Abstract: 

For migrant children – and especially those who migrate when they have reached the school age – a high quality school reception in their new permanent or provisionary home country can be crucial for their well-being and future educational opportunities. Despite this, our knowledge on what constitutes ‘high quality school reception’ for newly arrived schoolchildren is sparse. Existing research has for the most part focused on language acquisition in different settings, but even in this field, comparative studies are rare. In this study, I investigate how two different models of school reception influence inclusion and exclusion of newly arrived migrant children in Denmark. In the first model, children are received in specialized ‘reception classes’ before transitioning to a regular class (when their language skills are regarded as sufficient). In the second model, children are received directly in a regular class and – in some cases – have scheduled language training on the side. The study is conducted in a number of schools in two Danish municipalities with opposite models of reception. The analysis combines data from observation in classes with newly arrived children and data from retrospective interviews with migrant children who have spent more than 12 months in their new schools. The findings demonstrate that even if starting in school poses many challenges to the newly arrived children, experiences of social inclusion are common and experiences of exclusion are rare in both reception models. However, children who start directly in a regular class experience more superficial inclusion and more indirect exclusion, compared to children in reception classes. The social structure in reception classes, on the other hand, are more hierarchical, and the newly arrived children are in the bottom of the hierarchy.