La educación del alumnado inmigrante. Un reto social y educativo

Abstract

This article deals with a series of questions related to the schooling of immigrants who joined school relatively late and therefore have greater dificulty in integrating into our educational system. These immigrants have little or no experience of schooling, and little or no knowledge of
Spanish and Catalan. The needs of students who begin their education relatively late are analysed from the perspective of the need to pay due attention to diversity. With this in mind several proposals are put forward to approach and satisfy these needs: assessment and proposals which take account of the attitude of the host society, the teaching staff, other members of the class, and the educational community in general towards these students; the need to balance the distribution of immigrants in particular,schools; the organization and development of plans for integration in the
educational centers and in their social and urban environment; their relations with local students; working with the families; the acquisition of the local languagels, the preservation and acquisition of the mother tongue and culture, the influence of society and the potentially educational role of extracurricular and leisure activities. The article focuses on education,
but also highlights the social, economic, political and cultliral dimensions of immigration and the need to guarantee the economic, educational and human resources that the complexity of the phenomenon requires.