The ISOTIS team interviewed parents of children with a Turkish, North-African, Romani and Native-born low-SES background about their views and experiences with educational systems and support services, and their experiences of integration and inclusiveness. These interviews occurred in ten European countries: the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Portugal.

Following the interviews, the participating Turkish mothers from the Netherlands asked our team to develop a seminar about the themes covered by ISOTIS. On November 17, ISOTIS researcher Ayça Alayli (Utrecht University) conducted a seminar in the city of Amsterdam, addressing children’s social and cognitive development, raising children in multilingual and multicultural environments, and device and screen use.

She also presented preliminary ISOTIS findings from the interviews with parents. Namely, there seems to be a discrepancy between the reality of everyday life at the local level and the reality of public media discourse.

The interviewed parents report, on average, low discrimination by other parents and neighbours, reasonable inter-group contact, and positive supportive relations with professionals in education, care and health care at the local level.

However, the experienced discrimination in public discourse, media and social media is high and this negatively affects parents’ wellbeing and feelings of belongingness to the country.

The overall positive personal relations with professionals at the local level are a protective buffer against the negative effects of media discrimination.