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Ukrainian refugees struggling to
Czech school social networks
integrate into
Tomáš Lintner © 1 , 2 E I
, Tomáš Diviák 2
' 3
, Klára Šeďová©1 , 2
& Petr H l a d o © 1 , 2
We provide a brief insight into the integration of Ukrainian refugees in school social networks
in the Czech Republic following the mass migration caused by the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. Our sample contains twelve classrooms with a total of 266 students in grades 5 to 9;
21.05% of the students were of Ukrainian origin. We employed multiplex exponential random
graph modelling to assess the level to which Ukrainian refugees were integrated within peer
networks, capturing both friendship and exclusion ties. We then employed a meta-analytical
procedure to aggregate the results from the individual classrooms and a meta-regression to
study the relationship between classroom ethnic composition and the level of integration of
Ukrainian refugees. We found social networks to be formed heavily along ethnic lines with
strong ethnic homophily in friendship ties and a propensity of the Ukrainian students to both
send and receive fewer friendship ties than their Czech classmates. We found no evidence
that the Ukrainian students sent or received more exclusion ties than their Czech classmates,
suggesting that the Ukrainian students did not face explicit rejection from classmates; rather,
we saw a tendency of the Ukrainian students to be neglected. Our findings stand in contrast
to reports from school headmasters who asserted that the social integration of Ukrainian
students was seamless. We further found a higher proportion of Ukrainian students in
classrooms to be related to stronger homophilic behaviour and a lower tendency of Ukrainian
students to make friends. Our results therefore imply that increased classroom diversity may
negatively influence the integration of refugees in social networks.
1
Department of Educational Sciences, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. 2
Institute SYRI, Brno, Czech Republic. 3
Mitchell Centre for Social Network
Analysis and Department of Criminology, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. H
email: tomas.lintner@mail.muni.cz
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ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01880-y
Introduction
O
n 24 February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of
Ukraine, causing the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since
World War II. As of September 2022, 7.5 million
Ukrainians had fled to other European countries—0.4 million to
the Czech Republic alone, making the Czech Republic the country
hosting the highest per capita number of Ukrainian refugees
among all countries, at 37 Ukrainian refugees per 1000 inhabitants
(UNHCR, 2022).
The influx of refugees has put many Czech public services
under an unprecedented strain, with the educational system
among the most affected: 32% of the Ukrainian refugees fleeing to
the Czech Republic were children under the age of 18 who
required access to education (UNHCR, 2022). The Czech
Republic pledged to provide free and accessible education to all
refugee children in regular Czech state schools in inclusive
classrooms along with Czech students (Bill no. 67/2022; Bill no.
199/2022). At the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year (September
2022), there were 52,107 Ukrainian children enrolled at
Czech lower secondary schools, constituting 5% of the whole
student population (Ministry of Education, 2022d). Hence, in a
very short amount of time, Czech schools became home to large
numbers of Ukrainian refugees who had no prior knowledge of
Czech language, and Ukrainian refugees quickly became the largest
ethnic minority in Czech schools.
To our knowledge, no study has yet researched peer relationships
of Ukrainian refugees in the host country following the 2022
invasion. However, based on evidence from studies dealing with
peer relationships of refugee students coming from other countries,
we assume the Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic were at
risk of social exclusion in schools1
. Ukrainian refugee students in
the Czech Republic faced a three-fold disadvantage in establishing
peer relationships in schools—becoming an ethnic minority in an
educational system operating in an ethnically homogeneous society,
lacking proficiency in the Czech language, and managing psychosocial
adjustment problems stemming from their relocation and
war experience in their home country. First, previous studies from
primary and secondary school classrooms have provided comprehensive
evidence that ethnic minority students are more likely to be
excluded (Boda and Neray, 2015; Fisher et al., 2000; Wilson and
Rodkin, 2011) and more likely to form friendships with classmates
of the same ethnicity (Bellmore et al., 2007; Currarini et al., 2010;
Goodreau et al., 2009; Hajdu et al., 2021; Kruse et al., 2016;
Leszczensky and Pink, 2015; Rodkin et al., 2007; Shrum et al., 1988;
Smith et al., 2014; Vermeij et al., 2009; Wilson and Rodkin, 2011;
Wittek et al., 2020). Being an ethnic minority is in itself linked to
having worse relationships in schools; it has been further argued
that the previously ethnically homogenous Czech educational system
does not provide any tangible support for ethnic minority
students and impliciuy promotes lower acceptance of non-Czech
students (Jarkovská et al., 2015; Obrovská et al., 2021). Second,
most Ukrainian refugees lack proficiency in the Czech language. A
lack of proficiency in the national language is one of the greatest
barriers for refugees to establishing friendships in schools and
largely limits them to establishing friendships with other refugees
(Cavicchiolo et al., 2023; Evans and Liu, 2018; L i and Grineva,
2016; Trickett and Birman, 2005). Third, many Ukrainian refugees
faced psychosocial distress stemming from their relocation and war
experience, which further exacerbates refugee students' inability to
form school friendships (Guarnaccia and Lopez, 1998; Lustig et al.,
2004). It has been shown that traumatised children tend to isolate
themselves from their peers (Cherewick et al., 2015; Macksoud
et al., 1993). Numerous studies focusing specifically on the relationships
of first-generation children in schools have confirmed
that first-generation children are more likely to face exclusion
(Alivernini et al., 2019; Bianchi et al., 2021; Boda et al., 2023;
Cheung and Liu, 2012; Guo et al., 2019; Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2008;
Oxman-Martinez and Choi, 2014; Plenty and Jonsson, 2017;
Strohmeier et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2020) and are more likely form
friendships with other first-generation children (Campigotto et al.,
2022; Schachner et al., 2016; Titzmann and Silbereisen, 2009;
Windzio, 2015).
Having good peer relationships in school is, however, an
essential part of a refugee's successful psychosocial adjustment to a
new country, mental health, and academic performance. Adolescents
often view school as their primary social context, where they
develop and maintain social relations (Coleman, 1961; Steinberg,
2020). Student academic and social lives are therefore intrinsically
connected (Juvonen and Wentzel, 1996). Good peer relationships
help refugees with psychosocial adjustment by providing social
support and a sense of safety (Almqvist and Broberg, 1999; Juang
et al., 2018; Kovacev and Shute, 2004). Having good peer relationships
in school also leads to better mental health among
refugees (Emerson et al., 2022; Samara et al., 2020) and support
from friends has a positive impact on refugees struggling with
PTSD (Verelst et al., 2022). Furthermore, when refugees have
good peer relationships in schools, it positively influences their
academic performance (Wong and Schweitzer, 2017). Conversely,
when refugees are excluded by their peers in school and face
discrimination from their classmates, they become academically
less engaged and more likely to drop out of school (UmaňaTaylor,
2016). Good relationships between refugees and nonrefugees
in schools further benefit not only the refugee students
themselves, but also the non-refugee students—they positively
affect student mental health (van der Does and Adem, 2021), lead
to lower perceived vulnerability (Graham et al., 2014), and reduce
prejudice among students (Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008).
Several studies tried to determine how school or classroom
ethnic composition can influence the social integration of refugees
and the formation of cross-ethnic relationships among students.
The studies have provided inconclusive results and, except
for Boda et al. (2023), the studies were not aimed specifically at
exploring the effect of classroom composition on the peer relationships
of refugee students. On the one hand, Boda et al. (2023)
found that ethnically diverse classrooms in Germany enhanced
opportunities for refugee students to interact with peers from
other ethnic minorities and increase acceptance by peers from the
ethnic majority. Similarly, Quillian and Campbell (2003) reported
an increase in inter-ethnic friendships as school ethnic diversity
increased. Moreover, Kawabata and Crick (2011) and Hajdu et al.
(2021) reported an increase in inter-ethnic friendships as classroom
ethnic diversity increased. On the other hand, Joyner and
Kao (2000) found the adolescent likelihood of having an interethnic
friendship decreased as the proportion of same-ethnicity
students in their school increased. Smith et al. (2016) reported
that the immigrant tendency to form intra-ethnic friendships
disproportionately increased as immigrants saw more sameethnic
peers. Similar findings were provided by Bellmore et al.
(2007) among middle school students in the United States.
Munniksma et al. (2022) found classroom ethnic diversity to be
related to worse social adjustment. Altogether, the link between
school and classroom composition and the formation of crossethnic
relationships among students has not been sufficiendy
researched and requires more investigation. It is useful to consider
that the proportion of refugees coming into the individual
schools and classrooms can usually be adjusted by the city-level
policymakers and school management.
Integration in social networks as an essential component of
social integration. The theoretical framing of social integration
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has evolved over the last hundred years. It has been established
that social integration denotes the level of an individual's functioning
within a wider social group. The ability of an individual to
function within a social group is necessarily dependent on the
interpersonal relationships they maintain with other members of
the social group, as humans are innately social beings with a
constant desire for interpersonal attachments and a need for
belonging (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Naturally, social integration
of an individual encompasses more than just having
relationships with other members of the group—a pivotal role is
played by the quality of the relationships with others and by the
level to which goals, values, and language are shared among the
individuals (Callahan, 2009; Evans and Liu, 2018; Herrero and
Gracia, 2004; Thorlindsson and Bjarnason, 1998). However, the
ability to form and maintain interpersonal relationships with
other members of a group, providing a sense of attachment and
belonging, is arguably the essential component of successful social
integration in any group. Without meaningful relationships with
other members of a social group, an individual's functioning in
the group is severely limited. The understanding of the importance
of interpersonal attachments has led to a shift in the
understanding of social integration, from role-based measures
(e.g., Moen et al., 1992; Thoits, 1986) to measures based on
interpersonal relationships (e.g., Cohen, 1991), and, more
recendy, to measures based on social networks (e.g., Hoffman
et al., 2015; Rodkin et al., 2007; Wolfer et al., 2012).
Social network theory is highly complementary to the current
understanding of social integration. Network theory asserts that
to understand a social system, it is important to study how the
individuals within that social system interact, what the whole
structure of the interactions looks like, and what positions those
individuals hold within the structure. As interpersonal relationships
are inherendy dyadic and dependent on the decisions of at
least two individuals involved, social network analysis further
asserts it is also important to assess the directionality of the
relationships—both how each individual perceives others and
how others perceive the individual. Network theory provides a
framework for representing the real-world social structures as
graphs and makes it possible to study the generative processes
driving the network structures (Borgatti et al., 2009). Integrating
Blau's (1960) theory of social integration and network theory
(Borgatti and Lopez-Kidwell, 2014; Brissette et al., 2000), social
integration represents an interactional and relational process in
which members of a group form a cohesive social structure with
each member both attracted to and attractive for others in the
group in such a way that their relationships provide functional
social support and equality. Social network analysis allows us to
assess an individual's level of integration within a group by
looking at how interconnected the individual is with others.
Integrating the paradigm seeing social integration as an
interactional process and the paradigm of social networks, we
understand the integration of a student within peer social
networks as an essential component of the student's social
integration within the school's social system, necessary for the
student's social and academic functioning (Hoffman et al., 2015;
Jiang and Altinyelken, 2022; Stinson and Antia, 1999). We
understand student integration in school social networks
(Stadtfeld et al., 2019; Windzio, 2015) as the degree to which
students are interconnected with each other through friendship
ties and the degree to which students are excluded by their
classmates.
Context of the present study. The Czech educational system has
placed a high priority on integrating Ukrainian students into
mixed classrooms—i.e., classrooms including both Czech and
Ukrainian students and the Czech government was explicit about
not wanting segregated Ukrainian-only classrooms. Recognising
the importance of successful social integration for the refugee
students to ensure a good quality and equitable education, the
Czech government has emphasised the need for successful social
integration since the beginning of the invasion. In addition to the
immediate benefits of social integration related to their academic
outcomes, the Czech government expected that a significant
number of the Ukrainian refugee students would remain in the
Czech Republic indefinitely—eventually becoming a workforce
for the Czech economy and members of the Czech society
(Ministry of Education, 2022a; 2022c; Ministry of Interior, 2022).
The Ministry of Education (2022b) launched a specialised web
portal for schools with resources on how to deal with the influx of
Ukrainian refugees; however, there were no specific guidelines on
how to deal with the social integration of refugees.
Aiming to map the quickly developing situation in Czech
schools and evaluate the process of social integration of
Ukrainian refugee students, in April and May 2022, the Czech
School Inspectorate (CSI) conducted a survey of 626 elementary
schools that had ten or more enrolled refugees. The CSI survey
was conducted mostly on the basis of inspector visits in the
schools and interviews with school management. The CSI
concluded that Czech schools were taking appropriate steps to
promote the social integration of the Ukrainian students in
mixed classrooms and that the social integration of Ukrainian
students was adequate (Novosak et al., 2022). According to the
CSI, almost all schools took some steps to promote the smooth
start of school attendance for the Ukrainian refugees and
approximately one fifth of the schools provided adaptation
programmes comprised of intensive Czech language lessons
and socialisation activities for groups of Ukrainian students.
Additionally, the CSI noted that the relationships between
Ukrainian and Czech students within the schools were generally
positive, with most schools displaying mixed Ukrainian-Czech
peer groups, and Czech students consistently demonstrating a
willingness to assist their Ukrainian counterparts (Novosak
et al., 2022).
Present study. We found the reports from the CSI to be intriguing,
since the results of numerous previous studies dealing with
the integration of refugee students in peer social networks have
presented a different picture (e.g., Alivernini et al., 2019; Bianchi
et al., 2021; Cheung and Liu, 2012; Campigotto et al., 2022;
Schachner et al., 2016; Titzmann and Silbereisen, 2009). We
assumed that the positive findings reported by the CSI could be
related to the wave of solidarity with Ukrainian refugees and the
strong support for the inclusion of Ukrainian pupils in Czech
schools expressed by the Czech government and the Ministry of
Education. We therefore decided to investigate the situation in
the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year.
We provide a brief insight into the integration of Ukrainian
refugees into social networks in Czech lower secondary school
classrooms with the use of social network analysis. Our research
is relevant to researchers, educators, and policymakers dealing
with an influx of refugee students into the educational system. We
address two research gaps—we provide early evidence on the peer
relationships of refugees in the context of the Ukrainian refugee
crisis, and we provide evidence on the influence of classroom
composition on the formation of peer relationships with a focus
specifically on classrooms with refugee students. Hence, we have
two aims:
• to map the level to which Ukrainian refugee students are
integrated within peer social networks by capturing two
inverse dimensions—friendship and exclusion ties;
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• to link the classroom ethnic composition to the level of
integration of Ukrainian refugee students in peer social
networks.
Methods
Participants and procedure. Our sample comprised 266 students
in grades 5 to 9 (ages 11 to 15) in twelve classrooms in six lower
secondary schools in Brno in the Czech Republic. Since we were
interested in studying the integration of Ukrainian refugees in
mixed classrooms, we aimed at including schools with high
numbers of Ukrainian refugees. We employed data from the CSI
and identified lower secondary schools with 30-60 Ukrainian
refugees enrolled in the 2022/23 school year—there were a total of
eight schools. We then contacted the school headmasters and
invited them to participate in our research. Six of the eight
schools agreed to participate. In each school, we randomly chose
two mixed classrooms. We collected data in the first half of the
2022/2023 school year (October to December 2022)—in the
period when most of the Ukrainian students were starting their
education at Czech schools but had already spent some time with
their Czech counterparts and had an opportunity to form relationships.
Table 1 displays the key characteristics of the sample,
which included a slight majority of boys and a diverse mix of
genders and ethnicities across the classrooms. We had no missing
data in the sample.
Our research team interviewed the six headmasters and their
deputies in the schools in our sample before pursuing the data
collection among the students. The school management unanimously
called the social integration of Ukrainian refugees their
priority and asserted that social integration at their respective
school was a success. It was evident that social integration was
perceived by the headmasters and their deputies as more
important than academic goals. One of the deputies noted: 'Our
initial response wasn't about their mastering the curriculum. It
was about making them learn the Czech language and socialising
in the classrooms.' There was a consensus that Ukrainian pupils
were satisfactorily integrated and had established good relationships
with their classmates. One of the headmasters commented:
'It looks to me like there's no problem with integration. The kids
[Ukrainians] are just seamless in that classroom, they're having
fun with the other kids during breaks, and they're running
around outside with our [Czech] kids.' The noticeable optimism
of the school management led us to employ a sociometric
approach to capture the perspective of all students in the sample
classes.
Measuring relationships. We employed a pen-and-paper sociometric
questionnaire with two nomination questions (Del
Vecchio, 2011; Poulin and Dishion, 2008)—one question about
friendship ties and one question about exclusion ties. The aim of
the questionnaire was to capture both friendship and exclusion
ties among all the students within the classroom. The first
question was worded as 'Write the names of the classmates you
are friends with. You can write as many names as you want. The
order of the names does not make any difference.' The second
question was worded as 'Write the names of the classmates with
whom you would not like to share a desk. You can write as many
names as you want. The order of the names does not make any
difference.' The questionnaire was in a bilingual Czech and
Ukrainian form. A trained researcher administered the questionnaire
in group settings in the classrooms during school lessons
and provided the participants with the necessary assistance.
We collected data on student gender and ethnicity from the
school administrative records provided by the class teachers.
Constructing social networks. After collecting the sociometric
questionnaires, we transcribed data from the questionnaires into
adjacency matrices. Based on the adjacency matrices, we constructed
multiplex social networks for each classroom. A multiplex
network contains various layers of ties between the same set
of nodes—in our case, the nodes represented the individual students
and the ties represented friendship and exclusion nominations.
The two layers of ties—friendship and exclusion—are not
necessarily mutually exclusive—i.e., it is possible for student A to
nominate student B for both friendship and exclusion ties—
however, the multiplex projection allows us to account for the fact
that student A excluding student B lowers the chance of student
A also nominating student B as a friend. The networks were
directed—meaning that the ties between the students are directional—we
capture the fact that while student A may have
nominated student B, student B might not have reciprocated the
nomination. The full anonymised adjacency matrices are available
in Supplementary Table SI.
Data analysis
Exponential random graph modelling (ERGM). To study the level
to which Ukrainian refugees are integrated within peer social
networks, we employed multiplex exponential random graph
modelling (ERGM) (Lusher et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2009) on
friendship and exclusion ties in XPNet software (Wang et al.,
2009). E R G M identifies what influences network formation by
assessing which micro-configurations (e.g., reciprocal ties) occur
in a network above what would be expected by chance in a
random graph given other effects included in the model. E R G M
can incorporate multiple effects for a single network. E R G M
results in log odds estimates of the existence of a tie conditioned
by the model terms. The resulting log odds estimates implicitly
account for the interdependency between the individual terms.
With the increasing number of included terms, the model
therefore yields more conservative estimates and multiple comparisons
do not pose a problem. The model terms represent the
specific micro-configurations that embody the relational
mechanisms we are interested in modelling.
Table 1 Gender and ethnic composition of the sample.
Whole sample abs (%)
n
Per classroom abs (%)Whole sample abs (%)
n M SD Min Max
Students 266 22.17 3.95 17 29
Gender composition
Girls 120 (45.11) 10.00 (44.72) 3.38 (11.06) 5 (27.59) 16 (59.26)
Boys 146 (54.89) 12.17 (55.28) 3.16 (11.06) 8 (40.74) 21 (72.41)
Ethnic composition
Czech 210 (78.95) 17.50 (78.07) 4.54 (8.60) 11 (61.11) 25 (92.6)
Ukrainian 56 (21.05) 4.67 (21.93) 1.44 (8.60) 2 (7.41) 7 (38.89)
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We fitted a single model specification to all classrooms2
. The
model specification modelled the propensity of students to send
and receive more ties dependent on their ethnicity, the tendency
to form intra-ethnic friendship ties, and the tendency to form
inter-ethnic exclusion ties while controlling for other nodal
attribute, structural, and cross-layer dependency terms. The full
list of included E R G M terms along with their descriptions is
available as Supplementary Table S2.
We checked for the convergence and goodness of fit of all
models. All the models converged. Goodness of fit was assessed
by simulating a distribution of 1000 networks from the final
converged model for each classroom and subsequendy comparing
this distribution to the observed data on several structural indices.
Overall, the models were good fits on the observed data on
friendship layers and modest fits on exclusion layers as we did not
include the full array of structural effects on the exclusion layers.
The full goodness of fit results with the individual structural
indices for the individual classrooms are available in Supplementary
Table S3.
Meta-analysis and meta-regression. To provide overall effect
estimates across the classrooms, we aggregated the results from
the individual classrooms using a meta-analytical method. We
employed a random-effect model, assuming differences in true
effect sizes among the classrooms due to varying school locations,
student compositions, and teacher backgrounds3
. In a randomeffect
model, we allow the true effect to vary from study to study
and estimate the mean of a distribution of true effects. Each study
is weighted by the inverse of both its within-study and its
between-study variance. To link the classroom ethnic composition
with the level of integration of its Ukrainian refugees, we
conducted a mixed-effects meta-regression using the percentage
of Ukrainian students in the classroom as a moderating variable
for three friendship tie effects: the sender and receiver effect for
Ukrainians and the ethnic homophily effect. The meta-analysis
and the meta-regression were conducted in the R (R Core Team,
2020) package metafor (Viechtbauer, 2010).
Results
Descriptive statistics. We first provide an overview of the basic
network descriptors showing several common characteristics
present across the networks. Table 2 shows the network
descriptors. Both friendship and exclusion layers exhibited several
typical features of school networks—high density, centralisation,
reciprocity, and transitivity, although the exclusion layers were
generally lower on all observed network indices. This suggests
that the exclusion layer is less cohesive than the friendship layer.
We found positive gender and ethnic homophily on the friendship
layer and negative gender and ethnic homophily on the
exclusion layer, suggesting that both the exclusion and friendship
ties were formed along the lines of gender and ethnicity. The
negative correlation between friendship and exclusion ties indicates
that the two relationships did not co-occur. The influence of
gender and ethnicity on the formation of the ties is visible in
Fig. 1, with sociograms on the friendship layer exhibiting clusters
of students by ethnicity and sociograms on the exclusion layer
exhibiting mainly mixed ties.
What shapes classroom networks? We followed the network
descriptors with E R G M accounting for the interdependency of
the individual effects. The findings from the E R G M meta-analysis
indicate that relationships among students in the classrooms
were, indeed, largely based on ethnicity and gender. Table 3
shows aggregate E R G M estimates. We found positive and significant
ethnic homophily on friendship ties, indicating that
students had a strong tendency to form friendship ties with those
of the same ethnicity; this tendency influences the networks
among the included effects the most. The sender and receiver
effects for Ukrainians on friendship ties were found to be significant
and negative, indicating a lower tendency of Ukrainian
Table 2 Network summary statistics of the individual friendship and exclusion networks.
n dens. centr. redp. trans. avg. dist. avg. deg. horn. gndr. horn. et. cor.: fr. v.
excl.
networkOI fr. 23 0.42 0.35 0.68 0.68 1.57 9.22 0.24 0.19 -0.33
excl 0.17 0.73 0.49 0.34 1.96 3.70 -0.14 -0.10
network02 fr. 29 0.33 0.30 0.59 0.59 1.80 9.28 0.25 0.26 -0.33
excl 0.27 0.48 0.33 0.49 1.85 7.55 -0.24 -0.12
network03 fr. 26 0.30 0.31 0.52 0.60 2.17 7.46 0.40 0.14 -0.25
excl 0.16 0.28 0.24 0.31 2.45 3.88 -0.43 0.07
network04 fr. 18 0.41 0.35 0.66 0.66 1.65 6.94 0.28 -0.05 -0.35
excl 0.17 0.20 0.35 0.28 2.28 2.83 -0.25 -0.15
network05 fr. 23 0.28 0.42 0.59 0.51 1.92 6.22 0.18 0.27 -0.29
excl 0.29 0.29 0.36 0.51 1.91 6.35 -0.05 -0.13
network06 fr. 25 0.36 0.34 0.71 0.71 1.64 8.64 0.23 0.24 -0.19
excl 0.15 0.30 0.30 0.34 2.19 3.68 -0.17 - 0 . 0 4
network07 fr. 18 0.31 0.17 0.78 0.58 2.01 5.28 0.58 0.64 -0.35
excl 0.25 0.17 0.37 0.36 2.28 4.22 -0.46 -0.32
network08 fr. 19 0.30 0.27 0.65 0.62 1.74 5.37 0.41 0.27 -0.13
excl 0.07 0.22 0.16 0.24 1.38 1.32 -0.32 0.35
network09 fr. 21 0.46 0.33 0.69 0.73 1.62 9.14 0.30 0.10 -0.41
excl 0.20 0.42 0.44 0.35 2.03 4.10 -0.35 -0.14
networklO fr. 17 0.29 0.19 0.78 0.62 2.08 4.71 0.65 0.78 -0.30
excl 0.25 0.29 0.38 0.35 1.89 4.06 -0.50 -0.25
network11 fr. 20 0.31 0.37 0.64 0.64 1.76 5.90 0.63 0.14 -0.30
excl 0.24 0.24 0.41 0.40 2.29 4.60 -0.52 0.04
network12 fr. 27 0.52 0.40 0.77 0.77 1.55 13.41 0.23 0.02 -0.34
excl 0.12 0.24 0.22 0.26 2.18 3.00 -0.21 -0.12
fr. friendship, excl. exclusion, dens, density, cenfr. centralisation, trans, transitivity, avg. dist.
excl. correlation on friendship versus exclusion ties.
average distance, avg. deg. avera le degree, horn. gndr. gender homophily, horn. et. ethnic homophily, cor.: fr. v.
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networkOI friendship networkOI exclusion network02 friendship network02 exclusion
network03 friendship network03 exclusion network04 friendship network04 exclusion
networkOS friendship network05 exclusion network06 friendship network06 exclusion
network07 friendship network07 exclusion network08 friendship network08 exclusion
networkOS friendship network09 exclusion networklO friendship networklO exclusion
network11 friendship network11 exclusion networkl2 friendship networkl2 exclusion
Fig. 1 Network visualisations of friendship and exclusion layers in the classrooms. Blue nodes denote Czech ethnicity, yellow nodes denote Ukrainian;
squares denote girls and circles denote boys. Lines between the nodes denote the existence of a respective type of a tie between two students.
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Table 3 Aggregate ERGM results.
Effect Log odds SE p-value 95% CI
Structural effects on friendship ties
interceptfriendship - 3 . 1 9 0 . 4 5 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 4 . 0 8 , - 2 . 3 0 ]
reciprocityf r i e ndship 1.63 0.18 < 0 . 0 1 [1.27, 1 . 9 9 ]
path c l o s u r e f r i e n d s n i p 1.39 0.17 < 0 . 0 1 [ 1 . 0 5 , 1.73]
cyclic c l o s u r e f r i e n d s n i p - 0 . 2 1 0.12 0 . 0 8 [ - 0 . 4 5 , 0 . 0 2 ]
multiple 2 - p a t h s f r i e n d s n i p - 0 . 0 6 0 . 0 8 0 . 4 8 [ - 0 . 2 1 , 0 . 1 0 ]
alternating-in-alternating-out-starf r i e n d s h i p 0 . 7 7 0 . 2 4 < 0 . 0 1 [ 0 . 3 1 , 1 . 2 4 ]
Covariate effects on friendship ties
ethnic h o m o p h i l y f r i e n d s n i p 1.83 0 . 2 4 < 0 . 0 1 [1.37, 2 . 2 9 ]
sender effect for UkrainianSfr i e n d s hi p - 0 . 6 1 0.16 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 0 . 9 2 , - 0 . 3 0 ]
receiver effect for U k r a i n i a n s f r i e n d s n i p - 0 . 4 3 0.16 0.01 [ - 0 . 7 3 , - 0 . 1 2 ]
gender h o m o p h i l y f r i e n d s n i p 1.32 0.19 < 0 . 0 1 [ 0 . 9 5 , 1 . 6 8 ]
sender effect for b o y s f r i e n d s n i p - 0 . 6 1 0.19 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 1 . 0 0 , - 0 . 2 3 ]
receiver effect for b o y S f r i e n d s h i p - 0 . 5 4 0.16 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 0 . 8 6 , - 0 . 2 2 ]
Structural effects on exclusion ties
i n t e r c e p t e x d u s i o n - 1 . 4 1 0 . 2 6 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 1 . 9 2 , - 0 . 8 9 ]
reciprocityexciusion 0 . 6 8 0.19 < 0 . 0 1 [ 0 . 3 1 , 1 . 0 4 ]
Covariate effects on exclusion ties
ethnic homophilyexdusion 0 . 9 7 0 . 3 5 0.01 [ 0 . 2 8 , 1 . 6 6 ]
sender effect for U k r a i n i a n s e x c i u s i o n
- 0 . 4 2 0 . 3 2 0.19 [ - 1 . 0 4 , 0 . 2 1 ]
receiver effect for Ukrainianse x c iijsion - 0 . 2 6 0.19 0.17 [ - 0 . 6 4 , 0.11]
gender h o m o p h i l y e x d u s i o n - 0 . 3 9 0 . 2 7 0.14 [ - 0 . 9 2 , 0 . 1 3 ]
sender effect for boyse X ciiision 0 . 3 4 0 . 2 9 0 . 2 5 [ - 0 . 2 3 , 0 . 9 1 ]
receiver effect for b o y s e x d l J s i o n 0 . 4 8 0 . 2 2 0 . 0 2 [ 0 . 0 6 , 0 . 9 0 ]
cross-layer dependence term
cross-layer tie formationf r i e ndship x exclusion - 2 . 4 3 0 . 2 0 < 0 . 0 1 [ - 2 . 8 2 , - 2 . 0 3 ]
Table 4 Meta-regression analysis results.
Log odds SE p-value 95% CI
ethnic homophilyfriendship
intercept 0.16 0 . 8 4 0 . 8 5 [-- 1 . 9 2 , - 0 . 8 9 ]
classroom composition 0 . 0 7 0 . 0 4 0 . 0 4 [ 0 . 0 0 , 0 . 1 5 ]
sender effect for UkrainianSf riendship
intercept 0 . 2 6 0 . 5 0 0.61 [-- 0 . 7 2 , 1 . 2 4 ]
classroom composition - 0 . 0 4 0 . 0 2 0 . 0 7 [-- 0 . 0 9 , 0 . 0 0 ]
receiver effect for UkrainianSfrientiShip
intercept - 0 . 3 4 0 . 4 9 0 . 4 8 [-- 1 . 3 0 , 0 . 6 1 ]
classroom composition - 0 . 0 0 0 . 0 2 0 . 8 6 [-- 0 . 0 5 , 0 . 0 4 ]
students to form and receive friendship ties than their Czech
counterparts. Next, we found a positive and significant homophily
effect for gender on friendship ties, suggesting that students
had a strong tendency to form friendship ties with classmates of
the same gender. Sender and receiver effects for boys on friendship
ties were found to be significant and negative, suggesting that
boys tended to send and receive fewer friendship ties than girls.
Regarding the structural terms on friendship ties, we found
reciprocity, path closure, and alternating-in-alternating-out-star
effects to be positive and significant, suggesting that students
tended to reciprocate ties and to form transitive ties; there was a
correlation between the number of sent and received ties. We
further found ethnic homophily on exclusion ties to be positive
and significant, suggesting that exclusion in the classrooms also
followed ethnic lines. This means that students tended to exclude
classmates from the same-ethnic group. We did not find evidence
that Ukrainian students had a higher tendency to exclude others
or to be excluded by others compared to their Czech classmates,
as both sender and receiver effects for Ukrainians on exclusion
ties were not significant. We further found boys to receive significantly
more exclusion ties than girls. We found reciprocity
effects on exclusion ties to be positive and significant, suggesting
that students also tended to reciprocate exclusion ties. Finally, we
found the cross-layer tie formation term to be negative and significant,
meaning that students had a negative tendency to form
both friendship and exclusion ties with the same classmate.
How does classroom composition moderate the integration of
Ukrainian refugees in social networks? Meta-regression revealed
that the increasing percentage of Ukrainian students in classroom
is related to their worse integration in social networks. Table 4
shows the results of the meta-regression; Fig. 2 shows the corresponding
bubble plots. The ethnic homophily effect on
friendship ties was moderated by classroom composition with a
1% increase of Ukrainian students in a classroom leading to a
0.07 increase in the log odds of homophily behaviour significant
at a p-value of 0.04. We further found a sender effect for
Ukrainians on friendship ties to be moderated by classroom
composition, with a 1% increase of Ukrainian students in the
classroom leading to a decrease in the tendency of Ukrainian
students to send ties by —0.04 log odds at a p-value of 0.07. We
find no evidence that the percentage of Ukrainian students in a
classroom moderated the tendency of the Ukrainian students to
receive ties.
Discussion
We found solid evidence that social networks in Czech mixed
classrooms with Ukrainian refugee students are heavily formed
along ethnic lines even when interdependencies with gender and
structural terms are accounted for, and that a higher percentage
of refugee students in a classroom is related to refugees' worse
integration in social networks. Ethnic homophily was found to
have the strongest effect on the formation of friendship ties
among all studied effects and this effect was higher with higher
percentages of Ukrainian students in the classroom. Ukrainian
students tended to both send and receive fewer friendship ties and
the former effect is—like the homophily effect—higher with the
higher percentage of Ukrainian students in classroom.
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Our findings add to the array of previous studies proving that
refugee students face a lack of integration in peer social networks.
Our findings of strong ethnic homophily among refugee students
support the findings of Campigotto et al. (2022), Schachner et al.
(2016), Titzmann and Silbereisen (2009), and Windzio (2015).
Our findings of a lower tendency of Ukrainian students to receive
friendship ties indirectly support previous findings of a higher
risk of exclusion among refugee students (Alivernini et al., 2019;
Bianchi et al., 2021; Guo et al., 2019). However, we did not find a
significant tendency of Ukrainian students to receive more
exclusion ties. Hence, we cannot speak of explicit rejection by
their classmates; rather, we saw a tendency of the Ukrainian
students to be neglected.
We provide evidence to the developing line of literature that
classroom ethnic composition may indeed influence the level of
refugees' integration in peer social networks. Our results support
the results of Smith et al. (2016) and Munniksma et al. (2022),
suggesting that a higher ratio of refugee students in a classroom
may lead to worse inter-ethnic relationships. This finding contradicts
Boda et al. (2023) and challenges the widespread belief
among many educators that schools should be aiming for ethnically
diverse classrooms. While Boda et al. (2023) also
employed a network analysis framework, they did not explicitiy
model network structure, leaving aside terms like reciprocity and
transitivity. Furthermore, they assessed the relationship between
classroom ethnic diversity and refugee integration by categorising
classrooms into three groups. In contrast, our models explicitiy
modelled tie formation mechanisms, incorporated the structural
terms, and measured the relationship between classroom ethnic
diversity and refugee integration on a continuous scale, yielding
finer results. We also believe our findings should be assessed in
the light of our specific research context. We assume the relationship
between the ratio of refugee students in the classroom
and worse inter-ethnic relationships to be the result of increased
opportunities for the refugee students to form ties and cliques
with other refugee students, and more importantly with classmates
speaking the same native language and with classmates
sharing entry into classrooms in which peer social groups had
already been formed and established before their arrival.
Our findings stand in contrast to reports from the CSI
(Novosak et al., 2022) and the school management—while the
CSI and the school management found social integration of
Ukrainian refugees to be seamless, we found the opposite. We are
convinced that this is a case of a perception bias in which the
actors who are not part of the social system perceive situations in
the social system differently than the actors who are part of the
system. In our case, the perception of the school management—
which was also the main source for the conclusions provided by the
CSI—might perceive the situation among students differently than
the students themselves do. The management might be unable to
perceive the social integration among students accurately because it
has little to no understanding of the relational nature of social
integration (e.g., the management might perceive social integration
as Ukrainian and Czech students simply sharing a common classroom)
and because the management has only limited contact with
the students and their perception is therefore skewed. It is also
possible that the management pays attention to different aspects of
peer relationships than we measured, such as breaktime interactions,
sports, or extracurricular activities. Again, in such cases, the
perception of the situation from an external management's perspective
may differ from that of students within the social system.
Limitations. Our study has several limitations. We had a limited
sample size of twelve classrooms and these classrooms were not a
random sample from the Czech Republic. The estimates with the
p-values in the meta-regression accounted for the limited sample
size, but we cannot exclude the possibility that our findings were
affected by sampling error. The limited sample size further prevented
us from employing a multilevel meta-analytical approach
with classrooms nested in the individual schools. Moreover, we
considered only friendship and exclusion ties, not accounting for
other possible types of ties that might exist between the students
such as bully-victim or romantic ties. These limitations reduce the
generalisability of our findings. Furthermore, in one classroom,
there was almost perfect collinearity between the structural terms,
preventing the convergence of the full model specification. This
might have caused bias effect estimates from the one exhibited
perfect heterophily due to non-existent exclusion ties among the
Ukrainian students, and this perfect heterophily could not be
incorporated in the aggregate model. Finally, we relied on crosssectional
data although school social networks evolve over time
and cross-sectional data do not make it possible to study changes
occurring in the networks.
Implications. This study has several practical implications. The
higher proportion of Ukrainian students in classrooms leading to
the higher tendency to form homophilic friendship ties and the
lower tendency of Ukrainian students to send friendship ties
implies that to achieve a better integration of refugees in peer
social networks, it would be useful to place refugee students in
classrooms in such a way that they do not constitute more than
20% of the students. We do not suggest schools should form
segregated classrooms—quite the opposite—we advise a more
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even distribution of refugees into the classrooms. Furthermore,
the fact that Ukrainian refugee students face a lack of integration
within peer social networks calls for the development, application,
and evaluation of intervention strategies aimed at improving the
cohesion of relationships in classrooms and overcoming the
barriers limiting Ukraine students' ability to form relationships
with the Czech students. The research has consistently shown
that having good peer relationships in school is an essential part
of refugees' successful psychosocial adjustment (Juang et al.,
2018), mental health (Emerson et al., 2022), and academic performance
(Wong and Schweitzer, 2017), and that good relationships
between refugee and non-refugee students benefit the nonrefugee
students as well (Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008). However,
the Czech Ministry of Education has not yet published guidelines
for schools with evidence-based recommendations on intervention
strategies aimed at improving the social functioning of
Ukrainian students in Czech schools. We assert that future
guidelines should follow the line of research dealing with interventions
aimed at forming relationships between refugee and
non-refugee students. Examples of interventions found to
improve cross-ethnic relationships include inter-ethnic tutoring
(Datta and Singh, 1994), cooperative learning (Weigel et al., 1975;
Slavin and Oickle, 1981), shared sport activities (Makarova and
Herzog, 2014), and school-based extracurricular activities (Suh
and K i m , 2011). The refugees often lack proficiency in the Czech
language; eliminating the language barrier should therefore be a
priority as the lack of national language proficiency is a critical
barrier in forming peer relationships (Cavicchiolo et al., 2023).
This study provides guidance for future research. Based on the
comparison between the results of our network study and the
reports of the CSI along with the school management, we are
convinced that any research aiming to explore social integration
or relationships between students should be a network study
among the students themselves and such research should not rely
solely on reports from other actors. Relying solely on reports from
headmasters or teachers may provide results that do not reflect
reality. We are further convinced that it is important to study how
exogenous factors influence the formation of ties among students
in classrooms. In our study, we have concluded that classroom
composition influences homophilic behaviour. However, other
actors involved in education, such as teachers with practices
aimed at improving inter-ethnic relationships, might be able to
influence student tendencies to form inter-ethnic relationships as
well. Hence, our research team is already planning a more
extensive data collection with a longitudinal design focused on
peer networks in Czech mixed classrooms with the hope of
shedding more light on practices improving the social functioning
of Ukrainian refugee students.
Data availability
The dataset generated and analysed during the current study as
well as the supplementary materials are available in the Humanities
& Social Sciences Communications Dataverse repository at
https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/lCKYUV.
Received: 14 February 2023; Accepted: 20 June 2023;
Published online: 13 July 2023
Notes
1 In contrast to the context of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, however, previous studies are
from contexts in which refugees were entering the educational systems continuously
and in smaller numbers.
2 Network 12 had almost 100% collinearity between the structural terms (reciprocity,
path closure, cyclic closure, multiple 2-paths, and alt.-in-alt.-out-star) and could not be
fitted in the same specification as the rest of the networks. Hence, we fitted the next
best model, which included reciprocity but excluded other structural terms. In
networks 1, 2, 4, 10, and 12, there was no exclusion tie between any of the Ukrainian
students, suggesting absolute heterophily. Since we could not get a model estimate, we
had to exclude the homophilic effect for ethnicity on exclusion ties in these networks.
Therefore, the aggregate effect estimate for the homophilic effect for ethnicity on
exclusion ties should be taken only as tentative evidence.
3 We are aware that a multilevel meta-analytical procedure would have been
methodologically more appropriate; however, we could not employ it due to the small
sample size. Hence, we employed the second-best option, which was a randomeffect
model.
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Acknowledgements
Preliminary results of this study were presented at the Kolokvium SPOLEČNOST A SÍTĚ
conference. This work was supported by the NPO 'Systemic Risk Institute' number
LX22NPO5101, funded by European Union—Next Generation EU (Ministry of Education,
Youth and Sports, NPO: EXCELES).
Author contributions
TL: conceptualisation, research design, data collection, data preparation, visualisation,
data analysis, writing and revising the paper. TD: research design, data analysis, writing
and revising the paper. KŠ: conceptualisation, supervision, writing and revising the paper.
PH: writing ethics committee proposal, writing and revising the paper.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
All procedures in this study involving human participants were performed in accordance
with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee. Prior to the data
collection, the study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Masaryk University
under the number EKV-2022-091.
Informed consent
Informed consent was given by all participants and their guardians. The teachers clearly
explained the purpose of the study to the students and their guardians. Student guardians
were given the option to contact the research team before, during, and after the data
collection and the option to withdraw their consent and stop participating in the research
at any time.
Additional information
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Tomáš. Lintner.
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