Challenging homogeneity: Migration-related learner characteristics in refugee-only and mixed-migrant destination language classes in Türkiye and Germany

Date

2025-01-01

Author

Atmacasoy, Abdullah
Akar, Hanife
Gogolin, Ingrid

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

124
views

37
downloads

Cite This

Providing effective destination language education is crucial for the successful transition of newly arrived migrant children into mainstream education. Due to diverse migration patterns, destination language preparatory classes vary in their composition based on the children's migration status. In first-asylum countries, these classes are typically homogeneous, which consist solely of refugee children. In contrast, in resettlement or traditional immigration countries, they tend to be more heterogeneous and accommodate both economic migrants and refugees within the same classroom. This compartmentalized approach, evident in both policy and research, risks limiting the development of transferable, evidence-based insights into destination language education. This multiple case study compares migration-related learner characteristics in homogeneous (refugee-only) and heterogeneous (mixed-migrant) language preparatory classes at the lower-secondary level in Türkiye and Germany. It uses Istanbul and Hamburg as illustrative cases. The study draws on 33 h of classroom observations and 68 semi-structured interviews with key informants, teachers, school administrators, and students. The findings underscore similar multifaceted within-group differences as a defining feature of language preparatory classrooms, regardless of their composition. Migration status alone fails to capture the complexity of newly arrived migrant children. Ethnic diversity is observed not only in mixed-migrant classes in Hamburg but also in refugee-only classes in Istanbul. This challenges assumptions of homogeneity from the same origin country. A second key factor is the presence of newly arrived migrant children with varying schooling trajectories, which further increases within-group differences. Diverse linguistic repertoires characterize both classroom compositions, which are shaped by the dynamic interplay of migration pathways, social background, and prior schooling. These intersecting migration-related characteristics create new forms of stratification and lead to different forms of inequality.

Subject Keywords

Integration, Language education, Learner characteristics, Newly arrived migrant children, Preparatory classes, Refugee children

URI

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=105015528272&origin=inward
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115721

Collections

Department of Educational Sciences, Article