School mates

A recent scientific article published in Nature Human Behavior examines the social interactions of refugee adolescents with their peers in Germany, through the analysis of their social networks.

The proportion of people forced to leave their homes as a result of political instability, armed conflict, persecution, climate and demographic change has grown rapidly over the past decade and now exceeds 1% of the world's population.
Furthermore, a large part of refugee migrants in Europe are children and adolescents under the age of 18, who need not only formal education, but also "positive" relationships with their peers, because these - according to various theories - are fundamental for their adaptation.

According to the authors, the social integration of adolescents is based on positive friendship relationships and the absence of rejection of the relationship by peers. Some theories show that friends are crucial for adolescents' social integration as they provide 'social capital', which offers newcomers valuable resources, such as, for example, information about the new context of residence and social support. Immigrant students benefit from social contact with members of the majority group, through which they can access very important opportunities in the destination country, such as exposure to a language other than their own, thus improving academic performance and job placement.

But this type of relationship generally encounters many obstacles for refugee adolescents: linguistic difficulties and traumatic experience can create barriers to acceptance by peers.
Furthermore, social integration is not a one-sided process, but also depends on the predisposition and probable prejudice of the new companions in the destination country.
According to the authors, a particularly important aspect for social inclusion is the ethnic diversity in the school. In more diverse school contexts, refugee students have more opportunities to interact with peers who also have an immigrant background: they are more likely to share experiences with them that increase their belonging to groups other than the majority and to face challenges similar in achieving their educational goals. Furthermore, the ethnic diversity of the school could improve the social integration of refugee students by also stimulating inter-ethnic relationships: under some conditions, contact between different groups has been shown to increase familiarity with members of the other group and reduce prejudice and aggression towards minorities.

Research findings show that refugee adolescents have fewer friends and are more often rejected as classmates than their classmates. Furthermore, as social diversity increases, refugee student networks tend to include more peers from ethnic minorities and fewer native-born peers. This finding reflects the phenomenon of homophilia, according to which people tend to build social ties with those who are similar in terms of salient attributes, such as ethnic origin.
Class mates When inclusion at school cancels prejudices and increases acceptance Non-refugee adolescents, but with a history of immigration, tend to choose more refugee students as friends. However, in more ethnically diverse classrooms, non-refugee students are more likely to mention refugee students as friends. These findings underscore the substantial role that ethnic diversity at school can play in refugees' friendships with native-born peers. Conversely, in less ethnically diverse contexts, native-born peers are more likely to reject refugee students as classmates.

In summary, ethnic diversity in the school emerges as a very important driver of integration for refugee students, who feel more accepted by both other immigrant students and native-born students. The latter, probably due to the positive contact experiences they have had the opportunity to establish with their peers, tend to have less prejudice and are more open to welcoming and integrating their fellow refugees.

Pierluigi Conzo
NP June / July 2023