Navigating high-migration classrooms : teachers’ insights on overcoming challenges and building community

Abstract

As migration is expected to increase both regionally and internationally, educational systems must adapt to the changing needs of their students. Some countries have already faced and partially struggled with international immigration for a time, while others only recently started to see rising numbers. Often, students with a migration background lack social and cultural capital in their local communities, which affects their academic success and integration. Teachers can support their students with social and cultural capital, though it often depends on the individual teacher’s ability. This thesis aims to research how teachers working in established high-migration areas with low socioeconomic status perceive their own role(s) in supporting their students, and what knowledge they have gained through their teaching experiences. Using narrative inquiry, this thesis investigates the expertise of four secondary education teachers from Bremen, Germany, shared in semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that the teachers provide their students with social and cultural capital through close relationships, academic support, and cultural knowledge outside of their direct teaching obligations. The teachers generally consider their own role to be quasi-familial, becoming cultural ambassador and central support contacts for both the students and their parents. The teachers also share that not everyone can create this social community, indicating a skillset needed to successfully lead multicultural classrooms. They call for more teach-er-student training in a variety of contexts to prepare future teachers for possible teaching realities, as well as more flexibility in curriculums. This indicates that countries who have only recently seen increased numbers of international immigration need to prepare their teacher-students through practical experiences for this, as well as highlight the social and cultural aspects of teaching within the training in all teacher trainings.