This article deals with a series of questions related to the schooling of immigrants who joined school relatively late and therefore have greater difficulty in integrating into our educational system. These immigrants have little or no experience of schooling, and little or no knowledge of Spanish and Catalan. The needs of students who begin their education relatively late are analysed from the perspective of the need to pay due attention to diversity. With this in mind several proposals are put forward to approach and satisfy these needs: assessment and proposals which take account of the attitude of the host society, the teaching staff, other members of the class, and the educational community in general towards these students; the need to balance the distribution of immigrants in particular schools; the organization and development of plans for integration in the educational centers and in their social and urban environment; their relations with local students; working with the families; the acquisition of the local language/s, the preservation and acquisition of the mother tongue and culture, the influence of society and the potentially educational role of extracurricular and leisure activities. The article focuses on education, but also highlights the social, economic, political and cultural dimensions of immigration and the need to guarantee the economic, educational and human resources that the complexity of the phenomenon requires.

language acquisition Attention to diversity Immigrants joining at late ages Educational needs Mother culture Immigration

education cultural anthropology urban area politics teacher leisure Social Environment immigrant language economics society Article human relation student immigration family attitude age