Educator studies acculturation of Ukrainian children in Estonia

Dina Birman always has been interested in how immigrant children acculturate to a new country and language. As a 12-year-old immigrant herself, she had to learn English in Silver Spring, Maryland, and adapt to school in the United States after she and her parents left the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. During the past academic year, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Tallinn, Estonia, a country that has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees displaced by the war in their country. The International Monetary Fund has reported that 62,000 Ukrainian refugees were accepted by Estonia, the highest number of refugees accepted by any European Union country, given its population. "I wanted to understand the range of experiences that these children had in schools and the programs created to accommodate them,” said Birman, a professor in the University of Miami School of Education and Human Development. During her stay, she interviewed teachers, students, and their parents in seven schools, mostly concentrating on students enrolled in grades 7-12. Most refugees came from Eastern Ukraine, where Russian is widely spoken.