Since the immigration rate has recently risen in Europe to a high extent, the inclusion of new members of the society is a highly relevant transnational issue. Unfortunately, the high number of immigrants is often used to stir fears and xenophobia. School embodies the first and central interface between immigrated children and the individual immigration society. Therefore, it has an enormous impact on the process of inclusion and needs to offer a concept that meets the challenges and chances of today. Our project prioritizes the social inclusion of immigrated students to foster equality and non-discrimination in every day school education. An informal meeting with all partners has revealed that all participating schools deal with the same challenges but have completely different approaches towards the inclusion of immigrants. The French and German school offer a well-structured, yet a very different concept for students to be supported during their school day. In contrast, the Italian school has no special treatment for their immigrated students during their school day, but installed extracurricular linguistic afternoon classes instead. The Portuguese school holds a vast knowledge concerning the evaluation of foreign students’ performances. All four partners contribute with their very own conceptional expertise and depend on the experiences of the others to develop a new concept. Students will be selected so that they represent the whole scope of cultural and social diversity of each school, with a specific focus on children with immigrational backgrounds. The age of the participant students will be 12-16 years. The project focuses on the creation and realisation of two final products: the first focus lies on the implementation of a “welcoming concept” at each of the participating schools. Depending on the diagnosed results of the schools’ current immigration concepts, the students develop a “survival kit” which includes the most basic information on their school and cultural and linguistic support. Furthermore, they will build a tutoring system and several events. The second focus lies on the inclusion of immigrated students into regular English classes. A basic research at all participating schools has revealed that this part of inclusion is the toughest one at each partner school. Due to a lack of previous knowledge, this inclusion presently fails to a high extent – yet it forms a most essential basis for equality of chances in higher education and business work. The creation of (digital) material (e.g. podcasts, quizzes, radio plays etc.) to be used on tablets individually by immigrated students during their English classes, is one intended goal. Our project methods include conducting surveys and interviews, having exhibitions, creating (digital) learning material, debating on e-twinning, visiting learning places (e.g. museums and refugee shelters), publishing newspaper and online articles. The most distinctive method will be an “Immigration Simulation” during each transnational student exchange, where the visiting students step into the footsteps of new immigrated students to test and evaluate their implemented welcoming concept. In preparation for and during the project, teachers and students will participate in external workshops and tutorials. The project will run through four phases – each school being responsible for the success of one particular phase: 1) “creating awareness”, 2) “analysis of pros & cons”, 3) “development of new conceptual parts and material“, 4) “implementation of the new concept”. After the completion of the last phase, a final evaluation and a report of future prospects is directly adjoined. Alongside with all steps and phases, a steady evaluation and measurement of the new concept is secured by the “Immigration Simulations” during all transnational exchanges. Each student exchange serves as a final checkpoint of one phase and leads to a new step towards the final goal of building a new inclusive concept. As a result, students, teachers and the individual school community will be more open-minded, attentive and enabled to live the inclusion of newly arrived students. The steady presentation of new material and conceptional parts on our school homepages and local newspapers will also inspire other departments, schools and locals. In short term, the immigrated students will have much better opportunities to be quickly included into the school community, the school system, linguistic classes and culture. In long term, they will have better chances on the national and transnational job market. Our project is unique in its way because our target group also makes an essential part of our project group. Due to the close interaction among students with and without an immigrational background, inclusion will be constantly taking place during the two years of the project. All in all, not only the final products of the project raise social inclusion, the project itself does.
Since the immigration rate has recently risen in Europe to a high extent, the inclusion of new members of the society is a highly relevant transnational issue. Unfortunately, the high number of immigrants is often used to stir fears and xenophobia. School embodies the first and central interface between immigrated children and the individual immigration society. Therefore, it has an enormous impact on the process of inclusion and needs to offer a concept that meets the challenges and chances of today. Our project prioritizes the social inclusion of immigrated students to foster equality and non-discrimination in every day school education. An informal meeting with all partners has revealed that all participating schools deal with the same challenges but have completely different approaches towards the inclusion of immigrants. The French and German school offer a well-structured, yet a very different concept for students to be supported during their school day. In contrast, the Italian school has no special treatment for their immigrated students during their school day, but installed extracurricular linguistic afternoon classes instead. The Portuguese school holds a vast knowledge concerning the evaluation of foreign students’ performances. All four partners contribute with their very own conceptional expertise and depend on the experiences of the others to develop a new concept. Students were selected so that they represented the whole scope of cultural and social diversity of each school, with a specific focus on children with immigrational backgrounds. The age of the participant students was between 11 and 17 years. The project focused on the creation and realisation of two final products: the first focus was on the implementation of a “welcoming concept” at each of the participating schools. Depending on the diagnosed results of the schools’ current immigration concepts, the students developed a “SMART KIT” which includes the most basic information on their school and cultural and linguistic support. Furthermore they built a tutoring system and several events. The second focus was on the inclusion of immigrated students into regular English classes. A basic research at all participating schools has revealed that this part of inclusion is the toughest one at each partner school. Due to a lack of previous knowledge, this inclusion presently fails to a high extent – yet it forms a most essential basis for equality of chances in higher education and business work. The creation of (digital) material in english language to be used on tablets individually by immigrated students during their English classes, was another goal. Our project methods included conducting surveys and interviews, exhibitions, creating (digital) learning material, debating on etwinning, visiting learning places (e.g. museums and refugee shelters), publishing newspaper and online articles. The most distinctive method was an “Immigration Simulation” called the “Newcomer Day“ during each transnational student exchange, where the visiting students stepped into the footsteps of new immigrated students to test and (later) evaluate their implemented welcoming concept. In preparation for and during the project, teachers and students participated in external workshops and tutorials. The project ran through four phases – each school was responsible for the success of one particular phase: 1) “creating awareness”, 2) “analysis of pros & cons”, 3) “development of new conceptual parts and material“, 4) “implementation of the new concept”. After the completion of the last phase, a final evaluation and a report of future prospects was directly adjoined. Alongside with all steps and phases, a steady evaluation and measurement of the new concept was secured by the “Immigration Simulations” during all transnational exchanges. Each student exchange served as a final checkpoint of one phase and lead to a new step towards the final goal of building a new inclusive concept. As a result, students, teachers and the individual school community are now more open-minded, attentive and enabled to live the inclusion of newly arrived students. The steady presentation of new material and conceptional parts on our school homepages and local newspapers also inspired other departments, schools and locals. In short term, the immigrated students will have much better opportunities to be quickly included into the school community, the school system, linguistic classes and culture. In long term, they will have better chances on the national and transnational job market. Our project is unique in its way because our target group also makes an essential part of our project group. Due to the close interaction among students with and without an immigrational background, inclusion constantly took place during the last two years of the project. All in all, not only the final products of the project raise social inclusion, the project itself does.