Germany
World-mindedness of young people during the rise in migration in Europe: a case study of Czechia, Finland, Germany and The Netherlands.
During the 2015 sudden rise in migration movements in Europe, approximately 2.4 million refugees arrived in Europe and 1.2 million asylum applications were received in the European Union countries. We were interested in finding out whether these rapid changes and the polarised attitudes represented in the media affected young people's attitudes towards people with different cultural backgrounds. This study, therefore,…
2022
How schools in Germany shape and impact the lives of adolescent refugees in terms of mental health and social mobility
Schools are relevant settings for supporting refugee adolescents' mental health. As education and migration are important social determinants of health, we aim to integrate the qualitative findings of our mixed-methods study into a broader discussion regarding the role of schools and the potential effects on refugee adolescents' lives and mental health, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.…
2022
Thrown in at the deep end? Perceptions of burdens, gains, and contributions to the integration of refugee students among teachers with(out) target group-specific professional knowledge
In Germany, young migrants and refugees whose German language skills are not sufficient for attending regular classes at school are assigned to so-called “preparation classes”. As the name implies, the main objective of these classes is to teach German language skills and thereby prepare students for regular classes or vocational education and training. Teachers in these classes face special challenges:…
2022
A help or hindrance? Highly educated refugees’ perceptions of the role of civic integration programmes in accessing the labour market in Oslo, Malmö and Munich
Research often focuses on individual-level factors shaping refugee labour market participation. Less research has been conducted on the implications of the roles of employers, integration programmes, migrant support organisations and similar. This article contributes to the literature by seeking to understand highly educated refugees’ perceptions of how civic integration programmes shape opportunity structures for their labour market participation. It is…
2022
The dynamics of recent refugees’ language acquisition: how do their pathways compare to those of other new immigrants?
Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees (IAB-BAMF-SOEP Sample of Refugees in…
2022
Coping of Young Refugees in Germany: Relations to Gender, Age, and Gender Role Attitudes
Background: Coping is considered to have an important influence on well-being, especially in adolescent refugees dealing with a high amount of stress. In addition, gender differences in coping are a common topic for research and are often attributed to differences in socialization between boys and girls. Aims: The study aims at clarifying the gender differences in coping strategies used by…
2022
Sustainable Development Goals and social work in the migration context–a higher education dialogue between Germany, Jordan, and Lebanon
Germany, Jordan, and Lebanon’s social, political, and socio-economic structures are influenced by a long history of them receiving refugees and migrants. This was a starting point for the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg (Germany), the German Jordanian University, Yarmouk University (Jordan), and the Lebanese University to engage in an intercultural and professional exchange project on social work in the field…
2022
Accommodation, empowerment and disinvestment—Typical second-language learning trajectories of Syrian refugees in Germany
This paper asks how refugees' second-language learning processes are embedded in their lives in host countries. To address this question, the paper proposes the concept of second-language learning trajectories. These trajectories explain refugees' second-language learning as closely intertwined with learners' self-understanding, experiences and positioning in host countries. Using longitudinal narrative interview data from Syrian refugees in Germany, the paper identifies…
2022
New migrants, new challenges?-Activating multilingual resources for understanding mathematics: Institutional and interactional factors
New adolescent migrants from Arabic-speaking countries face complex challenges when participating in regular mathematics classes in Germany: They have been educated in their family language(s) and are obliged to adapt to a new (second or target) language and to different styles of teaching. In contrast, 3rd generation multilingual students, who usually are schooled in German only, have rarely ever used…
2022
Gender Differences in Second Language Proficiency-Evidence from Recent Humanitarian Migrants in Germany
In this paper, we address gender differences in the host language proficiency of humanitarian migrants. Prior research has produced inconclusive results with regard to women's host language proficiency relative to that of men: sometimes women's proficiency exceeds that of men, sometimes women lag behind men, and sometimes there are no substantial differences. Using data on recent humanitarian migrants in Germany,…
2022
The Civic Engagement and Social Integration of Refugees in Germany
Civil society has played an important role in meeting the challenges of refugee migration in recent years. This commentary documents the importance of civic engagement for the integration of refugees by linking individual survey data on refugees to a regional measure of civic engagement in Germany. Using the density of newly established civic associations at the county level as a…
2022
German Language Acquisition of Refugee Children—The Role of Preschools and Language Instruction
Mastering the language of the destination country is key to immigrant and refugee children's educational success. Refugee children typically face the challenge of starting or continuing their educational carrier in a completely new context and in a completely new language. In this study, we examine the role of preschool attendance and formal language instruction in supporting young refugee children to…
2022
Educational Assimilation of First-Generation and Second-Generation Immigrants in Germany
Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for 1984–2018, we analyze the intergenerational education mobility of immigrants in Germany by identifying the determinants of differences in educational stocks for first- and second-generation immigrants in comparison to individuals without a migration background. Our results show that on average, first-generation immigrants have fewer years of schooling than native-born Germans and have a…
2022
Educational Policies Matter: How Schooling Strategies Influence Refugee Adolescents' School Participation in Lower Secondary Education in Germany
This article investigates the educational participation of refugee adolescents in Germany as a main European destination country of refugee migration. Opportunities and restrictions for school participation vary not only across countries–, but in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, also within countries. The influence of different regional educational policies on refugees' educational participation and the extent to which…
2022
PARTICIPATION OF REFUGEE YOUTH IN GERMANY’S VET SYSTEM: REAL-WORLD LABS AS OPPORTUNITIES FOR CO-CONSTRUCTIVE KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND INNOVATIVE PRACTICE TRANSFORMATION
Germany has become the most important destination country for young refugees in Europe (Destatis, 2021). Vocational education and training can make an important contribution to overcome educational barriers and gain participation in society (Will & Hohmut, 2020). Since 2015, rural regions have faced new challenges in establishing effective support systems for young apprentices with forced migration experience (Ohliger et al.,…
2022
Holistic refugee and newcomer education in Europe: Mapping, upscaling and institutionalising promising practices from Germany, Greece and the Netherlands
Education is one of the most important fields to promote the integration of refugee and newcomer children and youths in host countries. However, holistic education for refugee and newcomers has so far not been established into mainstream education systems in European countries. Projects and pilot programmes have developed across Europe to test holistic approaches. Some of them have started very…
2022
Access for Syrian refugees into higher education in Germany: a systematic literature review
In the early years of the twenty-first century, the European Union faced an influx of refugees from war-torn areas of the world. By the end of 2015, nearly a million new refugees had arrived in Germany alone, half of them from Syria. Understanding how the Syrian refugee population has interacted with the German system of higher education is crucial for…
2022
Socio-Emotional Problems and Learning Skills of Roma and Recently Arrived Refugee Children in German Elementary Schools
Background: In Germany, many recently arrived and minority families live in multi-ethnic, high-poverty districts. Multiple risk factors threaten their children s development. Aims: We examined the socio-emotional problems of these children in relation to their academic learning skills and executive functioning. Method: We compared teacher-rated socio-emotional problems of n = 112 Roma children (90% foreign-born), n = 101 refugee children…
2022
An interpretive perspective on co-production in supporting refugee families’ access to childcare in Germany
The arrival of large numbers of refugees in Germany since 2015 has led to unprecedented levels of civic participation in service delivery. This is supported in integration policy, including through local coordination. We connect this empirical case with the conceptual debate on co-production, adopting an interpretive approach. We explore how volunteers and local coordinators interpret encounters between civic and state…
2022
Teachers in Transition. A Biographical Perspective on Transnational Professionalisation of Internationally Educated Teachers in Germany
Teachers trained in one country are often not allowed to serve as teachers in another country because their teacher’s license is not recognised as equivalent. The barriers these teachers have to overcome in order to work in their profession again are high and often require further (full) teacher training at the university. The paper provides insights into the conditions for…
2022
Non-verbal cognitive development, learning, and symptoms of PTSD in 3- to 6-year-old refugee children
As IQ tests are commonly used as key assessment method, we address the question whether our commonly used standardized IQ tests are appropriate for children from families of diverse cultures and different educational levels in a refugee population. We examined 109 refugee children aged 3–7 years (M = 5.10 years, SD = 1.25) with the “Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children “ (KABC-II;…
2022
Aberl S.
Dudek V.
Eckler L.V.
Fegert J.M.
Friedmann A.
Hahnefeld A.
Mall V.
Münch K.
Nehring I.
Plener P.L.
Sukale T.
Weigand E.
Formal education
Language education
Germany
Primary education
Experimental & quasi-experimental study
Early childhood education
Special education
Cognitive learning & development
Randomised control trial
Correlational analysis
Caregivers
Gender
English
Mental health & psychosocial well-being
Assessment
Camp setting
Special Needs Assessment in Bilingual School-Age Children in Germany
Educational and (psycho-)linguistic research on L1 and L2 acquisition in bilingual children sketches them as a group of language learners varying in many aspects. However, most studies to date have based evaluations of language proficiency or new assessment tools on data from heritage children, while studies on the appropriateness of assessment tools for school-age refugee children remain a notable exception.…
2022
Relative education of recent refugees in Germany and the Middle East: Is selectivity reflected in migration and destination decisions?
In this paper, relative education profiles of recent refugees arriving to Germany from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are described and compared to the profiles of Syrians in Jordan and Lebanon and of internally displaced Iraqis. Relative education describes a migrant's position in the educational distribution of the origin population. For recent refugees, relative education could be reflected in the decision…
2022
Integration Through Education: Using ICT in Education to Promote the Social Inclusion of Refugees in Germany
Social inclusion of refugees through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been gaining attention by researchers in the field of Information Systems. On a similar context, recent research has identified education among the main dimensions of integration and social inclusion of refugees. This study aims to uncover some of the benefits of ICT solutions related to education and digital learning…
2022
SIRIUS Watch 2021: Towards inclusive digital education for migrant children
SIRIUS Watch 2021 presents trends and developments on the effects of digitalisation in education on migrant children both pre- COVID-19 and during COVID-19. It will build on national and EU-level research, as well as the results of the SIRIUS Online Digital Workshop. The results include a clear framework of challenges and recommendations to support the development of an inclusive digital…
2021
Learning to integrate, waiting to belong: language, time and uncertainty among newcomers in Germany
What happens when we require newcomers to learn a country’s dominant language before they can work, study and become citizens? At first blush, this may seem beneficial for newcomers and local communities alike. In fact, language proficiency requirements across Europe are often treated as innocuous components of broader immigration policies. However, recent scholarship in linguistic anthropology and related fields has…
2021
The integration of asylum seekers and refugees in the field of education and the labour market: Comparative thematic report
This report is based on a meta-analysis of nine national reports on integration from countries along the so-called Eastern Mediterranean Route. It includes two countries beyond the EU, Turkey and Iraq, which have played an important role as source and transit countries of refugees, the transit countries of Greece, Italy and Poland, and the destination countries of Austria, Germany, Sweden,…
2021
Example of best practice: refugee teachers at the University of Potsdam. A requalification program for newly arrived teachers in Germany
The Refugee Teachers Program, established at the University of Potsdam, Brandenburg, in 2016, represents a successful model for training and integrating individuals with foreign teaching qualifications through an 18-month teaching and language course. Initially created to help meet the demand for teachers in Germany, the Refugee Teachers Program has been further refined over the course of the last three years…
2021
Three Contexts As The Post-Migration Ecology For Refugees: School Principals’ Challenges And Strategies In Turkey, Lebanon, And Germany
This article seeks to compare and analyze school-level challenges for school leaders and their responses to Syrian refugee education in Turkey, Lebanon, and Germany, drawing on the post-migration ecology framework developed and sensemaking processes in leadership. We utilized a comparative qualitative design within the realm of qualitative research. Findings revealed that the challenges are similar across the three contexts and…
2021
Enhancing social work education’s diversity-oriented perspective by integrating refugees into higher education: Experiences from the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
This note describes how integrating refugees into programs of social work education at universities and universities of applied sciences in Germany influenced the education provided, especially in rural areas where student bodies tend to be homogeneous groups. The refugees enrolled in social work courses changed those mostly homogeneous groups of students not only with their presence but moreover by introducing…
2021
Educational structure of refugees
Since 2015, the Federal Republic of Germany has accepted more than one million refugees. In many cases, the refugee crisis in Germany is seen as an opportunity to compensate for the need for skilled labour. By 2030 there will be a shortage of around 3 million skilled workers. Therefore, this article focuses on the educational structure of refugees in the…
2021
Diversity is not the enemy: Promoting encounters between university students and newcomers
In today’s globalized world with dynamic processes of political, social, and societal change (Mergner et al., 2019) the university should be a place of encounter between people with different (cultural) backgrounds. The learning arrangement presented here therefore initiates intercultural exchange and aims to help students see diversity as an asset rather than a challenge (Roos, 2019). To this end, an…
2021
Intercultural Attitudes as Predictors of Student’s Prejudices Towards Refugees
One of the major challenges for modern western societies is the reduction of prejudice in order to achieve a sufficient level of integration of immigrants and especially refugees. The current literature thus presents a multitude of approaches to understand and reduce prejudices. Therefore, the following paper investigates the relationships between ethnic identity, acculturation attitudes, intercultural competence, and prejudice and how…
2021
Study preparation of refugees in germany: How teachers’ evaluative practices shape educational trajectories
Recent research shows that a remarkable share of refugees who have arrived in Germany over the past few years is highly qualified and has strong educational and academic aspirations. Preparatory colleges (Studienkollegs) and language courses of higher education institutions are the two main organisations providing obligatory study preparation for non‐EU international study applicants in Germany, including an increasing number of…
2021
The Role of Vocational Education and Training in the Integration of Refugees in Austria, Denmark and Germany
Context: Vocational education and training (VET) plays a crucial role in the social inclusion of refugees. The aim of this paper is to examine how the VET systems of Austria, Denmark and Germany responded to the arrival of young refugees since 2015. VET in these countries is categorised as system of collective skill formation, which offers apprenticeships in addition to…
2021
Linking refugee families with the host societies. A mixed-methods evaluation study of family education programmes in Germany (Creando vínculos entre las familias refugiadas y las sociedades de acogida. Una evaluación de métodos mixtos sobre los programas de educación familiar en Alemania)
This article examines the situations faced by refugee families in Germany and analyses the role of family education programmes in supporting their inclusion in society. We focus on two internationally implemented and licensed family education programmes, HIPPY and Opstapje, and an adapted three-month bridging format known as Welcome with IMPULS (WmI), all of which involve home visits and group meetings.…
2021
The role of different school organizational models in the psychological adaptation of refugee adolescents
Given the high number of refugee children and adolescents around the globe, it is critical to determine conditions that foster their adaptation in the receiving country. This study investigated the psychological adaptation of recently arrived adolescent refugees in Germany. We focused on whether psychological adaptation reflects the organizational approach taken by the school that refugee adolescents initially attended. School is…
2021
Scaling up and Crowding out: How German Adult Education Centers Adapted Course Offers to Refugee Integration
Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the local environment can affect opportunities for participation…
2021
“Wie soll ich das Kind bewerten?” Between Standardization and Differentiation in the Assessment of Plurilingual Refugee Students in Foreign-Language Classes in Germany: A Qualitative Study of Teachers’ Practices and Perceptions
In this chapter, we analyse the practices and attitudes of German teachers regarding assessment of refugee students learning Spanish or English as foreign languages. The data were collected through interviews with ten Spanish or English teachers dealing with refugee students in their classrooms in secondary schools in Hamburg in 2017 (Thölkes, “Schaffen die das?”. Die Leistungsbeurteilung geflüchteter Kinder und Jugendlicher…
2021
Pre-school Teachers' Stereotypes and Self-Efficacy are Linked to Perceptions of Behavior Problems in Newly Arrived Refugee Children
Introduction: Since 2015, increased numbers of refugee families with pre-school-aged children have arrived in Germany. In pre-schools, teachers' professional competence for teaching those children and adapting to their socio-emotional needs has become increasingly important. Previous research linked teachers' stereotypes and cultural beliefs to their self-efficacy and enthusiasm when teaching immigrant children. This study investigated the links between domains of pre-school…
2021
COVID-19 in collective accommodation centres for refugees: assessment of pandemic control measures and priorities from the perspective of authorities [COVID-19 in Sammelunterkünften für Geflüchtete: Analyse von Pandemiemaßnahmen und prioritäre Bedarfe aus behördlicher Sicht]
Background: The containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in collective accommodation centres is crucial to maintain the physical and mental health of refugees. It is unclear what measures have been taken by authorities in this setting to reduce the risk of infection, minimise stressors for refugees during the pandemic and communicate containment measures. Objectives: Assessment of measures that have been taken…
2021
Does the education level of refugees affect natives’ attitudes?
In recent years, Europe has experienced a large influx of refugees. While natives’ attitudes toward refugees are decisive for the political feasibility of asylum policies, little is known about how these attitudes are shaped by information about refugees’ characteristics. We conducted a survey experiment with a representative sample of more than 4,000 adults in Germany in which we randomly provide…
2021
To work or to study? Postmigration educational investments of adult refugees in Germany – Evidence from a choice experiment
In this article, we analyze individual factors and situational conditions under which immigrants are more or less likely to invest in host country-specific human capital. Theoretically, we root our expectations in a strand of the immigrant human capital investment model combined with a basic model of educational decisions. Using a choice experiment, we simulate a decision process among refugees in…
2021
Cartographers of their Futures: The Formation of Occupational Aspirations of Highly Educated Refugees in Malmö and Munich
The article engages with occupational aspirations of highly educated refugees with the aim to explore how their social positions of being highly educated and a refugee inform their aspirations. It does so by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 30 highly educated refugees living in Malmö and Munich. Findings show how highly educated refugees’ occupational aspirations are informed by their educational…
2021
Integration of newly arrived refugee children into the german school system
Background: The assignment of newly arrived refugee children to the differentiated German school system represents a major challenge for the responsible municipalities. In this explora-tive research approach, the current assignment procedure, in addition to the necessary assessment of performance and the detection of learning, mental, or social disabilities of newly arrived refugee children in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany, were investigated.…
2021
Expectations, experiences and anticipated outcomes of supporting refugee students in Germany: Systems theoretical analysis of organizational semantics
This chapter looks into semantic associations and potential discourses on refugee students within German higher education organizations (HEOs). The main task of organizational systems is to reduce complexity: they set limits to what is possible and thereby create communicative expectations. The chapter first provides an overview of higher education for refugees in Germany and international research on refugees in higher…
2021
Refugees’ pathways to German Higher Education institutions
Since 2015, Germany has followed a welcoming policy for refugees and has made efforts to integrate them in German society through initiatives such as development programs. However, very few refugee students have actually managed to enter German Higher Education (HE) institutions. Using a qualitative methodology, the researcher interviewed Arab refugee students studying in pre-academic and academic degree programs in Germany,…
2021
The effect of early childhood education and care services on the integration of refugee families
Devising appropriate policy measures to integrate refugees is high on the agenda of many governments. This paper focuses on the integration of families seeking asylum in Germany between 2013 and 2016. Exploiting regional differences in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services and dispersal policies as exogenous sources of variation, as well as controlling for local level heterogeneity that could…
2021
Students from refugee backgrounds in physical education: A survey of teachers’ perceptions
Sport and physical education are considered important platforms for introducing people from refugee backgrounds to their new environment. However, studies dealing with the specific role of physical education in this context are scarce, although it is often the first and sometimes only setting in which people from refugee backgrounds come into contact with sport in the host country. To this…
2021
An Informal Education Intervention in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Homework Mentorships in a Berlin Refugee Shelter
The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting damage is often portrayed in staggering numbers and statistics. This article offers, by contrast, a personal and qualitative account of employees, volunteers, and young residents at a refugee home in Berlin, Germany. Through the story of a boy who has spent the past 4 years in several of Berlin’s 84 remaining refugee accommodations, we examine the…
2021