Editors' introduction

This book derives from an international research project, ‘Children’s Voices: Exploring Interethnic Violence and Children’s Rights in the School Environment’, that addressed the topic of interethnic violence in the school environment across five European countries: Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and the United Kingdom (UK). These different countries and contexts, however, share the common developments of increasing ethnic and ‘racial’ ¹ diversity, which all too frequently appear to result in an increase in xenophobic and racist attitudes towards ethnic minorities and migrant communities. Since these issues are often also reflected in the school environment, five European universities: the University of Primorska, Slovenia, as lead partner, the University of Trieste, Italy, the University of Vienna, Austria, the European University Cyprus and London South Bank University in the UK, joined together to examine the under-researched issue of ethnicity-based violence in schools.