Migration Social Factor

Migrant children in Scottish educational system face various socio-educational problems:

• As stated by Sime (2018, p.770) and underpinned in the EACEA Report (2018, p.30), migrant pupils, which in most cases fall under
English as an Additional Language (EAL) category, face language problems at schools, affecting their attainment.

• Migrant children also suffer from emotional distress, Evans and Liu (2018) express their feelings as “scary”. EACEA Report (2018,
p.40) actually contextualises this socio-emotional distress through the lenses of the Maslow theory, citing the “sense of belonging” as a
fundamental requirement and the lack of this need as a cause of psychological suffering.

• Children from migrant families are naturally unfamiliar with their new country educational curriculum and a school system (Sime,
2018, p.770) in general, not only through the language barrier.

• Consequentially attainment of migrant children is characterised as poor (Sime, 2018,

p.772) and this is influenced by many factors, including likely poverty of migrant
families; it should always be mentioned that poor migrant schoolchildren attainment
is not a solely British phenomenon, this is experienced worldwide (EACEA, 2018,
p.39).
• Migrant children cannot escape from an old problem of bullying from other school
children (Watson, 1979).

• And more recent evidence shows that the bias comes not only from fellow pupils, but
also from their teachers, who insist (Curdt-Christiansen, 2020) that children should
be speaking English at home, as well as at school.