Title: European contexts of volunteering and inclusion of migrant children in schools

Authors: Valerij Dermol; Špela Javornik; Susana de Juana-Espinosa; Plamen Vladkov Mirazchiyski; Aleš Trunk

Addresses: International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia ' Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia ' University of Alicante (UA), Alicante, Spain ' Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia ' International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia

Abstract: Volunteers are perceived as an important link in the inclusion of migrant students in schools, when institutions cannot take care of this on their own. For the theoretical part of the article systematic literature review, it was done by starting with 15,826 initial results, systematically reduced to 15 sources included in the theoretical part. The article discusses the role of volunteering in the inclusion of migrant students in schools and pay special attention on the results (reasons/need to volunteer) within the RoMigSc project. While the results show that volunteers expect personal benefit (e.g., career advancement), most of them are also internally (e.g., concerned for the disadvantaged ones) and externally (e.g., people close to them also volunteer) motivated. Future research and special practice shall consider recruiting internally motivated volunteers to work with migrant students. Although personal benefits can also increase volunteering, internal motivation is one of the leading factors.

Keywords: volunteering; migrant students; motivation for volunteering; volunteering benefits; youth; RoMigSc project; school inclusion; migrant integration; language barrier; cultural diversity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2023.128878

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2023 Vol.33 No.2, pp.230 - 251

Received: 11 Dec 2021
Accepted: 20 Jan 2022
Published online: 08 Feb 2023 *

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