Facilitators and barriers for the educational inclusion of migrant children in Chile

Abstract

The increase in the foreign population demanding education services in Chile has made it necessary to address political issues to enable their access to the educational system; however, schools have also had to develop strategies to attain inclusion. The aim of the research behind this article was to discover, through a qualitative methodology, the trajectory towards the educational inclusion of migrant boys and girls that took place in four elementary and one high school in the city of Santiago, identifying the factors that favor and hinder this process,
including their access to the educational system and the relations that are established within schools. Some of the main discoveries of this research include problems related to the condition of irregular migration –which affects access to the benefits of the educational system– and also tensions in the relations between Chilean and foreign students, which can lead to situations of bullying.