Intercultural Mentoring tools to support migrant integration at school (INTO)
Within the scope of European policies and to combat educational disadvantages for migrant children, numerous actions have been taken to improve the position of migrant children in education. In secondary education the emphasis lies on diversification of the offered teaching methods and extra guidance of the pupils. Some schools in Europe have set up measures to increase the continuity of the educational support in terms of migrant pupil inclusion and orientation. Despite these measures, dropout rates are still high among migrant youth and compared to their native peers a disproportionately large number attend the lowest levels of secondary school after completing primary school. The disappointing results of regular guidance are partly the reason for the development of more innovative forms of guidance.
The project aims to promote strategies and methods that help students with a migrant background at risk of ESL to maintain their motivation through the development, testing and validation of an Intercultural Mentoring Programme based on the empowered peer education methodology.
The Intercultural mentor profile will be adapted to different European contexts, developed in collaboration with at least 100 school staff members (headmaster and secondary school teachers from 5 different European countries) and tested with at least 50 students with a migrant background trained as Intercultural Mentors.
The impact of the project will be sustained thanks to its outcomes:
- Didactic Kit: conceived as self-teaching materials will contain the training framework to directly implement the model of intervention in secondary schools system;
- Guideline Handbook: support the future implementation of training courses – by other education organizations and secondary school,
- Project website: it will include not only the results and materials of the project (handbooks, e-learning platform, reports, etc.) but will also include updated information on young migrants.