Original scientific paper

The Inclusion of Returnee Migrant Children in Schools

Melita Švob ; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Sonja Podgorelec ; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Carmen Brčić ; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Vlasta Đuranović ; Institute for Mother and Child Healthcare, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

The paper presents part of the results of the research project ‟Problems of Migrant Children”, conducted on a sample of returnee migrant children from the F. R. of Germany in Zagreb schools. Children between 10 and 15 years of age, who had lived at least five years in Germany and had returned to Yugoslavia in the last three years, were tested. The paper attempts to present the attitudes of returnee children, and of a group of non-migrant children, in regard to school and the basic problems encountered by children returning from abroad (from another school system) during their inclusion in Yugoslav schools. The basis of the analysis consisted in answers to a questionnaire of twenty original questions of the Schaller test, complemented with questions regarding difficulties in the use of the mother tongue, differences between German and Yugoslav teachers etc. The Schaller test measures attitudes of children to school. The posed questions constitute factors of a determined (positive or negative) relationship in regard to the individual situation: factor I tests the general attitude of pupils to school; factor II adaptation to fellow pupils; factor III fear of the class; factor IV psychosomatic reactions; factor V school work, and factor VI inferiority. The questionnaire results showed that returnee pupils, as well as the pupils in the control group, had an equally negative attitude to school; their inclusion in the class milieu is likewise the same, and there were no greater problems in being accepted by fellow pupils. Both groups sometimes felt inferior. Differences were present in the phenomenon of fear of the class (more pronounced in returnees), psychosomatic reactions to the school, and worry about the school (more pronounced in the control group). Returnee migrants mostly had problems with the mother tongue, history and geography, even though 86 out of 100 had attended supplementary schools in Germany.

Keywords

returnee migrant children; mother tongue; FR of Germany; Zagreb

Hrčak ID:

128091

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/128091

Publication date:

29.12.1989.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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