Serbia as a country on the “Balkan route” was a transit country for thousands of refugees until Summer 2016, when families realized they might stay longer than planned in this last non-EU country on their route, and started considering educating their children in Serbia. A first snapshot on the challenges and successes of the integration process of refugees highlighted positive peer relationships between domicile and refugee students as one of the unexpected positive outcomes (Kovač Cerović, Grbić & Vesić, 2017). Although international overviews and recommendations for integrating migrant students usually do not prioritize positive peer relationships (OECD, 2015; Nusche, 2009), developmental-psychological studies stress the pivotal role of peer relationships for development, both through success experiences with friends and through acceptance by the peer group (Parker, Rubin, Erath, Wojslawowicz & Buskirk, 2006). Moreover, literature shows multiple facets of peer interaction benefits especially in case of vulnerable or immigrant children, such as increased intercultural understanding (Vickers, McCarthy & Zammit, 2017), or gaining social confidence (Albrecht & Ko, 2017) as well as the lasting positive effects of increasing opportunity for intergroup contact (Asendorpf & Motti-Stefanidi, 2017). This paper puts the spotlight on exploring peer-to-peer interactions between domicile and refugee students in greater detail. A mix-method study is conducted in four schools in Belgrade suburbs, with 60 domicile and 50 refugee students, their teachers and school associates. Key data are provided through qualitative methods that include analyses of two types of narratives written by domicile students, based on the “dynamic storytelling methodology” (Daiute & Kovacs Cerovic, 2017), focus groups with refugees, teachers and school associates. First results show that peer support is not used strategically but represents coincidental events happening spontaneously between students; discrepancies in perspectives of school teachers and refugee students are also found. Conversely, encouraging perspectives were found across the narratives of domicile students, that suggest attitudes of acceptance, readiness to engage and understand refugee students’ experiences, feelings and needs regarding their present situation and future endeavors, even in the absence of guidance from the school for such empathic response. Modalities of building on positive peer-relationships will be discussed.

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