The recent wave of immigration to Europe had been carrying with it big problems concerning the inclusion of migrants in the host countries. Although school is considered as a medium for integration, learning different subjects often meets barriers, not only those of language but even of understanding how things work in the new country. Older children arriving have problems learning the new language (or becoming literate) as well at catching up with the curriculum. A lot of focus has been put on just this category, in some countries attending preparatory classes before being able to integrate the compulsory school or the upper secondary school, in others more or less directly put into ordinary classes, with variable success. Meanwhile, very little focus has been put on younger children in the age of attending nursery school or preschool. Some families of migrant choose for different reasons not to put very young children at school. A consequence of such a choice is that the child for example risks beginning compulsory education with no or poor knowledge about the language of the host country as well as social codes and practices (even hidden ones). As the person taking care of the child often is the mother, another consequence is that she will also have more difficulties with social inclusion or with getting access to tools for inclusion, for example by attending classes to learn the language of the host country. The reason for choosing preschool as a focus is that preschool, although it is not compulsory in our countries seems to be a possible way for migrant families to better integrate and be included in the host country. For instance, parents or some member of the family usually bring younger children to school and are therefore given the possibility to meet teachers and other parents, as well as to become familiar with the habits, traditions and way of life of the new country. In other words, preschool -or kindergarten- can be considered as a possible threshold to better inclusion not only of the children, but also their family. The target group is families with infants and children aged 6 months-7 years. At every level, the project aims at changing people’s attitudes towards migrants and their families and at developing educational tools and professional development courses to facilitate the inclusion of migrants. It is also aimed at migrants themselves to help them understand and accept the different cultural codes to integrate better in the host country. One important and in our eyes original goal is to develop tools to facilitate the cooperation between different social actors such as municipalities, stakeholders, social workers, NGO, libraries, families of children from the host country to interact with school around the inclusion of recently arrived families. In other words, the global aim of the project is to promote preschool as a social and cultural meeting place and a tool for early inclusion for migrant families. Another objective is to compare the practices in different contexts and, although the situation may vary from one country to the other, develop common tools to improve the inclusion of immigrants in the host countries that may even be used at an European level. The different mappings and the educational tools developed through the project will therefore result in courses aimed for existing or future preschool personal and widely spread.
The KINDINMI project (The Kindergarten as a Factor of Inclusion for Migrant Children and their Families) is a collaborative and comparative research project on local, regional, national and European strategies and innovative practices for a better inclusion of recently arrived young migrants in kindergarten/preschool education. We see preschool as a means for giving better opportunities to young migrants as well as their families for social orientation and inclusion in the host country. Partners are teams from universities in Austria, the Czech Republic, Scotland and Sweden (coordinator), who are involved on different levels in Early Childhood Education and Care. The project aimed to change attitudes and lead to new actions for inclusion in preschool environment, by developing educational tools and professional development courses. As the beneficiary target groups were recently arrived families with very young children, it seemed important to us that even those were as much as possible included and involved in the activities and the materials developed through the project. One in our eyes original goal was to enhance cooperation between preschool and social actors such as municipalities, stakeholders, social workers, NGO, libraries, families of children from the host country: in other words, the global objective of the project was to promote preschool as a social and cultural meeting place. In order to reach our goals, we have compared practices in our different contexts and developed common tools and materials that may be adapted and used at a European or international level. The mappings developed through the project have resulted in courses aimed for existing or future preschool personal and educational tools for practitioners, children and families. This material is available from our website, and can easily be adapted and widely spread. During the project, preschool teachers, mother tongue teachers, headmasters, university staff and students, stakeholders, NGOs, parents and children were involved at several levels: surveys, questionnaires and formal or informal interviews were conducted with all categories of participants. Some participated in activities and many have now used our pedagogic kit. We drew innovation rather far and multilingual preschool children participated for instance in our final event through activities where they were the main actors, and an exhibition of envelope houses made by children and collected by preschools from all partners countries. During the KINDINMI project, the following activities were conducted: - The project teams started by mapping (reading, surveys, interviews, comparisons) the situation in each context, which has resulted in presentations (updated until February 2020), and a bibliography/sitography. - We sat up a website, https://www.edu.uu.se/collaboration/kindinmi/, which is sustainable and trough which our materials are available, and a blog which in the end of February 2020 had been visited over 11500 times. - Courses were developed and performed. Curricula are now available in English, German and Swedish, and our Czech partner has used part of them. Those curricula are available from the website and are easily adaptable for various contexts and target groups. - Presentations were held at seminars/conferences, workshops, in the partner countries but also elsewhere in Europe, and in Tunisia and Japan. - Articles were written out of our research and observations. - We have produced podcasts on different issues related to the project and a webinar about picture books and inclusion, all available online on our blog. - All above cited activities have resulted in the project’s most important product, our pedagogic material, the “Heartspace pedagogic kit”: this material, based on multimodality, is aimed at preschool staff in initial and in-service education, teachers of mother tongue or other relevant persons and includes a sharing book aimed to travel between preschool, parents, children. To sum up our results and the impact of the project, three main target groups benefited from KINDINMI: - preschool staff, who, through courses and the pedagogic kit, which intentionally is an interactive and reflexive material, acquire new knowledge and competences about inclusion, multicultural issues. Preschool teachers changed attitude toward multicultural families and children and implemented new multimodal, methods into their daily work. The pedagogic material even influenced the physical environment’s disposition and use in preschool. Preschools can now share their practices through our website. We reached around 500 practitioners and hope for many more. - guardians, who benefit from the staff’s new knowledge, and also can use the sharing book - kindergarten children, who benefit from their teachers' and guardians' awareness, and can use the sharing book. Other groups, such as stakeholders, can benefit from our experience and our pedagogic material.