Kiprono Langat

Multiplicity in the making: towards a praxis-oriented approach to professional development

In this paper we explore some challenges, constraints and possibilities for creating inclusive multicultural practices in previously monocultural education settings. Two sites are examined: one a regional high school in Australia, which has become more ethnically heterogeneous through an increase in predominantly African students of refugee origin; the other, a Swedish-medium primary-school setting in Finland with a slow but significant increase in the number of immigrant students. Utilising the theoretical lens of practice architectures, we focus on the key role that educators’ practices play in ethnically diverse learners’ identity formation, as part of the process of ‘multiplicity in the making’. We suggest how schools can foster more inclusive classroom practices, through adopting a praxis-oriented approach to teachers’ professional development.

Forced Migration and Displacement: Understanding the Refugee Journey

This chapter unpacks notions of forced migration and displacement, arguing that understanding different migratory patterns is crucial to locating the educational experiences of refugee youth globally. It will explore, through examples from UNHCR resettlement countries, how forced migrants are positioned as “the other” and are disconnected from the dominant discourse causing repercussions for education. It argues that policymakers and practitioners have a critical role to play in reframing thinking about education for forced migrants such as refugees, by helping to shape a narrative which incorporates and values the experiences of those affected by displacement.

Navigating the Terrain of Higher Education

This chapter highlights some of the challenges faced by refugee youth as they negotiate the alien terrain of higher education. Drawing on interviews and case studies of refugee-background youth and university staff (academic and support), we document the journeys of students through three phases of their tertiary education: getting in to university, getting through their tertiary studies and getting on to employment in their chosen career. We argue that despite high aspirations and a desire to transition to tertiary education, refugee youth at university face a range of challenges in relation to the directed support so necessary for successful transition and participation at university. These challenges are examined in terms of two of the six key themes that emerged in our case study of refugee youth pathways from school to university: aspiration and politics and policy .

Contextualising the Complex Spaces of Refugee Youth Transition into Higher Education

This chapter explores issues relating to the education of refugee youth through a rights-based framework to provide conceptual clarity and theoretical engagement about the development of human rights as a critical social justice instrument. The aim of this chapter is to trace the roots of rights-based education and to consider its changing conceptual frameworks. Such an insight would allow for the development of a critical pedagogical framework for human rights education. As such, the chapter explores the conceptual, historical development of rights-based education to transformative action in an open and democratic society. This chapter links an understanding of human rights to education as a humanising practice.

The Role of Communities in Supporting Refugee Youth Transition into Higher Education

There is a hidden but crucially important role that communities and out-of-university organisations play in enabling the successful transition of refugee background youth into higher education. This chapter maps the often invisible learning spaces and networks afforded by community organisations and government and non-government refugee youth providers in this process. It argues that refugee background students’ successful transition and participation in new educational contexts needs to be reconceptualised by universities as a partnership process that builds on community strengths. Through partnerships, the chapter maintains that universities can tap into pre-existing community support programmes in order to enhance good transition pathways for the students.

The Prior Life Experiences of Refugee Youth

The chapter focuses on the pre-settlement educational experiences and aspirations of refugee background youth. It highlights the need to understand the highly differentiated prior life experiences of refugee background students. Despite having faced similar experiences, such as conflict and prolonged displacement, each refugee background student has dealt with different circumstances. Data for the chapter is drawn from both the major study recounted in this book, as well as a later study examining educational aspirations and expectations of those with approved United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugee status who remain offshore, awaiting their resettlement to host countries. This chapter gives voice to refugee youth attending Australian universities, drawing on personal stories and vignettes to capture their heterogeneous prior life experiences, and their educational experiences and aspirations.

Setting the Context

The aim of this chapter is to consider particular elements of the larger context for the development of refugee education and within that larger context to explore a review of the literature. Context is not just the background against which refugee experiences occur; it is a collection of determining forces that affect the refugee experience in delicate and not-so-delicate ways. The context or setting, and the responses it engenders, can be challenging, and shapes forces that drive and mediate the personal experiences of refugees which will be explored in later chapters.

The Role of Schools

School attitudes and the processes put in place for the support of students are the starting place for successful transitions to university. Drawing on focus groups with refugee background youth in school settings who aspired to attend university, along with interviews of mainstream and specialist English as an Additional Dialect [EAL/D] teachers, EAL/D support staff and administrators, this chapter examines the key role that schools can play in supporting and/constraining school-to-university transition. In particular, it identifies the major enablers and barriers for fostering successful transition. Findings suggest that transition into university from school was rarely dependent on previous educational experience, but a combination of individual ambition and the support young people received in helping them to engage with the system (Brownlees & Finch, 2010, p. 95). This is where teachers played a crucial role as cultural mediators between school and university, as they initiated students into the new logic of practice from school to university.

Refugee Background Students Transitioning Into Higher Education

Refugee background students transitioning into higher education: Navigating Complex Spaces , Refugee background students transitioning into higher education: Navigating Complex Spaces , کتابخانه‌های دانشگاه کردستان

Access and Participation in the Transition from School to Higher Education: The Role of Language

English language proficiency emerged as a key barrier to the successful participation of refugee background students in both school and higher education. Language proficiency was fundamental to the realization of other key themes identified in the case study. As such, language proficiency is explored in more detail in this chapter. The chapter details the nature of additional language acquisition, and the differences between social and academic language registers, and juxtaposes these language requisites against the diverse educational prior experiences and language competencies of refugee youth. Utilising the narratives of these youth, as well as accounts from teachers and support staff at schools and universities across Australia, this chapter argues that refugee background students require language supports which are cognisant of their complex linguistic profiles and educational histories—rather than the one-size-fits-all generic model of academic and English language support that is more generally provided in educational institutions.