A Bridge Between Educational Activities That Enable Social Integration of Migrant Children in Israel and Spain. The Scientific Evidence and the Methodology Behind the Scenes

• In Event: Constructing Possibilities for Equal and Inclusive Education

Abstract

Most societies worldwide are characterized by multiculturalism, national groups, rifts, inequality, and alienation towards minority groups. Such a polarization is reflected in different areas of life, mainly in the education system, the labour and housing market, and the health services.
In the 2021/2022 school year, 10.7% of the migrant students were enrolled in Spanish schools. In Israel, about 1% of the students are new immigrants, 8,000 of which are children from African asylum seekers families.
So, there are several challenges for the children, their families, and the formal and informal educational setting. The children and their families face the challenge of new language difficulties, cultural tensions, social gaps, and achieving good academic results in all subjects. For an educational setting, the challenge is to ensure the application of scientific evidence with a social impact that guarantees inclusion and equal opportunities for all. Education studies indicate that educators have a meaningful role in relations with children from minority groups and are an essential factor that affects their motivation, self-confidence, and success in learning.
In this framework, the KIDS4ALLL Horizon2020 project set bridging activities, consisting of a learning environment, a system of learning partners, and learning units about the principles of lifelong learning. However, there are some challenges in providing a scientific basis for the learning units environment, and methodology. To examine these challenges, we conducted two qualitative studies that revealed how educators, educational frameworks, and different education systems approached them. The research aims to reveal the mediation activities of KISD4ALLL as they were carried out in Israel and Spain within formal and informal settings through the meanings that children and educators attribute to their experiences.
The research participants were 50 children from Israel and 75 from Spain at elementary and high school age and 12 educators from Israel and Spain who participated in the pilot phases of the project. The data was collected using mixed methods - survey questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and focus groups with children and educators.
The Israeli case reveals the authentic voices of the educators taking part in the two pilot phases of KIDS4ALLL. The data collection focused on the pedagogical actions of the teachers as mediators of cultural knowledge content that is expressed in the study units based on principles of lifelong learning, as mediators of social skills among students who studied in a dialogue-based peer teaching model, and as mediators of language skills through explicit teaching processes and scaffolding.
The Spanish case approaches the effect of dialogic interactions on instrumental learning and emotions while focusing on analysing the need to apply scientific evidence that encourages dialogic interactions and allows teachers, students, and families to adapt learning materials designed by KIDS4ALLL.
The research contributes to bringing the voice of children and educators to the study after participating in the KIDS4ALLL activities. The research findings may tighten the connection between pedagogy, culture, social skills, and language. And it is possible that indirectly the educators promote socialization processes, acting as debaters in a multicultural educational environment.

Authors

• Lena de Botton, University of Barcelona

• Roger Campdepadros, University of Girona

• Dolly Eliyahu-Levi, Levinsky-Wingate Academic College

• Michal Ganz-Meishar, Levinsky-Wingate Academic College