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Before analysing the circumstances leading to the emergence of intercultural education in Switzerland, it would first be useful to explain how the country has dealt with migration. It bears, indeed, all the hallmarks of a paradox. In the first place, the country welcomes and has welcomed in the past a large number of immigrants coming for the most part from Southern Europe, but also from other regions of the world (D’Amato, 2008). This relatively ancient immigration contributed to the country’s economic prosperity. Secondly, the country’s attitude in relation to immigration has gone through periods of closing the borders and subsequently reopening them again. Thus, Switzerland has modified and adapted its policy on migration on several occasions, particularly concerning the management of the flow of migrating people (D’Amato, 2008).

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In the preceding chapters, all the countries that we have dealt with have had a federal form of government granting a large measure of autonomy in educational management to their regions. This is not the case for the French education system, which remains largely centralized with regard to strategies dealing with cultural diversity in the school.

For several years now, military conflict, climate change, lack of food, and other forces have compelled many people around the globe to leave their countries and live in exile. As shown by exponentially increasing statistics, children are leaving their homes, sometimes their families, and their schools. Once they arrive in a country of resettlement, they face the challenge of new schooling. To understand how best to support these exile communities and those who work with them—students, their parents, teachers, schools—I searched the international literature for the main challenges of schooling refugee students in resettlement countries in the Global North. This literature review identifies the variety of their profiles, the challenges related to pre- and post-migration experiences, as well as all the intertwined issues taking place within the school: language learning, relationships with the teacher and with other students, teacher training, etc. These challenges are numerous and their intertwining only makes them more complex. Understanding them therefore seems to be the basis of any action in support of refugee education.