Can New Digital and Pedagogical Innovations Help Bridge Education Gaps for Migrant Children?

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of children during the migration crisis exacerbated existing structural limitations in how school systems support children with migrant backgrounds, including insufficient teacher capacity and training, and underdeveloped systems for identifying and diagnosing needs. Faced with rising levels of language learners in their classrooms, some schools have turned to innovations in technology and pedagogy—such as personalized learning and differentiated instruction, translation software, ‘flipped’ classrooms, and massive open online courses (MOOCs)—to support teachers and help diverse learners keep up.

Do these innovations represent new solutions, partial supports, or a distraction from the broader challenges of supporting diverse learners? How can educators and integration policymakers use these tools to improve the outcomes for the most disadvantaged students, without widening existing inequalities? And what are the broader structural reforms needed to rethink the way that schools are designed, operated, and staffed to update education systems for diverse populations?

This Migration Policy Institute Europe webinar considers what the future of education might hold for diverse learners. It marks the release of a report, Mainstreaming 2.0: How Europe’s Education Systems Can Boost Migrant Inclusion, produced in the framework of its Integration Futures Working Group. The report sets out five major challenges—demographic, socioeconomic, political, systematic, and governance—thrown into sharp relief by the migration crisis, and analyzes progress towards ‘mainstreaming’ integration priorities across the whole education system. It also identifies five lessons for integration and education policymakers, to ensure the whole education workforce is equipped to support diverse learners and better realise the broader role schools play as integration actors.