Intersectional Perspective on Migrant Children’s Integration in Austrian Schools

The chapter examines the integration processes of migrant children in Austrian schools from an intersectional child-centered perspective. It is argued that the integration process of migrant children must be understood as an intersectional process in which children have agency at the intersection of multiple power structures. The chapter begins with a theorization of child-centeredness and intersectionality. It then focuses on children’s experiences based on eighty-seven interviews and thirteen focus groups at six secondary schools in Vienna, taking into account the intersection of different social categories, the broader structures of inequality in which children are embedded, and children’s ability to (re)produce, but also to shape, different processes of power and inequality. The aim is to develop an intersectional child-centered approach to the integration of migrant children and to show that this approach is necessary to facilitate and promote the integration of migrant children.