Abstract:

Numerous studies show the complexity of the children’s migration process, and together with this migration arising social, health and psychological difficulties. School-aged children-immigrants have to deal with one specific issue that is unique to them – school transition. School transition is an inevitable part of the modern education process. Scholars highlight that school transition might have positive effect and both benefits on children, while there are studies that provide evidence that school children because of school transition might suffer from different academic, social and psychological problems. School transition because of migration is complicated because of the fact the school is changed, but also the country of a child is also changed. New country’s language is mostly not native for children migrants, and usually children have problems obtaining and understanding new information, communicating with others. It is difficult for them to adapt to the new educational system and its peculiarities. Parents of these children are migrants by themselves, what makes their involvement and support to children weaker and parents delegate most of the responsibilities to their children’s teachers, since they are also face the time and energy-intensive migration challenges.

This issue is explored by various aspects and by variety of methods. However, in most cases quantitative researches based on positivistic epistemology are carried out, basically directed to the analysis of various objective links and the examination of the cause-effect relationships. However children's inner world remain beyond the limits of these researches, as a result, what is most important, migrating children’s lives remain misunderstood. Meanwhile, in the recent decades phenomenological inquiry is becoming stronger; it accumulates the subjective inner world of a man. On the bases of the phenomenological inquiry in this article we are focused on a child's school world, in order to understand it’s change, when child is transiting through schools because of the migration. The study was conducted on the basis of Max van Manen’s phenomenology of practice. Under this research approach the study was "launched" from the lived experiences of three children - migrant, which were recorded during the interviews with these children. These children's lived experiences were analyzed trying to distance from the real external life and trying to engage in self inner world (for this purpose Epoche-reduction was used). In such a state, we have been trying to glimpse the essence of child’s world changes, of children who are transiting school because of the migration, in other words, to glimpse the unique aspects, without which this phenomenon would not be possible. This eidetic reduction was complemented also by other forms of reduction, such as ontological, ethical, and originary. This philosophical attitude was leading us through all the time during the text writings, in which we have provided the understanding of changes of child’s, who are transiting schools because of migration, world and about the discoveries and losses of the migrant child’s world.

Keywords:

Migration, school transition, phenomenology.