Conference Program

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 fundamentally reshaped educational realities across Europe and led to a substantial increase in the number of Ukrainian pupils in Czech schools. The Czech Republic is among the countries hosting the highest proportion of people under temporary protection (Eurostat, 2025), which places significant demands on schools to ensure equitable access to education and to support the meaningful participation of newly arrived pupils. Although national and international policies emphasise inclusive education, a persistent gap remains between these aspirations and pupils’ everyday experiences (Ainscow, 2020; Slee, 2018). This study focuses exclusively on the perspectives of Ukrainian and Czech lower secondary pupils and explores how they experience the inclusion of Ukrainian classmates in school life.

The study adopts a qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews with 16 Ukrainian and 16 Czech pupils from four lower secondary schools in the South Moravian Region. Data were analysed using thematic analysis, with attention to experiences of communication, classroom participation, peer relationships, and perceived support.

Findings indicate that Czech language proficiency is a central precondition for participation. Ukrainian pupils describe language as key to independence, confidence, and active engagement, while Czech pupils identify language differences as the main barrier to communication. At the same time, maintaining the Ukrainian language serves an important emotional function for newly arrived pupils and helps them cope with initial uncertainty.

Social inclusion emerges as a gradual and relational process rather than an automatic outcome of classroom placement. Friendships and informal peer support play a crucial role in reducing anxiety and strengthening Ukrainian pupils’ sense of belonging. However, a tendency towards linguistic clustering persists, which can limit broader peer interaction. Ukrainian pupils also report uncertainty about academic expectations and fear of making mistakes, which constrains their willingness to participate.

The findings demonstrate that pupil interviews provide indispensable insight into the subtle, everyday mechanisms of inclusion that are not always visible from an institutional perspective. They suggest that effective support goes beyond language instruction alone and requires systematically creating opportunities for safe communication, cooperation, and relationship-building among peers. For practice, this implies the need to design teaching and school activities that actively foster participation, amplify pupils’ voices, and contribute to making diversity a normal and valued feature of the school community rather than an exceptional condition requiring special treatment.

The 2022 refugee crisis acted as a catalyst that exposed the deep-seated structural characteristics of the Czech education system. This presentation uses the integration of Ukrainian pupils as a case study to explore the broader sociological dimensions of inclusion within a historically homogeneous environment. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the contribution analyzes the friction between high-level policy expectations (the macrosystem) and the lived reality of the classroom (the microsystem). We argue that in the absence of robust external scaffolding, the responsibility for complex social integration has been transferred almost entirely to individual actors within the school.

Through the lens of Norwich’s framework of pedagogical dilemmas, the presentation examines the shifting professional identity of teachers who find themselves navigating the gap between traditional academic roles and the immediate necessity of crisis intervention. We focus on how educators negotiate these conflicting demands in an environment where professional boundaries are being redefined on the fly. Consistent with the conference theme, the core of the contribution lies in the thesis that current inclusive practices represent a form of “fragile improvisation.”

Specifically, we discuss the friction between the rigid “institutional logic” of the school and the precarious “survival logic” of refugee families. By framing these challenges as sociological phenomena rather than mere administrative hurdles, the analysis questions the limits of a system that relies on individual teacher dedication instead of intentional structural design. The findings suggest that without addressing this systemic vacuum, the Czech education system remains in a state of managed emergency rather than moving toward genuine inclusion.

Migration has become one of the current social issues shaping contemporary European education systems, placing teachers at the forefront of negotiating diversity and inclusion in everyday school practice. Rather than being neutral transmitters of curricular content, teachers actively interpret social phenomena and construct meanings that influence classroom climates, peer relations, and the educational trajectories of students with migrant backgrounds (Woodcock & Anderson, 2024). This paper examines narrative frames as key cognitive and discursive tools through which Czech lower-secondary school teachers make sense of migration (Seiger et al., 2025), with a specific focus on perceptions of migrants from Ukraine. Drawing on recent typologies of migration narratives, the study distinguishes between inclusive frames (solidarity- and victimization-oriented) and exclusive frames (crisis- and xenophobia-oriented), which represent contrasting ways of interpreting migrants’ presence and societal impact (Bayerl et al., 2023). Understanding the psychological and attitudinal foundations of narrative frames is crucial for designing policies and professional development initiatives that foster inclusive school environments.

The main aim of the study is to investigate how the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of teachers’ attitudes toward migrants from Ukraine, conceptualized within the ABC model of attitudes, predict identification with inclusive and exclusive narrative frames. In the Czech context, understanding how teachers perceive migrants from Ukraine is essential for establishing functional and inclusive educational policies (Pivarč, 2024). The project addresses three interrelated research questions: (1) How are affective, cognitive, and behavioral attitudes toward migrants from Ukraine structured among Czech lower-secondary school teachers? (2) To what extent do these components predict teachers’ endorsement of inclusive and exclusive narratives? (3) Are there identifiable profiles of teachers based on combined attitude patterns and narrative orientations? By linking psychological attitude components with narrative framing, the study offers an integrative perspective that connects individual dispositions with broader discursive structures, particularly as inclusion is driven more by social learning than by specific organizational techniques (Ainscow, 2020).

Methodologically, the project employs an advanced quantitative design based on a survey administered to Czech lower-secondary school teachers. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) combined with Path Analysis will then be used to test direct and indirect relationships between attitude components and narrative frames. Additionally, Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) will be applied to examine group differences across selected sociodemographic and professional characteristics.

The study is expected to generate both theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, it advances understanding of how individual-level attitudes translate into narrative positioning within educational contexts. In practice, the findings will inform teacher education and professional development by identifying attitudinal patterns associated with inclusive framing, thereby supporting targeted interventions aimed at democratic schooling, educational equity, and the strengthening of inclusive school cultures.

Since February 2022, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families have been forced to leave Ukraine due to the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation, seeking safety in other European countries. Czechia was among the first to open its borders and provide material, humanitarian, educational, and moral support to Ukrainians. At the same time, the country’s education system faced a number of challenges related to the integration of Ukrainian children who did not speak Czech, experienced stress, and encountered difficulties adapting to a new environment.

The aim of this qualitative study is to examine how Ukrainian pupils and parents perceive the support their children receive in Czech schools, as well as to determine how public opinion about Ukrainians in Czech society influences the educational process and interactions among pupils. The research was conducted in four lower secondary schools in Brno in 2025 as part of a grant-funded project supported by the Czech Science Foundation. The empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 16 Ukrainian pupils and 16 Ukrainian parents.

The findings show that most Ukrainian pupils feel supported by Czech teachers and classmates both in the learning process and in extracurricular activities. This support is reflected in help with homework, participation in group projects, and additional lessons in the Czech language. At the same time, newly arrived students more often communicate only within Ukrainian peer circles due to the language barrier. Parents reported difficulties in finding a place for their child in a school, particularly in 2024–2025, but emphasized the friendliness and openness of teaching staff. They also noted a lighter academic workload and the absence of obligatory homework in Czech schools compared with Ukrainian schools.

A separate aspect of the study concerned the impact of changing public attitudes towards Ukrainians on the adaptation of families. Although most respondents did not report personal experiences of discrimination, some parents noted caution in the public use of the Ukrainian language and a tendency to communicate mainly within the Ukrainian community, remaining in a kind of “social bubble.” At the same time, these factors, according to the respondents, do not have a significant impact on their children’s academic performance at school.

The results obtained have practical significance for improving inclusive approaches in the Czech education system. They highlight the importance of intercultural support aimed at ensuring psychological well-being, meeting educational needs, and promoting the social integration of Ukrainian children into Czech society.

The increasing diversification of primary and lower secondary education in the Czech Republic provides an important context for examining peer responses to migration-related categories. The demographic composition of Czech primary schools has changed significantly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As of March 31 2025, there were 46,806 Ukrainian pupils enrolled in Czech elementary and secondary education, representing approximately 3.1 % of all students at these levels, with Ukrainians remaining the largest group of foreign-national pupils in the system. Ukrainian students account for the majority of foreign pupils, followed by Vietnamese and Slovak pupils, who together with Ukrainians and Russians comprise the vast majority of non-Czech nationalities in Czech schools (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, 2025). These shifts have intensified everyday intergroup contact in classrooms and raised questions about how Czech children perceive and interact with peers from different national and ethnic groups in their educational environment.

Current state of knowledge suggests that even minimal social categorization can activate ingroup–outgroup distinctions (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Contemporary work on intergroup bias further demonstrates that prejudice in late childhood and early adolescence often manifests in subtle or latent forms rather than overt hostility (Brewer, 1999; Dovidio et al., 2010). In school contexts, such bias may be expressed through reduced willingness to cooperate, social distancing, or passive bystanding in exclusion situations rather than explicit rejection. Developmental research on ethnic and migration-related attitudes indicates that these patterns are already observable in middle childhood (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011).

Building on this theoretical framework, we employ a vignette-based experimental design (Atzmüller & Steiner, 2010; Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002) conducted in the Czech Republic. Students aged approximately 11–15 are randomly assigned to experimental conditions in which they read short, realistic school scenarios. The design manipulates two dimensions: A) the fictional classmate’s citizenship (Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Russian, or unspecified) and B) ethnicity (Roma vs. unspecified/majority appearance). This factorial structure allows us to examine whether both national belonging and ethnic cues independently shape the social and behavioral reactions of lower secondary school students toward their fictional classmates. The dependent variables capture declared social and behavioral reactions, measured using a Likert-type scale. These include indicators of prosocial intentions (e.g., willingness to cooperate, befriend, or support the classmate) and social distancing or exclusionary tendencies (e.g., avoidance or reluctance to interact).

The main research question asks whether students’ declared reactions differ depending on the fictional classmate’s citizenship and ethnicity. This comparative dimension allows us to explore whether broader socio-political and educational contexts moderate peer responses to newly arrived Ukrainian students and other immigrants. The study contributes to research on intergroup relations in adolescence by providing experimentally grounded evidence from real school populations across Czech lower secondary schools. The findings aim to inform discussions on school inclusion policies and early interventions addressing subtle forms of intergroup bias in increasingly diverse classrooms.

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine fundamentally reshaped educational realities across Europe, leading to a substantial increase in Ukrainian pupils within the Czech school system. While national policies emphasize inclusive education, a gap remains between institutional aspirations and students' everyday social experiences. This study explores the research question: What impact does Czech parents’ opinion towards Ukrainians in Czech society have on relations between Ukrainian and Czech students?

Adopting a qualitative design, the study utilizes semi-structured interviews with 16 Czech parents of lower secondary pupils in the South Moravian Region. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify how parental discourse regarding social dynamics and national identity influences their children’s peer interactions with Ukrainians classmates.

The findings reveal that parental attitudes function as a hidden curriculum through four primary dimensions. First, the linguistic burden of integration establishes Czech proficiency not merely as a skill, but as a moral metric of effort and a threshold for social acceptance. Second, a distinction emerges between instrumental and transformative views of inclusion: while some parents focus purely on the blending in of Ukrainian pupils, a significant subset perceives the inclusive classroom as a future asset, equipping their children with social competencies for a globalized world. Third, the study identifies a home-to-school attitude transfer, where parental skepticism reinforces linguistic clustering, while parental appreciation for diversity fosters deeper peer-to-peer relationship building. Finally, these dynamics suggest meritocratic expectations of belonging, where social inclusion is viewed as a status Ukrainian pupils must earn through proactive motivation. As an implication to teaching practice, these findings suggest that student inclusion does not occur in a vacuum; rather, effective support necessitates a triadic approach involving the school, the student, and the home. To foster a truly democratic school community, schools must actively engage parents to reframe diversity as a long-term societal asset. This shift is essential for transforming the presence of displaced pupils from an exceptional condition into a standard, valued feature of the school environment.

In 2022, the Czech Republic received the highest number of forcibly displaced persons from Ukraine per capita within the European Union (Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, 2022). As a consequence of these migration waves, more than 40,000 pupils of Ukrainian nationality enrolled in Czech primary schools within a single school year (StatIS 2021/2022–2022/2023, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports). The number of pupils and families experiencing psychological, economic, housing, and legal insecurity also increased (PAQ Research, 2022).
The integration of pupils was further hindered by language barriers and limited system capacity, resulting in an uneven burden placed particularly on schools and teachers in regional capitals. This situation revealed previously underexamined mechanisms of exclusion operating at multiple levels of the Czech education system.
The discussion focuses on the perspective of educational professionals, their need for further training and methodological support as key preconditions for providing quality support to pupils, and simultaneously raises questions regarding professional motivation and the financing of language and other forms of support.
Building on these premises, the Czech part of an international project (with Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Hungary) will be presented. This project examines the professionalisation of pre-service and in-service teachers working with forced migrant students in lower and upper secondary schools, as well as the resulting classroom diversity. It addresses the question of what teachers need in this field and how they would like to be educated or trained.​ Based on the findings, an online course will be developed to address the professional development needs of teachers in this field.
Ten interviews were conducted: eight individual interviews with teachers and two focus groups – one on-site with six teachers and another online with six pre-service teachers.
Initial findings indicate that teachers have a clear need for practical pedagogical strategies to ensure that classroom diversification benefits both forced migrants and Czech students. In particular, they emphasise the importance of individualised teaching that is sensitive to multilingualism, cultural diversity, and experiences of trauma, addressing the needs of students with migration experience. They also highlighted the need for a clearer comparison between the Czech educational system and curricula and those of students' countries of origin. At the system level, a need for a navigation guide to the infrastructure of available counselling facilities was mentioned. Last but not least, support instruments or strategies for teachers' wellbeing are also reported to be needed.​ An introduction to the newly developed training course for educators will be included in the presentation.
Overall, the presentation aims to contribute to an interdisciplinary dialogue within the panel on how schools, particularly teachers, can more effectively respond to the overlapping challenges of diversity in democratic education systems, and how teacher education can better address teachers' needs in coping with this challenge.