Ecosystems for welcoming migrant students: Practices, opportunities, and tensions

Abstract

This research explores how educational institutions foster the inclusion and reception of recently arrived children. Within this framework, the present article has a double objective: to map the actions and practices of welcoming newly arrived students carried out by a group of public schools in Spain; and to analyze, based on the theoretical notion of welcoming ecosystem, the rhizome of educational opportunities and accompaniment of children. This study corresponds to the qualitative phase of the project MICREATE — Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe (HORIZON 2020–822664). It describes, categorizes and analyzes, following grounded theory principles, the elements of the reception ecosystem in Spain based on in-depth interviews with school management teams, teachers and family members from a targeted sample of 15 schools with enrollment of foreign students or students of migrant origin. Based on the analysis of the interviews, we theorize about an ideal welcoming ecosystem in which all students can receive the necessary support to find their place in the community and continue learning in a meaningful way.