The European legislation on the education of migrant workers’ children: A pedagogical reading

Since the last decades of the twentieth century the gradual stabilization of the immigration phenomenon has created also a significant increase in family reunification and, as a result, a great number of foreign students in European schools. In this context, the European institutions have seen fit to adapt to the situation by setting up a legislative system aimed not only to guarantee the right to education for immigrant children and to receive an equal treatment with the respect to native children, but also to lead the EU member States to promote integration school policies. The aim of this paper is to assess – through the examination of the laws and other official measures issued by the Council of Europe and the European Union – several initiatives undertaken in the last decades by the European political institutions to encourage cooperation among the member countries and to foster a common line of action on integration and education of immigrant children.