Interim Bridges to ‘Them’: the Challenges of Education and Living with Diversity Raised by the Ukrainian Crisis

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the experience of living with diversity in three lower-grade public elementary school classes in the Czech Republic, focusing on the challenges brought to light by the arrival of immigrants from Ukraine in 2022. Conducted between September 2021 and March 2023, the research is based primarily on semi-structured interviews with educators, complemented by participant observation and document analysis. Drawing on insights from sociocultural anthropology, it examines educators’ understandings of boundaries—particularly the categories of ‘normal’ and ‘foreign’, and the distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Paradoxically, the integration successes observed in the cases studied appear to arise less from a systemic approach to diversity and more from the relative compatibility and adaptability of certain children and families with existing structures, as well as from the commitment and improvisational efforts of individual educators.