The European Commission (2019, p. 9) highlights the process of migrant integration in Europe as a problem. Several studies agree that European countries should seriously consider the education of migrant students as a means of social inclusion and educational success (Ahad & Benton, 2018; Bajaj et al., 2017; Evans & Liu, 2018; Koelher, 2017). Consequently, as Ahad & Benton (2018, p. 1) point out, there is an urgent need to better adapt education systems to support the successful integration of children from migrant backgrounds and their families.

This contribution aims to explore educational proposals for better integration of migrant children at schools in Spain throughout interviews to experts and stakeholders within the European research project MiCreate. MiCreate is integrated by a consortium of 10 European countries with the overall objective of the project is to stimulate inclusion of diverse groups of migrant children by adopting child-centered approach to migrant children integration on educational and policy level. 

Currently, migrant pupils face a variety of barriers to success in school system and in their lives (DeNicolo et al., 2017; Harte et al., 2016; Huddleston & Wolffhardt, 2016). Some factors that affect this are the language barrier, parental influence, socio-economic status, and culture shock (Harte et al., 2016; Huddleston & Wolffhardt, 2016).

Several studies point to the need for more research on improving the procedures employed by the education system to integrate migrants (Bajaj et al., 2017; DeNicolo et al., 2017; Donoso et al., 2020). Bajaj et al. (2017, p. 259) note that it is urgent more investigation on the types of approaches in schools with the purpose to detect the needs of newcomer students, while, according to DeNicolo et al. (2017, p. 513) “more research is needed to understand school belonging aimed at disrupting inequalities”.

In this context, financed by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program, this project runs from January 2019 to December 2021, involving 15 institutions from 12 countries. The overall objective of the project is to map the contributions and tensions in education systems promoting the social inclusion of children and young people from non-EU countries. One of its strengths is the adoption of a child-centred approach for stimulating the inclusion and integration of migrant children at the educational and policy levels.

The issue of migration is wide-ranging and complex in Europe. The processes through which migrant children have to pass are diverse and not always easy. Throughout this integration process, professionals and experts are engaged to facilitate it. Consequently, one of the focuses of the research is to find out what the relevant stakeholders think and which of their perceptions, approaches and proposals regarding integration could be considered for education. To this end, we interviewed skilled professionals and authorities from the different countries in order to ascertain their perceptions and evaluations regarding the project. 

Our purpose is to suggest educational measures to facilitate the integration of migrant students, based on the proposals of the Spanish experts interviewed. As Harju-Autti & Sinkkonen (2020, p. 65) highlight, "school plays an important role in social integration for every student". To promote equal opportunities for academic and employment success, we have four objectives: First, to make significant educational proposals based on the needs of migrant children. Second, to specify practices that respond to these needs. Third, to highlight the difficulties in satisfying the needs detected. And fourth, to point out possibilities for improving such action.

We used a qualitative research design in this study. To preserve the complexity of our research, we adopted an inclusive research perspective (Nind, 2014). It is important that institutions and organizations should be aware of the situation of migrants, know their needs and be able to evaluate how they respond to those needs. Accordingly, we considered it relevant to carry out semi-structured interviews with a selected sample of stakeholders, in order to explore and map their knowledge, concerns and practices for improving the integration of migrant children. In order to obtain a representative and diverse sample the first selection criterion involved inviting professionals, authorities and experts from concerned ministries, state agencies, teachers' unions, migrants’ associations, NGOs, and researchers. Once we had identified stakeholders and conducted a selection of them, we also applied the chain sampling technique. So, we started contacting those experts we already knew and, when necessary, research participants were asked to identify and enable us to contact other potential informants. This allowed us to have access to other experts, achieving a richer sample. We conducted thirteen semi-structured interviews with fourteen stakeholders from different institutions. They addressed different issues related to children’s needs, identification of gaps for program development, further research directions and readiness for change of the institutions that stakeholders represented. The interview covered 5 topics: general information, integration policies assessment, migrant children’s needs, knowledge of integration, and other issues. The analysis of data was thematization. Themes coincide with the 4 objectives: the needs that stakeholders consider migrant children to have (first); which practices they are aware of and which attempt to respond to those needs (second); what difficulties they face as an institution or those they know migrant children face (third); and, finally, an attempt to identify the possibilities for change, recommendations, and what should be taken into account to ensure that institutions provide a better response to children’s needs (fourth).

The results highlighted the following issues that need to be addressed. Regarding migrant children’s needs, there is a need for balancing languages: learn the host country language but also practice the mother tongue. In addition, there is a need for raising a sense of recognition and belonging. Children need to be recognized in the new communities and get involved in their activities. Some current practices that are responding to these demands in Catalan context are reception classrooms, mentoring projects, and proposals from some schools to open them to the neighbourhood. However, there are some difficulties. Among them, the main ones are the fact that we live in a society with not much sympathy for cultural diversity; the cultural and educational shock: when migrant families arrive in the host country, they need a period of understanding the logics of the new educational, social, political and economical system. Also the slow process of regrouping is pointed out as a big difficulty. Related to what should be done, two recommendations came up: more flexibility towards migrant children’s integration into schools, and proposed practices that involve as much as possible all the community and close entities. These findings, led us to define educational proposals aimed at furthering the integration of migrant students: build a welcoming atmosphere, effective leadership, holistic programming, evaluation programs, and child-centered learning are necessary; rethink the curriculum; make learning the host country's language by migrant students; promote teacher training in multi-diversity or intercultural competence; support educational practices that foster a sense of belonging and identity among migrant students and their families in schools, in the community and in society.

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