Moving through the school system involves multiple variables that are amplified in the case of immigrant students, who are sometimes faced with situations that lead them to "wade between cultures." Aware of this reality, we have carried out a naturalistic inquiry focused on immigrant children's school transitions through a multi-case study composed of six instrumental case studies. Our aim is to gain insight into and analyze relevant personal and academic factors that affect immigrant students in our educational system. Participant observation and in-depth interviews of students, parents, and educational professionals were the main data collection instruments used. The study conclusions point to a) the complexity of immigrants' cultural integration after a migratory process; b) problems in adapting to the educational system; c) problems of identity and sense of belonging when students repeat a school year because of their origin; and d) how professional culture impacts on immigrants' inclusion.

La incorporación de estudiantes inmigrantes en nuestras escuelas, ha generado la necesidad de construir espacios interculturales que favorezcan, además del desarrollo cognitivo, su inclusión académica y sociolaboral. En el marco de un estudio multicaso más amplio, hemos llevado a cabo doce historias singulares de vida socioeducativa a alumnas inmigrantes, que nos ha permitido conocer a través de sus voces qué elementos tienen incidencia significativa en la construcción de sus expectativas sociales y educativas. Se ha elaborado un relato cruzado a partir del análisis cualitativo de temas emergentes categorizando información de diversos instrumentos. El estudio confronta cómo ciertas creencias estereotipadas del profesorado y prácticas pedagógicas envejecidas, junto a ciertas presiones machistas y xenófobas del ambiente, producen desamparo educativo y desconfianza en dichas jóvenes. Pero también, cómo el apoyo de las madres, de compañeras y algunos docentes innovadores y comprometidos, ponen el contrapunto recreándoles ilusiones y expectativas positivas de futuro escolar y sociolaboral.

The last decades have been characterized by important social changes, mainly due to migration and globalization. This reality has been reflected in schools across the country. To deal with this situation we need professionals who could help us in rebuilding the social schemes that identify personal relationships: the intercultural mediators. In the paper we show a naturalistic research based on an instrumental study case about intercultural mediators’ practices on and beyond the classroom. After the discursive analysis of data, we decided to present the results on three major axes: a) the purpose of intercultural mediation; b) the mediator in school organization; and c) the mediator practice’ in classroom. The conclusions we achieved, highlight the teaching staff's lack of knowledge about mediator's work and the intercultural mediator's presence in the centre; a prompt and inclusive intercultural education’s conceptualization; a collaborative inter professional work's absence and the weight of a macro organizational and macro cultural structure of schools about the work of external agents, who finishes to follow rules, which inevitably undermine their work.

This article is part of an International Cooperation Project funded by the Andalusian Agency for Development Cooperation of the Junta de Andalucía, Spain in collaboration with the Mayan Technological Institute (ITMES) in San Juan de Chamelco-Cobán at the University of San Carlos de Guatemala: 2018UC006 “Maestras y maestros para niñas y niños mayas en zonas rurales diseminadas: formando los formadores.” (Teachers for Mayan girls and boys in remote rural areas: training the trainers). This cooperation project arose from the need of the university unit attached to the University of San Carlos to develop a university degree program in teacher training in bilingual infant and primary education that would consider the characteristics of the communities these new professionals would impact rural Mayan communities. In this sense, ITMES is particularly interesting for three reasons: (1) the unit is attached to the University of San Carlos, the only public university in Guatemala, as a response to the Guatemalan Constitution that indicates the need for a Mayan University; (2) the unit’s distinctive development for the formation and empowerment of Mayan culture; and (3) because its organizational structure combines receiving face-to-face instruction on weekends in the urban campus of San Juan de Chamelco-Cobán, while during the week, students carry out their personal, professional and educational activities in rural areas. Thus, a double dimension has been addressed through this international cooperation project, which has the complex task of training professionals who will work with children in rural areas but who will be trained in San Juan de Chamelco-Cobán, an urban area, the commercial and economic hub of the region, On the one hand, as will be developed further in this article, the selection and initial psycho-pedagogical-curricular training, attention to cultural, gender, and sociological diversity, of university teachers who, in the future, will be entrusted with the implementation and development of a university curriculum in teacher training aimed at and from the inclusion of children from Mayan rural communities. On the other hand, while considering the center’s organizational structure, establishing the fundamental psycho-pedagogical and organizational principles with an inclusive curricular plan will allow the training of teachers whose actions will be carried out in rural Mayan environments. As a starting hypothesis, we consider that in order to provide quality, responsible and inclusive education to children from rural Mayan environments, and beyond the traditionally technical contents that support the training curriculum legislated by the Guatemalan government, it is necessary to approach this reality by linking vitally constructed knowledge and technical contents, so that they can be formulated and reformulated in a relevant way and thus generate powerful knowledge. Thus, there arises a necessity to equip a team of professionals, prospective university teachers, who are sensitive to Mayan needs and attention to diversity, with a deep and relevant knowledge of psycho-pedagogical and curricular aspects, and with a sociological contextual knowledge of the needs of the post-modern, neoliberal and digital world. To this end, our methodology encompasses three levels: (a) the selection of a group of professionals to be trained; (b) contextual analysis of the training needs of the selected group of professionals, thereby facilitating the adaption of the training program to their individual needs and circumstances; and (c) semi-structured and in-depth interviews with seven female and nine male leaders of Mayan communities. These leaders were selected using a non-probabilistic intentional sampling method, which was collaboratively determined with the ITMES team. During these interactions, we extensively explored their perspectives on Mayan identity, as well as their perceptions of the educational system and its impact on the formation of their identity as a person and as Mayans. Through the integration of these three components, we have obtained invaluable insights into (a) the evolving training needs of the instructional team and (b) the socio-educational pressures experienced by Mayan women, and the significance of “Mayan being” as an aspect of identity. This emergent data has informed the development of a comprehensive psycho-pedagogical, curricular and sociological training plan that underpins the content of this article. Thus, for the selection of the training team, the following aspects were considered: knowledge of Mayan culture and experience in rural Mayan contexts and relationship with the educational-school world. The selection resulted in a total of 29 candidates, 18 women and 11 men, with whom the training was carried out. Regarding the initial training plan for university teachers, and after the contextual analysis, we consider it necessary to correlate three dimensions: (1) the psycho-pedagogical nature of the technical dimension. In this sense, the plan has addressed aspects related to the conceptualization of teaching, and of learning and the development of the fundamental aspects of the curriculum; (2) the idiosyncratic dimension of rural Mayan communities, beyond being a transversal axis, has also been incorporated into the plan. We incorporated analyses related to gender, in general, and gender in schools, making a triangulation with the emerging knowledge from the interviews and the conceptualization of inclusion and Mayan identity as the backbone of a quality education; and (3) the post-modern sociological dimension of today’s societies. Finally, a flexible and emerging training plan of the Mayan idiosyncrasy has been designed that allows its applicability in other similar sociological contexts, adapting the plan to the individual training needs of each context.

The present article summarizes the theoretical approach, the methodology's, research, data times’ collection and the first evidence/findings which have been developed within the Project “Study of coordination and effectiveness of inter-professional advice system, for the educational inclusion of immigrants’ children in Andalusian schools” financed by the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Science of Andalucia Commitment and European FEDER funds