The phenomenon of migration in Europe have drastically changed in recent years, specially because of the inequality of life conditions among countries and the risen of international conflicts. This situation forced 1.3 million people to ask for asylum in other countries in 2016 (EASO, 2016) and more than 2.3 million people to illegally cross the European Union borders. A consequence of this phenomenon is that ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity and socioeconomic inequalities are also growing in different countries (Currie, 2016). Children and young people are also affected by these circumstances, being 398.255 the number of children younger than 18 who applied for asylum in 2016 (EASO, 2016). For this reason, it urges to review and reorient integration policies in the European Union, specially to address the conditions of children.

The research project “MiCreate. Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe” (H2020-SC6-MIGRATION-2018) aims to understand the limits and potentials of current integration policies and educational systems from a children-centred approach, in order to stimulate their social integration at educational and policy level. This involves the analysis of current measures for the integration of migrant children (12-17 years old) in European countries -including children of refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors-, the identification of social impacts of these integration programmes through case studies in 6 countries (Slovenia, Austria, Denmark, United Kingdom, Poland and Spain) and the design of integration measures with a cross-national and local perspective.

The specifics objectives of the research project are: (a) to examine the characteristics of reception communities, (b) to improve knowledge about children’s experiences of life in new social environments, (c) to get an insight into school peer dynamics in view of the integration process, (d) to build on the capacity of educational staff for diversity managing, (e) to implement cross-national comparative analysis, (f) to develop child-centred tools for stimulating migrant integration, (g) to design child-centred integration policy recommendations.

In this paper we will present part of the results of the first specific objective, which corresponds with the Work Package 2 (WP2) and consists on creating a State of the Art on migration and integration of children through a cross-disciplinary approach. This WP implies the accomplishment of five central tasks, which are: (a) Review of literature on migration and integration; (b) Examination of child-centred approach across disciplines; (c) Identification of good practices; (d) Identification of innovative approaches for the integration of migrant children; and (e) EU policy analysis. Both tasks 3 and 4 will be developed in each of the 6 countries participating in the case studies.

From the empirical work of this initial phase of the project, we propose to define and problematize the notion of "Good practices" in each of the dimensions of the project. For this, we have searched for different key aspects that allow their analysis in educational contexts. In general terms, "good practice" is understood as a model or example of an activity carried out with satisfactory results that respond to a shared vision of "wanting to advance" and constitute the product of the identity of a specific context where they are carried out (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). An inherent aspect of the concept is the character of transferability and exportability (Benavente, 2007). According to Biesta (2015) for a good practice to be considered as such it is necessary to overcome difficulties and have the capacity to implement them in contexts, thus enabling its application to new situations. Therefore, a good practice would entail a transformation in the forms and processes of action that can suppose the beginning of a positive change in the traditional methods of action.

The methodologic process of the WP2 will focus on use of Scientific Literature and Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA methodology) (Varker, 2015) to undertake a review of the conceptual and methodological literature on migration and integration of children through a cross-disciplinary approach. This information will be cross-referenced with sources known to the project team and through review of available literature, databases and case studies. The review will be used to present activities in the six participating countries with Field Work. The review of the scientific literature will be complemented by further searches of ‘grey’ literature (i.e. policy documents) using both on- and off-line methods to assess the current knowledge base on the integration of migrant children (Rothstein & Hopewell, 2009). Apart from reviewing conceptual and methodological literature, in this initial stage we will implement policy analysis to review migration policies in each country under study and identification of activities undertaken by both European and national institutions and agencies in the field of migration integration in schools. The empirical work of this initial phase of the project (WP2) will be carried out between the months of February and June 2019. This stage will produce a general report on the preliminary results of research that will form the early work on policy and impact and the child-centred approach. The State of the Art will also include performing in-depth examination of policy instruments and legal regulations (policy analysis) conducted to assess migration policies across the study regions, and activities undertaken by European and national agencies in the field of migration and integration in schools through the analysis of existing policies. In this paper we will identify and problematize the notion of “good practices” of different experiences promoted from the own institutionality, towards actions developed in formal school contexts. Based on a review of these experiences and their analysis based on OER, the different speeches prevailing in relation to certain "good practices" of migrant integration in school contexts will be announced.

The aim of generating a review of literature, policies and study cases of good practices on migration and integration of child people is to provide a solid theoretical base for the research project. However, this analysis has the potential of identifying the limitations and potentials of policies and practices. On the one hand, we will present the results of case studies that point out at good practices of integration of migrant children in school, local community and wider society. The practices will be specially oriented to: (a) language courses and teaching in schools, (b) religion instructions in public schools, (c) general organisation of school life in relation with food, expression of religious beliefs, resolution of intercultural conflicts. On the other hand, we will discuss the contradictions related with the identification of “good practices”, highlighting the interests and contextual characteristics that might be behind the identification of an initiative as successful.

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