This communication will attempt to provide a glimpse of the situation for many migrant teenage students learning a new language to succeed in their studies and make friends in a new country. Ethnic minority students (race, religion /appearance) can encounter further challenges to their adaptation to a new life. Research was carried out in a secondary school in a rural area of Aragón in Spain, where students are also confronted with a bilingual (Catalan and Castilian) setting.  The purpose of the study was to investigate if ethnic-minority students experienced barriers for academic success and social integration due to language and/or their race, appearance, or other identity aspects. 

Official data helped to analyse the composition and origin of the migrant student population and to identify participants, and a qualitative ethnographic method consisting of observation and semi-structured interviews was used to provide a voice for ethnic minority students.  Findings indicate that language is a vehicle for social and academic integration, but it was experiences around the students´ race and other visible cultural and religious elements such as wearing a hijab that were even more important for the teenagers to be accepted and thrive socially and academically. Interviewees also pointed to the need to implement multicultural projects and activities in their educational centre, as well as to include aspects of multicultural learning and identity representation in the curriculum, for the benefit of both, migrant students and the entire educational community to ultimately achieve intercultural communication and competence.