More than ten months after the crisis in Ukraine escalated, the situation remains dire for children and their families. The conflict in Ukraine has caused the fastest and largest displacement of people in Europe since World War II.

According to the International Children's Fund UNICEF as of December, 2022, the total number of refugees fleeing Ukraine reached nearly 16 million people including 1.2 million children, are currently abroad. These children are a part of the potential of Ukraine. It is especially important for every child, who was forced to flee from Ukraine because of the war, to have a sustainable and convenient education in a protective country. It is also equally important that a child adapts to the country's educational institutions and at the same time does not deviate from Ukrainian educational standards, and continues to study relevant subjects.

European schools have opened their doors to Ukrainian externally displaced children in order to help adjusting to local communities and enter their education system. An increasing number of French classrooms has opened doors for Ukrainian families and their children, but while French education faced urgent reaction for the refugee flow some schools lacked tools and effective practices for refugee and migrant inclusive education.

The literature on topic of refugee integration in local school classrooms traditionally distinguishes two aspects:

- On the one hand, the literature describe teachers readiness to work in multicultural classroom. The key factor then, in creating successful classroom communities, is teachers who are able to identify the specialized needs of refugee children and who are culturally responsive to the needs of refugee children in their classrooms (Candappa, 2000; Olsen, 2006; Goodwin, 2002).

- On the other hand, strategic studies  how do refugee students find the inspiration and demonstrate strong resilience, positive future expectations, and high motivation at school (e.g., Bartlett et al., 2017; Blanchet-Cohen et al., 2017; Oppedal et al., 2017; Pastoor, 2015; Peterson et al., 2017; Shakya et al., 2010). Some authers debate whether the refugee experience may have an impact on education (Cerna, 2019, see also Ferede, 2010; Lynnebakke et al., 2020). Or how refugee students, influenced by their past experience in their home countries, feel disconnected to a sense of community within their own ethnic group, in the local communities to which they have been resettled, and within the local school communities in which they have been enrolled (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2009; Boyson & Short, 2003).

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced many people to flee their home and search for protection in neighboring European countries. While European countries have already taken many actions to address refugee learners’ educational needs, equal attention needs to be paid to their psychosocial needs.  

To meet the challenges stated above, we launched the project under the title "Schooling of refugee children in the French education system" aims to study the schooling and adaptation of Ukrainian children in French schools.

This project was focused on describing a typical refugee school child who sustained external displacement during the war in Ukraine.  We planned to discover the challenges and perspectives for adaptation of Ukrainian children in French schools. The objectives of the project were aimed at taking actions:

- to accumulate statistics on how many Ukrainian refugees of the school-age are there in France and how many of them attend schools;

- to make a comprehensible comparison of the school systems and school standards of Ukraine and France

- to provide qualitative research and collect empirical data to analyze the huddles and conveniences of the life of a refugee school children in time of war in Ukraine.

The proposed project adopts a mixed methods research design, which involves the combination of qualitative and quantitative research and data (Creswell, 2014). Mixed methods design overcomes the false dichotomy between positivist and non-positivist philosophies by embracing a pragmatic epistemology that allows researchers to use a variety of approaches to answer research questions that cannot be answered with a singular method. Specifically, the proposed project follows the approach that Creswell (2014) describes as "exploratory sequential mixed methods", whereby the researcher first begins with a qualitative research phase, studies documents and explores the viewpoints of attendees. The data is then analyzed and fed into a second quantitative phase by filling in the research tool. For the proposed project, the research process will first include a review of documents and mapping of student perspectives, before gathering measurable results from a larger sample of participants. A comparative analysis of the methods of schoolchildren's adaptation to the new school environment was be carried out. For the survey data collection we are focused on: - schoolchildren from among displaced persons in secondary education institutions in Ukraine and France; - teachers of schools that accepted schoolchildren from among the displaced persons; - representatives of education management bodies in Ukraine and France

- Actual problems of integration of displaced schoolchildren in France in conditions of military aggression was identified - A comparative analysis of the methods of schoolchildren's adaptation to the new school environment was carried out; - Recommendations were developed for spreading positive practices in working with displaced schoolchildren - The obtained results were disseminated at the international round table of UERA (Ukrainian Educational Researcher Association) with the participation of members of the association of education researchers from as well as representatives of education management bodies - Ukrainian researchers were able to established contacts between representatives of the national association of educational researchers of France (member of EERA)

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