The research project’s aim is to analyse the role of intercultural assistants in the integration of children, youth, and families with migration experience. “Intercultural assistant” denotes someone who supports the education and integration at school of children and youth with migration experience. In Poland the legal basis to employ a teacher’s assistant exists since the 1st of October 2010. This institutional status is based on the position of the “Roma educational assistant”, present since 2004 in the Polish education system. Intercultural assistants are employed on the basis of funds for administrative and supporting staff, and they are not covered by the Teacher’s Charter (Karta Nauczyciela). In the school year 2019/2020, 72 people were employed [by schools] as teachers’ assistants, speaking the language of the [pupils] country of origin. In addition to this group, assistants are also employed as part of civil society projects (overall in 2020 there were approximately 20 people employed in Poland on that basis). In sum, by 2021 no more than 100 people worked as intercultural assistants in the Polish educational system.
The number of foreigners in Poland systematically increases. For over two decades the inflow of foreigners to Poland was relatively small, with temporary migration of circular character from Ukraine prevailing. By 2019 the number of Ukrainian nationals who had resident cards in Poland increased by 570%, as compared to 2013. According to the data by the Office of Foreigners on the 1st of January 2020, there were 422,438 foreigners with a residence permit in Poland. In the school year 2019/2020 there were 39,858 foreign children in Polish schools, which means that there was a migrant child in every third school in Poland. There is an increasing need for a policy response to this situation.
The main research question of the research project is: What is the role of intercultural assistants in the integration of children, youth, and families with migration experience? The work and role of an assistant were until now rarely the topic of systematic scientific research. The majority of data comes from the expertise and experience of the intercultural assistants and non-governmental organizations cooperating with schools, in which children and youth with migration experience study. The proposed project will fill this research gap and contribute to social policy studies and migration studies by:
- Contributing to the debate on the role of local communities and their institutions (ie. schools) in the process of integration.
- Contributing to the debate on the multi-level governance of integration policy by focusing on the relations between national policy, local governments policies, the involvement of civic organizations, and the use of EU funds.
- Creating a preliminary qualitative and explorative study as the starting point for future in-depth quantitative policy research concerning foreign pupils in Poland’s educational system.
In the project, we will use mixed methods. We will combine desk research (analysis of existing data produced by state agencies) with qualitative field research (participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus group interviews). The research team will conduct a case studies analysis on the basis of two purposively selected schools. The research team will conduct interviews with intercultural assistants from various schools in Poland in order to learn about the conditions of their work and their experiences at implementing the integration policy at its frontline.
Implementing institution: Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Resocialisation – University of Warsaw
Duration: 2021-2025
Funded by: National Science Centre, project number 2020/39/O/HS5/00763