The European Union Social Cohesion policy (European Commission, 2021) clearly states that social inclusion in European education is a priority, yet children from an ethnic minority or immigrant background often face social exclusion in partner countries of the European Union (Madanipour & Weck, 2015). In an environment where social inclusion is not promoted, peer victimization, peer-rejection and friendlessness emerge more easily (Juvonen et al., 2019). In addition, social exclusion and perceived prejudice not only have a negative impact on psychological well-being but can also affect academic achievement and progress in the school environment (Hood et al., 2017). Educational settings play an important role in forming the intergroup orientations of children (Cooper & Slavin, 2001) and can potentially promote pro-social behaviour (Alan, 2021), thus supporting peers to be inclusive towards each other and overcome ethnic and cultural differences. Training of social skills can also be beneficial for children at risk of social exclusion as the promotion of these skills can result in higher levels of social interactions (Denham et al., 2007). We hypothesize that the intervention programs aiming to support the inclusion of children from ethnic minority or immigrant background are procedurally and methodologically diverse. The purpose of the study is to identify interventions that promote social inclusion of ethnic minority and immigrant children in formal and non-formal educational settings by shaping their intergroup relations and orientations of children as well as their social skills. Based on the data, our aim is to collect all the reported interventions and best practices that are available in the current literature, furthermore we would like to identify the main characteristics of these interventions.

A systematic search was conducted in Scopus (n=667), Web of Science (n=1050) and ProQuest (n=898). After excluding duplications, 2565 studies were screened based on title and abstract. 54 papers were assessed for eligibility. We found 12 eligible studies. We included published and unpublished studies, written in English. Our inclusion criteria were: 1. The study had to assess an intervention promoting positive peer interaction and cooperation between immigrant/ethnic minority children and/or promoting social acceptance and belonging of minority groups to support the inclusion of the children with immigrant/ethnic minority background, 2. We included studies examining participants between the age of 5 and 12, from both majority and minority samples, 3. We included both qualitative and quantitative data. Data was synthetized regarding the content and common elements of interventions, methodological characteristics, and contextual factors of feasibility and then analyzed with a thematical approach.

Eight of the identified studies used qualitative methods while the other four used quantitative methods for measuring the effect of the interventions. Our results show that most interventions for inclusion are implemented in a formal educational setting, mainly focusing on children aged between 5-10. Three of the identified studies involved parents in the intervention. The studies focused on the following inclusive approaches: multiculturality, positive peer-interactions, prejudice reduction, social and communicational skills, interactivity, cooperation.

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