02497nas a2200157 4500008004100000022001400041245010900055210006900164260001200233300001200245490000600257520185400263653009402117100002202211856010602233 2017 eng d a2300-168200aChechen’s Lesson. Challenges of Integrating Refugee Children in a Transit Country: A Polish Case Study0 aChechen s Lesson Challenges of Integrating Refugee Children in a c06/2017 a123-1400 v63 a

This paper examines migratory movements into Poland with a special emphasis on refugee mobility. In the past twenty years, almost 90 000 Chechen refugees have come to Poland, as it was the first safe country they reached. According to the Office for Foreigners data they constituted approximately 90 per cent of applicants for refugee status, 38 per cent of persons granted refugee status, 90 per cent of persons granted ‘tolerated status’ and 93 per cent of persons granted ‘subsidiary protection status’. However, a peculiarity of the Polish situation, confirmed by official statistics and research, is that refugees treat Poland mainly as a transit country. The author focuses on the issue of integrating Chechen refugee children into the Polish education system, as well as Chechen children granted international protection or waiting to be granted such protection. The results of the study suggest that Polish immigration policy has no impact on the choice of destination of the refugees that were interviewed. None of the interviewees wanted to return to Chechnya, nor did they perceive Poland as a destination country. Children with refugee status, which enables them to stay legally in the Schengen area, ‘disappear’ not only from the Polish educational system but from Poland as a whole as well. This phenomenon hampers the possibility of achieving educational success when working with foreign children, and it challenges the immense efforts by Polish institutions to integrate refugee children into the school and the local community. Both official statistical data and research results were used in this paper.

10aChechens; refugees; Poland; integration; schools; intercultural education; refugee crisis1 aIglicka, Krystyna uhttp://www.ceemr.uw.edu.pl/sites/default/files/Iglicka_Challenges_of_Integrating_Refugee_Children.pdf