (Dyson 2015; Hek 2005; Mohamed and Thomas 2017). As might be expected those issues raised by the older cohorts had a broader span across micro-, meso- and macro-levels than the younger cohorts. Issues arising were identified as potential supports and barriers to integration.

Following an initial identification of approximately 40 themes arising in the children and young people’s data, further thematic analysis resulted in grouping into the following recurring themes: Friendships and peer interactions; Opportunities for socialisation with peers and participation in sports and leisure activities; Bullying, racism and intolerance; Relationships with Teachers; Language skills and Language Support; School Practices, Culture and Ethos.

Results

Children and young people across all focus groups and educational levels identified aspects of their educational relationships as important to their feelings of belonging at school. These issues are structured under the thematic headings identified through the analysis process. These themes forefront the micro-interactions and grounded experiences of children set within the meso-school and local environments of their schools and educational environments.

Friendships and peer interactions

Children across all age groups cited friendships as central to their happiness and sense of belonging. Younger children (aged 6–8) emphasised the importance of including everyone and they valued having kind friends that they could sit with, play with, and help with schoolwork. Developing peer friendships also eased transitions between school levels, indicating the significance of length of time in the country and longevity of friendships. Particularly for the younger groups of children, it seems that friendships contributed to creating a sense of belonging, which positively affects children’s wellbeing. Children seemed, generally, to highly value interpersonal relations with regards to their psychosocial wellbeing. Older children (16–18) focused on the importance of ‘getting along well with others’ (Girl), ‘being included in conversation’ (Girl), having the ‘same interests’ (Boy) and ‘getting a good start with good friends’ (Boy). While these comments indicate the importance of group identity and sense of belonging, one male student commented that the school was not helpful in enabling the development of friendships, saying ‘school doesn’t help … [children] just makes friends themselves’, indicating this young person’s perception of the importance of self-reliance in making friends and of school as ineffective in social integration. Another boy (6–9) commented that he only met his friends at school, saying ‘I don’t have any friends outside of school’.

Further to this, it emerged that for the younger group (6–9) some of the children only had friends from the same cultural background as themselves. Similarly, some of the secondary school students (13–16) identified having other students in the school from the same country or nationality as them as being beneficial for integration. The oldest participants reported that they liked having friends who spoke the same language. One of the older male participants felt that as the school was becoming more diverse, there was more interaction between migrant and Irish students, and this was being influenced by the age migrant children were when they came to Ireland and to school.

Opportunities for socialisation with peers and participation in sports and leisure activities

Opportunities for play in school were mentioned frequently by the younger groups (6–9 and 8–12 age groups) and have obvious connections with opportunities to make friends. The types of play that they referenced included outdoor play in the yard, play with friends, and playing board games and Lego, while gardening and getting into nature were also identified positively. Having fun was also seen as important but they also commented that they felt they had more opportunities for play in preschool than in primary school. While, as might be expected, the older participants did not refer specifically to play, they identified sport and extra-curricular activities and trips outside of school which were seen positively in relation to belonging, as were ‘fun days’ and social activities at school.

Bullying, racism and intolerance

Just as friendships were identified as one of the most important facilitators of integration and belonging at school, bullying, exclusion, and racism were identified as some of the biggest barriers to integration by children. Specific examples ranged from ‘not letting someone play’ and ‘saying mean words’ amongst the younger children (Girl, 6–9) to ‘organised fights’ (Boy, 8–12) and ‘rough and informal behaviour’ (Boy, 16–18) in Physical Education classes. Children discussed specific incidents of race-based bullying, but the bullying was not only limited to racial discrimination. While the younger children were able to recognise what would count as racist comments or race-based bullying, it was the older children who had direct experience of it in school. Students in the 16–18 group reported incidents of being told to ‘go back to [their] country’ (Boy, 16–18). One female student commented that ‘Irish students would make fun of your language and call you foreigner. A student came recently, they would make fun of his accent’. Two boys in the 8–12 group discussed the difficulty in identifying certain comments as racist or not, because ‘sometimes it is for jokes, and sometimes it can cut deep’.

Some children in the older age groups expressed either dissatisfaction with the way schools dealt with incidents of bullying and racism or reluctance to report such incidents to teachers. As one girl in the 13–16 group in stated, ‘Since I was new and stuff, I didn’t want to be the rat’. The children also noted that even if racist and bullying incidents are addressed by the teacher or school, they can continue outside of class and school.

Relationships with teachers

The younger children highlighted positive relationships with teachers as important to belonging, using care-related terms to describe these relationships, such as the ‘teacher is kind’, ‘teacher that helps us’ (Girl, 6–9) ‘caring teacher’, ‘nice teachers’ (Girl, 8–12). They also pointed to the leadership of their School Principal, saying she was ‘wise’, ‘cares’ and ‘looks out for us’ (Girl, 6–9). The role of teachers in supporting students to feel welcome was also identified. Children of both genders in the 8–12 group referred to having a ‘warm welcome’ at school and made specific connections to teachers’ roles in this. They particularly mentioned that feeling loved by their teachers and receiving encouragement makes them happy and motivated.

The secondary school students also valued the caring and leadership roles of their teachers. The students referred positively to being ‘known’ (Boy, 16–18) by the teachers, having ‘understanding teachers’ and ‘teachers mentoring students’ (Girl, 16–18) and mentioned the leadership role of the principal in supporting integration. They also spoke about feeling at ease with their teachers, being able to ‘have jokes with them’ and an ‘informal relationship’ (Boy, 16–18). For some, this more ‘informal’ relationship with teachers was different to their pre-migration experiences of education; ‘The school systems here (in Ireland) are different than our own country. In our countries, teachers are more worried about grades than children’s wellbeing’ (Boy, 16–18). In Ireland, the children appeared to appreciate a more flexible learning environment and pointed to instances where teachers asked them about their country of origin during classes and commented on how these discussions were then integrated into the curriculum. These comments provide examples of how teachers can develop a strengths-based culturally relative curriculum using the children’s own experiences, seamlessly contributing to migrant student integration in their classes. On the other hand, ‘bad teachers’ or teachers who ignored students were seen as negative for student belonging (Boy, 16–18).

Language support and language skills

Children in all the focus groups discussed language concerns, including retention of mother tongue and host language support. Their concerns point to the need for supporting culturally sensitive and flexible curriculum. The children identified English language supports (EAL) as helpful for integration, but access to resources appeared to vary depending on when the participant arrived in Ireland and the grade to which they were assigned. Though acknowledging the importance of learning English quickly and having to practice with other English speakers, the participants noted some fears around getting things wrong. For example, being asked by teachers to read aloud in class led to anxiety among the older students, as they felt they could not express themselves properly in English; ‘When someone is uncomfortable speaking English so they would rather speak their own language and then you can’t talk to them as they don’t want to embarrass themselves or something’ (Boy, 13–16). Some students spoke about being actively discouraged from speaking their native language; ‘I was speaking to my Italian friend and a teacher said stop speaking Italian. I needed to speak English’ (Boy, 13–16). Language support across all the educational levels in Ireland seemed to be focused on acquiring English. The participants identified lack of support for their mother tongue as a barrier to integration and would rather have seen the school embrace a multi-language culture. The older children felt that not supporting a more diverse language culture within schools led to students only interacting socially with students who speak the same language, leading to a lack of peer interaction and potential social isolation for the newcomer children. The focus on exclusive English speaking is a potentially exclusionary practice and undermines two-way integration processes (Horgan et al. 2022).

School practices, culture and ethos

The culture, orientation and normative practices in schools arose as issues for the children across all the focus groups. These included the school environment, subjects and workloads, fairness or otherwise of school rules and language support and recognition. Also included in this was the intersection between the school yearly schedule and integration opportunities for children. In addition to the practices and orientations of teachers, the school climate in general was important to the participants’ experiences in their schools. The younger children (6–9; 8–12) also identified the classroom environment itself as important. They liked bright colours, having art on the walls and sitting in small groups in the classroom which facilitated interaction among the children.

Children identified specific examples of intercultural awareness of other members of the school community which helped them feel that they belong at school. For example, one female participant said that others having ‘knowledge of their homeland’ was positive for belonging, and another said it was important to be able to talk about your own country, these lived experiences of the migrant students again highlighting the importance of teacher’s intercultural competencies to support socio-educational integration (Girl, 16–18). The older children also identified the atmosphere and ethos of the school as important for belonging. Their comments included factors such as ‘People introducing themselves nicely’ (Girl, 16–18) and ‘Being comfortable with the environment and the people around you’ (Boy, 16–18). They also highlighted issues related to tolerance and diversity within the school, as one girl’s comment illustrates ‘here there is a good mix. Religion is the last thing that separates people here’ (Girl, 16–18) and ‘seeing other migrants accepted’ was viewed as positive (Boy, 16–18). Children identified specific examples of intercultural awareness of other members of the school community which helped them feel that they belong at school.

Discussion

The discussion focuses on the role of key relationships at the micro- and meso-level which support migrant integration in schools, peers and teacher and family as important aspects of producing belonging and unbelonging for children and young people in the study.

Peers inclusion and exclusion

The opportunity to develop friendships affected not only migrant children’s sense of belonging, but also their happiness, identity, self-esteem and language competence. The importance of peer friendship as a social support for integration is well documented in migration research (Fazel 2018) and is an essential aspect of the experience of the micro-system for children. Research indicates that a sense of belonging in school is protective for students and supports the psychosocial and academic wellbeing of students (Feinauer Whiting, Everson, and Feinauer 2018). A key finding from this research linked to the development of friendships was that younger children in this study identified opportunities for play and fun as important for both their sense of belonging in school and to support their friendships and socialisation opportunities. This finding in particular highlights the importance of allowing children to describe their lived experiences using participatory research methods as children can speak to their own experiences which may not be as visible to adult observers of children’s social worlds. Play can sometimes be overlooked as an opportunity for integration, and it is clear from the younger children in this study and other research that they value it as an important opportunity for socialisation with peers (Horgan et al. 2018) and it can support the social (relational) dimension (Hek 2005) of integration.

A common issue identified across all focus groups was peer exclusion, bullying and racism. Children reported that incidents of bullying and racism had multiple negative impacts, as has been documented in numerous studies (Manyena and Brady 2006; Mohamed and Thomas 2017; Priest et al. 2014). For example, a recent study with Refugee students in Austria found that almost 50% of the 55 students in their research report experiencing forms of social, verbal and/or physical bullying (Bešić et al. 2020). These issues have previously been highlighted in literature on migrant children’s integration (Ager and Strang 2008; Due, Riggs, and Augoustinos 2016) and are thought to negatively impact on their integration and school performance. In this research, there is more evidence of the nuanced natures of these experiences from the children’s perspectives. Children’s experienced incidents where comments were made about their race or ethnicity, and it was not clear to the child if these comments were meant as a ‘joke or not’. These incidents could be viewed as forms of micro-aggressions (Sue et al. 2007). Raabe (2019) draws attention to the importance of recognising social isolation as a form of social exclusion and while less explicit than bullying can have very detrimental negative individual outcomes including impacting on educational success.

Schools can play an important role in supporting the developing of children’s friendships and providing opportunities and spaces for positive socialisation with peers. Manzoni and Rolf (2019) in research with migrant children also recommend that school initiatives should be developed which focus on helping recently arrived migrant children to make friends quickly as this is a priority to newly arrived migrant children and supports integration. For example, schools could support children in making friends by providing access to mentoring schemes and afterschool clubs (Manzoni and Rolf 2019). Darmody and Smyth (2017) emphasise the importance of children’s leisure participation ‘including structured out-of-school sport and cultural pursuits’ (420) which are essential aspects of children’s social world and facilitate children’s contact with peers outside of the formal educational system. Participation in sport and other activities outside of school also allows children the opportunity experience the ‘identification’ dimension of social integration (Hek 2005) and experience a sense of collective identity through involvement in team sport or community activities. These activities also increase the child’s interaction with the meso-system through wider community engagement.

In addition to positive supports for developing peer friendships, the findings also highlight the important role that schools play in combating peer exclusion and bullying. Raabe (2019) contends that as adolescents ‘spend the majority of their time at school, the school class is a particularly significant social context for them, and as a societal “micro-system” the school class harbours both positive and negative peer relations’ (1005). Schools need to attend to the physical spaces they create and the implications for belong. For example, Puroila et al. (2021) found in their research when children are divided into groups or particular spaces within schools this produced material and symbolic borders which influenced children’s daily relations, interactions and opportunities for belonging. Children in this study reported that incidents of bullying and racism had multiple negative impacts. These findings reflect wider European concerns about high levels of racism experienced by migrants and ethnic minorities as bullying in schools has already been identified as a priority issue for the Council of Europe and is one of the strategic priorities of the current the Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2012–2015. Negative experiences, for example, bullying, racism, social isolation and exclusion due to ethnic differences impacted on the academic performance levels of migrant students (Mohamed and Thomas 2017). School belonging, mental health and wellbeing, and peer relationships were all negatively affected by experiences of discrimination amongst our participants, and it is therefore a hugely important issue to ensure equality of participation and outcomes for refugee and migrant children in education in Europe (Priest et al. 2014; cited in Due, Riggs, and Augoustinos 2016).

Caring teachers

Children in this research appreciated teachers’ emotional as well as intellectual investment, commenting on the caring and supportive attitudes they had observed. Some children even spoke of being ‘loved’ by their teachers demonstrating a strong emotional connectivity with the teaching staff. Teachers who adopted an inclusive approach in their classrooms contributed to children’s sense of belonging, trust, happiness, motivation and academic achievement, whereas teachers who were discriminatory made children feel isolated or targeted and mistrustful. The findings reflect other research that teachers can be instrumental in supporting the socio-educational integration and school attachment of newly arrived migrant children (Alan et al. 2021; Tumen, Vlassopoulos, and Wahba 2021). The nuance and complexity of children’s lived experience shared by the child participants in research highlights the importance of researching how their experience of micro-level relationships interacts with the meso-level of cultural, social and structural aspects of integration. Bešić et al. (2020) in research with refugee students in Austria found that teachers supported students to settle into their new schools and the students themselves emphasised the importance of their teachers’ support. This social support from teachers promoted a ‘sense of belonging in the school community’ (Bešić et al. 2020, 729). UK research by Manzoni and Rolf (2019) with migrant children found that the children valued kindness from teachers. The authors concluded that their research provides evidence of the role that teachers play in supporting educational inclusion and school attachment for migrant students. Recent research on a teacher-training programme in Turkey also highlights the impact of teacher training to support the development of more culturally responsive teaching. The programme which raised awareness of the needs of refugee children found that the teacher training had a positive impact on educational outcomes for students including improvement attendance and school attachment (Tumen, Vlassopoulos, and Wahba 2021).

School climate, policy and curriculum emerged as important for the children which resonated with previous research on the importance of the classroom environment including peer relationships and supportive teachers (Dyson 2015). Also referred to as the ‘classroom climate’, this is defined as the ‘quality and consistency of interpersonal interactions within the school community that influence children’s cognitive, social, and psychological development; these interactions include those among school staff, between staff and students, among students, [and] between home and school’ (Haynes, Emmons, and Ben-Avie 1997, 322). These themes resonated strongly with the findings from the children’s data in this research and highlight the universality of the issues which the children view as important to supporting their sense of belonging in the school.

Centrality of language supports

Support for language learning, a central concern in integration research (Correa-Velez, Gifford, and Barnett 2010) and language acquisition has been described by Manzoni and Rolf (2019) as a route to integration for migrant pupils and it was a significant topic for the children and young people in this study. Extra supports for learning the host country language were identified by the children as crucial for academic achievement and developing friendships. In addition to supporting integration in school settings, language also plays a role in other types of integration outside of school. Using the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal data, Darmody and Smyth (2017) suggest that language barriers may play a role in lower level of sports participation among some migrant children in Ireland. Children in this study did identify the link between social isolation and lack of ability to speak the host language (Horgan et al. 2022). Ensuring adequate language supports support children to develop and maintain their relationships and opportunities for socialisation at the micro-level.

Greater recognition of and support for children’s linguistic diversity within schools was vitally important to participants. While support in learning the host language was important, children in the study also appreciated opportunities to retain their home languages and keep that part of their identity and to see multiple languages represented in school (Horgan et al. 2022). Fegter and Mock (2019) based on their research with migrant youth contend that belonging should be constructed as translocal and transnational concepts and lack of recognition for mother-tongue language may negatively impact the experience of belonging for children and young. Some of the children in this research reported that their school did not encourage them to speak their mother tongue languages in school which could be interpreted as a deficit-based approach to language acquisition. Reflecting what has previously been identified (Timm 2016) in UK research the lack of support for their mother tongue at school was identified as a barrier to their integration.

Conclusion

Child-centred research, in this case co-constructed with children and young people and using child participatory, creative and age-appropriate methods allows children to identify themes and issues which are important to them. Above all the data demonstrates that, to support belonging, a school climate should be welcoming, facilitate peer friendships and positive teacher relationships, create opportunities for play, promote language acquisition, and deal effectively with issues of racist bullying and discrimination. This research adds to our understanding of the role that socio-educational relationships such as teacher–student and peer-to-peer relations play in supporting socio-educational integration. The data shows that the factors affecting integration are highly interrelated, but the manner in which they arose differed across the different age groups, reflecting their interests, and how they interpret and prioritise aspects of belonging in school. The school climate including peer relationships, supportive teachers and an orderly environment as well as robust and flexible welcome programmes for migrant children enhance feelings of belonging, as does a focus on language acquisition, enabling the child/young person to participate and achieve academically and integrate socially. Schools need to actively support children’s opportunities to develop peer relations to combat social exclusion and isolation and to support teachers’ acquisition of intercultural competencies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 822536.

Notes on contributors

Shirley Martin

Dr Shirley Martin is a lecturer at the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork. She specialises in Children and Social Policy and her teaching is informed by innovative and critical discourses on childhood and by her extensive interdisciplinary and community-engaged research profile. She has conducted several research projects in child and youth participation and developed a number of youth-led research projects. She is the Irish Primary Investigator for a Horizon 2020 Project called IMMERSE (Integration mapping of Refugee and Migrant Children in Schools in Europe) (2018–20220, https://www.immerse-h2020.eu/).

Deirdre Horgan

Dr Deirdre Horgan is a senior lecturer in Social Policy in the School of Applied Social Studies and Deputy Director of the BA (Early Years and Childhood Studies at University College Cork). Her research interests include child wellbeing, children’s rights and participation, children’s research methods and child migration. She has published widely in these areas as well as reporting on Irish government consultations with children on a range of policy issues.

Jacqui O’Riordan

Jacqui O’Riordan is a lecturer at the School of Applied Social Studies, Cork. Her research interests embody the activist and academic and focus on a range of issues concerning gender, equality and diversity in local and global contexts. Her research contributions include analyses of aspects of child trafficking, care for children, migrant children’s experiences and interactions of education, community supports for people, younger and older, living with disabilities, as well as analysis of care and family carers in Ireland.

Reana Maier

Reana Maier is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies in the Twenty-First Century at University College Cork, working on the IMMERSE project. She has previously held a postdoctoral position at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where she worked on the Gateway Cities project examining equity and access to post-secondary education for at-risk students in major urban centres in Canada, the United States and England. She received her PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge, studying citizenship education and global citizenship education in English secondary schools.

Notes

1 This right is derived from a combination of provisions from key legal acts in Ireland: the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 that makes education compulsory for all children aged 6–16 years; the Equal Status Acts that prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, or ethnic or national origins; and the Refugee Act 1996 that grants refugees the right to access education, ‘in like manner and to the like extent in all respects as an Irish citizen’ (Section 3, subsection (2)(a)(i)). Though this provision covers those who have been granted refugee status, there is no distinction in practice between refugee children and children still in the application process in Ireland, in accordance with Article 14 of Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament, known as the Reception Conditions Directive (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013L0033&from=EN).

2 Direct Provision (and Dispersal) refers to the arrangements for accommodation of International Protection applicants in Ireland while they are waiting for their cases to be decided upon. It is commonly referred to as DP.

3 Educate Together is a charity providing a choice of equality-based primary and secondary level education in Ireland. It is an independent NGO. Schools are State-funded, child-centred and democratically run.

4 Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) is the Department of Education and Skills policy instrument to address educational disadvantage.