Page 9 - IO1-Report

KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for School Education
The Universal Language of Mathematics (2018-1-TR01-KA201-059704)

Government programmes and social projects therefore offer language programmes, job placement,
career counselling and integration courses to help refugees arrive in Germany. Despite the large number
of existing programmes there has been still a need for improvement in this area, as for example two-
fifths of refugees interviewed have reported they needed help but did not receive it. (Brücker et al.
2017)

To sum up, the high degree of forced as well as voluntary – inter alia labour or familial – migration in
general has contributed to a growing population in Germany. The number of those migrating for
humanitarian reasons has been decreasing again after the so-called ‘wave of refugees’ in 2015/2016.
As already noted, politicians have been late in recognizing that immigration is part of the social reality
in Germany. Until the beginning of the 21st century, therefore, reforms on migration and integration
have been blocked. Nowadays, integration policy is also executed on all federal, state and municipal
levels and all federal states have developed an ‘integration concept’ and/or corresponding guidelines to
foster an inclusive and diverse society (Hanewinkel/Oltmer 2018c) Although many reforms, programs
and projects have been developed in recent years to support migrants, people with a migration
background are still often disadvantaged. This means that they still do not have the same participation
opportunities in central social areas, such as education, employment market, residence and political
involvement. (ibid) In view of rising immigration figures in Germany, there is therefore an enormous
need for future improvement in these areas in order to increase the participation of all people and equal
opportunities in society.

1.2. The situation of migrant and refugee children in Germany

The following section takes a closer look at the educational situation of newly immigrated children in
Germany. First, education and migration in general will be discussed in two paragraphs and then
the specific situation regarding education and flight in Germany will be examined in more detail.

The yardstick for successful integration is the equal social, professional, educational and cultural
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participation of people with a migration background , irrespective of the migration generation, family
language or residence status. (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung 2016) Before the school
situation of immigrated children is described in more detail here, two important aspects should be noted:
1.) pupils with a migration background are not to be regarded as a homogeneous but rather as diverse
group and 2.) educational success in Germany is not so much a result of migration background as of
social origin (i.e. educational level of parents, employment of parents, affiliation to social milieu or few
educational aspirations). However, because people with a migrant background are more likely to be
exposed to social or economic risks (poor pay, lack of work, social segregation etc.), the factors "low
education" and "migrant background" may coincide. (ibid)

The implementation of a variety of support programmes to support integration, such as language
learning, has increased the educational participation of children with a migrant background over the last

3 Persons with a so called “migration background” in Germany are those who immigrated to Germany themselves or whose
parents or grandparents immigrated to Germany, regardless of their current nationality.
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