School practices to involve parents in the integration of newly arrived migrant students

Although education remains a key factor in receiving and integrating Newly Arrived Migrant Students (NAMS), local school practices differ among countries. This is particularly true regarding practices that schools adopt to involve parents of NAMS in the integration of their children into the school system. Literature in the field suggests that the more involved parents are in school life, the more successful integration is. However, school practices to involve parents are under-represented in this literature. In an attempt to fill this gap, this chapter investigates school practices regarding NAMS parental involvement within the specific national contexts. These contexts are representative of a large multinational European project on receiving NAMS in European countries such as Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania, and Turkey. The findings suggest that there are many initiatives and effective practices at both top-level and local-level initiatives, which implies adopting a Whole Education Approach perspective on each site. It appears that these initiatives and practices meet with varying degrees of success in inclusion of NAMS. The findings also suggest that the issue is larger than parental involvement; school practices and top-level policies may need to give further consideration to dimensions such as wider school family relationships and the role of community.