Abstract:

The integration of new arrivals into the education system of Latvia has become a topical issue with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Statistical data show that the number of war refugees from Ukraine in Latvia reached 30,000 and 4,291 of these were Ukrainian children who attended schools in Latvia during the last school year. Latvia has relatively little experience in this field.

An analysis of literature (Buran, 2019; Eurydice, 2019; OECD, 2019; Soylu, Kaysili, Sever, 2020; Arigatou International, 2021; Nayir, Saridas, 2021; European Union, 2020) conducted as part of the National Research Project “Towards sustainable development and inclusive society in Latvia: response to demographic and migration challenges” (No. VPP-IZM-2018/1-0015) led to the conclusion that the inclusive education of new arrivals affects individual (personal), interpersonal (communication) and institutional (facilitating the learning process) factors.

Further, this led to the identification of the following four aspects relating to the problems and potential solutions for the inclusion of new arrivals in the education system:
• the competence of teachers to work in a multicultural environment (language skills, organizational abilities, methodological skills);
• social cohesion, which includes the attitude of the teacher and the rest of the staff towards the new arrival;
• communication and collaboration requires the cooperation of all parties involved;
• a teaching/learning process, which supports the needs and abilities of the new arrival.
The aim is to thoroughly investigate issues relating to teacher readiness to work with new arrivals, the social adjustment of newly arrived children, communication, creation of an inclusive environment and to offer solutions for the inclusion of these children in the Latvian education system.

Research methods:
An analysis was carried out of scientific literature and mandatory documents.
Focus group discussions were held with four groups: Latvian Education policy makers; teachers; parents of new arrivals; and, representatives of public organisations, in order to identify the actual situation in Latvia and to search for the best solutions.
Questionnaires and interviews with teachers.

The following data processing SPSS 22.0 programme methods have been applied: a method of descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Kendall's tau-b correlation test.

Conclusions and discussion:
The participants in these discussions concluded that the inclusion of new arrivals requires the cooperation of all parties involved: the newly arrived children; their peers; educators; the children's parents; the local community.

Keywords:

New arrivals in schools, inclusive education, inclusion.