SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF POLISH ADOLESCENTS FROM GREEK AND POLISH HIGH SCHOOLS IN ATHENS

The article focuses on the social integration of Polish adolescents residing in Athens and attempts to detect factors which influence this process. Data was gathered from two qualitative research projects - case studies - on social and school integration of young Polish citizens attending Polish and Greek high schools in Athens (2010), and on a Polish migrant family and its educational and migration strategies (2012). A qualitative perspective, utilizing semi-structured, in-depth interviews, was chosen in both studies. The paper begins with a short description of the migratory experiences of Greece and Poland, including a brief history of Polish immigration in Greece. It continues with a discussion about social integration and refers to the specific case of integration of migrant adolescents. Then it proceeds to the results of the two studies mentioned above, which indicate that the degree of social integration of Polish adolescents is variable and depends on the school that the young people attend, the extra-curricular activities they participate in, their Greek language competency, their social networks within the Greek population, and their parents’ socio-economic status. Important differences in the social integration between the groups of pupils from Greek and Polish high schools were observed