Inclusion of refugee children at school «Backpack ID»

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Project Number: [2017-1-EL01-KA201-036197]

Backpack ID is an innovative intervention targeting the inclusion of migrant and refugee children at school in four European countries (Greece, Italy, Germany and Sweden). Erasmus+ KA 2 funds the Project and a partnership coordinated by the University of Crete implements it.

The aims and the objectives

The ultimate goal of the Project is to achieve the general inclusion of migrant and refugee children and teenagers (10-15 years old) through the successful integration of them at the school environment. To succeed that, the Project aims at the empowerment of all students (not only the refugees), emphasizing on their skills, their qualifications and their being members of multiple groups.

The theoretical premise for the Project’s design is that as the students/pupils explore their own identities, they gradually understand and experience aspects of “otherness” in themselves and become enabled to explore the bridges across group members and identities.

The final goal of the Project is to produce educational material that all the European schools could use.

Specifically, the «Backpack ID» aims at:

• Encouraging students to make use of their identity resources (linguistic, cultural etc.) as a mean of facilitating the communication and interaction with their families and their immediate social background
• Reinforcing their capacity to think of the similarities and differences between them and reflect on the challenges the achievement of the social integration faces in other European Countries having in mind their own experiences
• Investigating and mapping the diversity of student’s identities, comparing them on a translational level, in order to form a corpus of data for research use
• Producing educational material which can be used by students and teachers
• Supporting and empowering teachers as to be able to understand and manage the dynamics of identities in the classroom
• Promoting the critical thinking on the challenges the social inclusion faces in Europe and encourage the involvement of all key agents

The outputs

• The production of an electronic book, which will consist of student’s material in multiple formats (texts, photographs, videos, songs etc.), that will outline their diverse identities
• The student’s narratives digitally converted and specifically in video format
• The production of a translational volume which will consist of the interpretative analyses of videos that students and teachers will conduct in classroom
• The production of a guide for teachers with innovative practices

The methodology

Being an interdisciplinary approach, the project is based on expertise in social and developmental psychology, linguistics, and educational theory and practice alongside making use of the academic expertise and valuable experience earned from educational organizations, international educational networks and NGOs.

Regarding the methodology, a mixed models design is applied using multiple ways, in order to form a diversity of perspectives within the context of implementation research, the stages of which are influenced by the continual analyses and interpretation. Moreover, it integrates the methodology of action research that develops a participatory structure, mainly emphasizing on the involvement of the families in the learning procedure.

In order to evaluate and improve the project, the project consortium plans to conduct a series of overlapping triangulation checks.

The partners of the Project

University of Crete (Greece)
Municipality of Linköping (Sweden)
1st Gymnasium of Avlona (Greece)
Sweden Emilia-Romagna Network Associazione (Italy)
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece)
Center for the Advancement of Research & Development in Educational Technology (Cyprus)
University of Heidelberg (Germany)
NOSTOS NGO against Social Exclusion and Unemployment (Greece)

For more information, you can visit the website of the project