A system of push and pull

Expand the knowledge of your students about migration and its push and pull factors through the example of football.

In this article:

• Migration through the prism of football
• What can we learn from football migration?
• Practising inclusion and understanding:
• Access the learning activity

Migration through the prism of football

What are the push and pull factors of migration? Is football migration any different from general migration? With the help of this learning activity, students will be able to answer these questions and learn about human migration around the world. Using movements of football players as an example of the phenomenon, pupils will be able to identify the factors that caused them to migrate. Through individual work on informative worksheets and engaging class discussions, this lesson plan allows the students to find the relationship between migration and football and expand their understanding of migration as a whole.

Igor Jovanovic, developer of the learning activity:

The teaching activity is designed to connect migrations and football and to show that football migrations and migrations of football players can be connected with migrations and migratory movements.

Also, this teaching activity can in an interesting way connect the migrations of football players with general push and pull factors and prove that the migrations of football players have similar causes with other causes of human migrations and push and pull factors.

What can we learn from football migration?

Through a brainstorming session, allow students to structure what they already know about migration. Deepen their knowledge by explaining what are the push and pull factors, and how are they different between football migration and migration in general. Engaging discussion using everyday examples will allow the students to broaden their vocabulary relating to migration movements. In classrooms of football enthusiasts, this topic can bring up the discussion about the disadvantages of football migration and the concept of club loyalty in the modern era.

This activity is also useful for students with little prior knowledge about football or migration related to it. Designed for school children aged between 14 and 16 years old, this activity can be used as a fun and exciting way to kick off a class or a module about the phenomenon of migration. To make it even easier for students to understand, this lesson plan can be easily adapted to a national context: just use an example of a local footballer playing in a different country and explore the reasons he/she might have left. Alternatively, the activity can be used to compare migration patterns in different countries.

Practising inclusion and understanding:

Use this activity if you teach students that:

• are between 14 and 16 years old;
• are having a class or module about migration;
• are learning about migration push and pull factors;
• would benefit from broadening their vocabulary on migration.