In this master thesis we researched the issue of including immigrants into the society. We defined current European refugee migration circumstances and focused on inclusion, specifically in education. On the basis of read literature and personal experiences we have focused on sport activities as a tool for effective refugee transition into the new environment.
On the basis of European guidelines published online, we determined that recently there is many projects dedicated to immigrant inclusion through sport activities. With our case study as well as with personal observation journal, we established sports being an effective tool for child immigrants overall development, Finnish non-government organization “Icehearts” being our prime example. Their program is based on including children with lesser opportunities into the society, activities being focused on sports gaining values and social skills necessary for their further development.
In past couple of years Slovenia is facing with wave of migrants coming from foreign cultural backgrounds. Some of the immigrant inclusion guidelines on the field of education are already written based on experiences of Ex-Yugoslav countries mass immigration. Due to current waves different cultural, religious backgrounds and language, we determined a lack of systematic integration of immigrants into sport activities. Through interviews with principal and PA teacher at Elementary School Livada, currently including the biggest number of students from asylums we found that the most time is dedicated to integrating immigrants into educational programs with sport activities. Throughout years of experiences they figured children learned the language and are most efficiently included through sports and play.
This thesis describes good practices of immigrant inclusion through sport activities. We tend to portray brought spectrum of sports primarily dedicated to play and entertainment enabling spontaneous learning of new language, customs, cultural differences and values. Sports are not highlighted enough in immigrant inclusion guidelines, therefore we wish for sports to gain bigger role in a systematic inclusion of immigrants into programs of education in Slovenia.
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