The kindergarten as a factor of inclusion for migrant children and their families Erasmus Project

Project Title

The kindergarten as a factor of inclusion for migrant children and their families

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The KINDINMI project (The Kindergarten as a Factor of Inclusion for Migrant Children and their Families) is a collaborative and comparative research project on local, regional, national and European strategies and innovative practices for a better inclusion of recently arrived young migrants in kindergarten/preschool education. We see preschool as a means for giving better opportunities to young migrants as well as their families for social orientation and inclusion in the host country. Partners are teams from universities in Austria, the Czech Republic, Scotland and Sweden (coordinator), who are involved on different levels in Early Childhood Education and Care.
The project aimed to change attitudes and lead to new actions for inclusion in preschool environment, by developing educational tools and professional development courses.
As the beneficiary target groups were recently arrived families with very young children, it seemed important to us that even those were as much as possible included and involved in the activities and the materials developed through the project.
One in our eyes original goal was to enhance cooperation between preschool and social actors such as municipalities, stakeholders, social workers, NGO, libraries, families of children from the host country: in other words, the global objective of the project was to promote preschool as a social and cultural meeting place.
In order to reach our goals, we have compared practices in our different contexts and developed common tools and materials that may be adapted and used at a European or international level. The mappings developed through the project have resulted in courses aimed for existing or future preschool personal and educational tools for practitioners, children and families. This material is available from our website, and can easily be adapted and widely spread.
During the project, preschool teachers, mother tongue teachers, headmasters, university staff and students, stakeholders, NGOs, parents and children were involved at several levels: surveys, questionnaires and formal or informal interviews were conducted with all categories of participants. Some participated in activities and many have now used our pedagogic kit.
We drew innovation rather far and multilingual preschool children participated for instance in our final event through activities where they were the main actors, and an exhibition of envelope houses made by children and collected by preschools from all partners countries.
During the KINDINMI project, the following activities were conducted:
– The project teams started by mapping (reading, surveys, interviews, comparisons) the situation in each context, which has resulted in presentations (updated until February 2020), and a bibliography/sitography.
– We sat up a website, https://www.edu.uu.se/collaboration/kindinmi/, which is sustainable and trough which our materials are available, and a blog which in the end of February 2020 had been visited over 11500 times.
– Courses were developed and performed. Curricula are now available in English, German and Swedish, and our Czech partner has used part of them. Those curricula are available from the website and are easily adaptable for various contexts and target groups.
– Presentations were held at seminars/conferences, workshops, in the partner countries but also elsewhere in Europe, and in Tunisia and Japan.
– Articles were written out of our research and observations.
– We have produced podcasts on different issues related to the project and a webinar about picture books and inclusion, all available online on our blog.
– All above cited activities have resulted in the project’s most important product, our pedagogic material, the “Heartspace pedagogic kit”: this material, based on multimodality, is aimed at preschool staff in initial and in-service education, teachers of mother tongue or other relevant persons and includes a sharing book aimed to travel between preschool, parents, children.
To sum up our results and the impact of the project, three main target groups benefited from KINDINMI:
– preschool staff, who, through courses and the pedagogic kit, which intentionally is an interactive and reflexive material, acquire new knowledge and competences about inclusion, multicultural issues. Preschool teachers changed attitude toward multicultural families and children and implemented new multimodal, methods into their daily work. The pedagogic material even influenced the physical environment’s disposition and use in preschool. Preschools can now share their practices through our website. We reached around 500 practitioners and hope for many more.
– guardians, who benefit from the staff’s new knowledge, and also can use the sharing book
– kindergarten children, who benefit from their teachers’ and guardians’ awareness, and can use the sharing book.
Other groups, such as stakeholders, can benefit from our experience and our pedagogic material.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 186328 Eur

Project Coordinator

UPPSALA UNIVERSITET & Country: SE

Project Partners

• THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
• Pädagogische Hochschule Wien
• UNIVERZITA PALACKEHO V OLOMOUCI