BACKPACK ID

Backpack-ID is an innovative intervention for promoting the inclusion of refugee children at school in four European countries (Greece and Italy, Germany and Sweden) which are met with acute and very diverse challenges by the ongoing refugee crisis. Informed by these differences, the present approach on social inclusion advances a common account of social inclusion challenges; it sees the social inclusion of refugee children as a function of addressing the needs and perspectives of those children and their families, and local communities and stakeholders, while affirming common European values.

The intervention focuses on elementary and lower secondary-school (10-15 years old) pupils’ multiple collective memberships, backgrounds and identities. It addresses both refugee and non-refugee pupils and seeks: (a) to empower all pupils and make them see and experience aspects of “otherness” in themselves. Pupils’ families and/or immediate social background will be pupils’ main resources to this end. “Never leave your backpack behind” refers to the trivial belongings of great emotional and symbolic value that refugees may carry in their backpacks, and serves as common ground in the quest for “pathways” and “bridges” across group-memberships and identities. Importantly, reflective work on identities further seeks; (b) to advance refugee pupils’ literacy development in the new language. This integrative approach to multiple identities, empowerment and literacy development is a core innovative contribution of Backpack-ID.