(Temporary) Educational Integration of School-Age Children in the Context of Multiple and Multidirectional Migration: A Critical Challenge for the European Union and Its Member States

Abstract

Changing patterns of migration have led to a diversification of involvement in migration among school-age children. This paper will outline these changing patterns and the ways in which school-age children are involved in migration, focusing specifically on their involvement in multiple and multidirectional migration. The paper suggests that this type of migration is present among two specific groups of students: firstly, those whose families have left their first country of destination and moved on to another country due to economic crisis and secondly, those who arrive as forced migrants through several transit countries. The empirical data is analysed with respect to the potentials and risks multiple and multidirectional migration hold for educational biography. This analysis takes the current EU policy and legal framework, as well as the approach of the German secondary literature of educational science, into consideration. Through examples from qualitative interviews with school-age children, the paper will demonstrate the implications of temporarily stays in different localities and how the needs of the students clash with the current concept of educational integration.