Until 2020, Croatia has been a culturally and linguistically homogenous society that underwent post-socijalist transition and became a high-income and EU country. In the last five years, Croatia has seen an almost exponential growth of foreign and migrant workers and persons seeking international protection, who are all culturally and linguistically different from the domestic language and culture. The objective of the paper is to capture how a previously culturally and linguistically homogenous schooling system meets the challenge of cultural and linguistic diversification. It adds to literature on the integration of migrant students and brings the perspective of a country that has just started becoming culturally diverse. This paper analyses how Croatian primary and secondary schools adjusted to the integration of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The paper uses a child rights and social justice lens to answer the following research questions:

-        How do schools in Croatia implement the principles of intercultural, inclusive, and socially just education in everyday teaching practice?

-        Which institutional characteristics (organisational, personnel, resource, value) hinder and which facilitate the development of schools as interculturally sensitive and socially just environments?

-        What systematic recommendations can be formulated to strengthen the capacity of the Croatian education system to ensure intercultural, inclusive, and socially just education, especially in the context of including students with a migrant background?

The theoretical framework leans on child-rights and social justice approaches, in line with UNICEF's mandate. For the specific understanding of multicultural processes in education,  Banks’ (Banks, 2002; Banks et al., 2014) model of multicultural education was used. This comprehensive framework,  identifies five interrelated dimensions and explains the shift from a paradigm of cultural deprivation to one of cultural diversity, essential for ensuring quality education for culturally and ethnically diverse students: content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equitable pedagogy, and an empowering school culture and social structure. Banks’ model of multicultural education wasan appropriate starting point for considering the inclusion of students of migrant origin in the educational process, precisely because of its multidimensionality, which highlights that the complex process of educational inclusion cannot be reduced to a folkloric approach – namely, the mere inclusion of superficial information about students’ cultures and identities in teaching. Instead, it emphasises the necessity of a systematic approach, supported by the engagement of not only the school community but also actors at the macro level of the system, to create an environment in which students feel accepted, respected, and supported (Bartulović, 2025).

The paper draws on a critical professional development perspective, which positions teachers as reflective practitioners and agents of social change (i.e. Frost et al 2026).

This paper is a result of the triangulation of three interconnected data sources, providing an in-depth, multidimensional understanding of inclusive and intercultural education in the Croatian context. The first source is a national mixed-methods study involving educators, students, and parents in early years, preschool, primary, and secondary education. Data were collected through a combination of online questionnaires, focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of relevant documents, enabling comparison of quantitative patterns and qualitative insights. An online questionnaire was created for quantitative data collection and distributed via the LimeSurvey platform. The questionnaire used in this study was designed to identify the professional development needs of pedagogicstaff working with children with a migrant background. The instrument was structured within the methodological framework of the Delphi method, allowing for a systematic and iterative approach to gathering expert input from professionals in the field of education. 81 participants working in the field of ECEC or primary education and 80 participants from lower secondary and upper secondary levels of education completed the online questionnaire. A total of 67 educational professionals, 36 parents of children with a migrant background, and 23 students with a migrant background took part in the focus groups. The focus groups were conducted according toa previously defined protocol, and the results were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2020; Braun & Clarke, 2006). The second source of data consist of a review of 107 international and national documents, observation and both unstrucutred and structured stakeholder consultations. The third data source is participatory action research conducted in five Croatian schools. This process included guided self-assessment of institutional capacities, co-creation of school-level Action Plans for inclusion, implementation of targeted professional training, mentoring activities, monitoring and evaluation of changes in school practices. Together, these three complementary sources enable a holistic, multilevel analysis and provide a robust empirical foundation for understanding and improving intercultural and inclusive education in Croatia. Before starting, the research received approval from the Ethics Committee for Scientific Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth.

Croatia, being a relative newcomer to inclusion of cultural and linguistic diversity, still has a way to go to in setting up systems for including migrant students. There is opportunity, as teachers generally motivated to meet the needs of children with a migrant background, but that they feel isolated and insecure on whether they are really supporting the integration of those students. The data reveal numerous underlying systemic shortcomings, such as the lack of standards on intercultural education, the lack of intercultural education in teacher training and professional development, the scarcity of teachers with skills to teach Croatia as an additional language, and the lack of data on migrant students that would ease planning and support. The study reveals that inclusive and socially just education for migrant and linguistically diverse learners is not achieved through isolated initiatives, but through coherent, relational and systemically supported practices. The findings demonstrate that inclusion improves when schools are supported to plan, reflect and collaborate within a coherent policy and professional learning framework. The paper proposes a multi-level capacity-building model that connects policy alignment, professional development and school-based action. It contributes empirical evidence from a Central and Eastern European context and offers transferable insights for strengthening inclusive education across Europe.

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