No lost generation? Education for refugee children: a comparison between Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and Turkey

Abstract

The research debate covering the so-called ‘refugee crises in Europe’ has largely been addressing issues like border control, EU policies – or the lack thereof – and the political backlash in the form of anti-immigrant sentiments. Follow-up questions about the integration of refugees and 1 We would like to thank Alireza Behtoui for helping us find relevant English language literature on Sweden for this paper. their children into society, education and work are now slowly appearing on the agenda too. Although the current attention to the issue of the integration of the children of refugees into education is recent, several researchers in Europe have addressed the question for previous waves of refugees. The findings of one of the largest European studies on the topic, Integrace, a comparative study which includes Sweden and the Netherlands among other EU Member States, will figure prominently in this paper. Next to this study there are smaller national and local studies that are often descriptive or evaluate examples of so-called good practice in cities and schools.