A theory-driven evaluation of the project 'Brugfiguren Intra-Europese Migratie': school mediators for Intra-European migrants in Ghent.

The strong influx of migrants coming from Central and Eastern European countries, since the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007, poses a number of challenges for the cities which are confronted with the arrival of these groups. Within the city of Ghent these demographic changes have motivated the development of a local policy and initiatives which aim to support the integration of Intra-European migrants (IEM). Within the sphere of education, they launched a project called 'Brugfiguren Intra-Europese Migratie' (BIEM) as a methodical and organizational strengthening of the existing 'school mediator'-program, but with an explicit (not exclusive) focus on the IEM-audience. The Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) was commissioned by the city council of Ghent to evaluate this project, as it comes to a close in June 2016. The finality of this study is the identification of good practices and lessons learned regarding the use of mediators to promote the communication and collaboration between parents, the school and the neighbourhood. We do so based on the principles of theory-driven evaluation and test the theoretical assumptions about the operation of the BIEM-project (how it should work) to the daily execution and implementation in practice (how it does work). This methodology was developed in response to traditional evaluation methods, which strongly adhere to (difficult) "measurable indicators" and the one-sided focus on the achieved results. A theory-driven evaluation broadens the scope from the results to the underlying processes and takes into account the perspectives and experiences of the various parties involved. This way it becomes clear 'what' works, 'for whom' and 'under what conditions'.

Keywords:MIGRATION

Disciplines:Applied sociology, Policy and administration, Social psychology, Social stratification, Social theory and sociological methods, Sociology of life course, family and health, Other sociology and anthropology