Educational inequality in the Kebribeyah Somali refugee camp in Ethiopia: an autoethnography

Due to the Somali Civil War of 1991, more than 10,000 Somali refugees resettled in Kebribeyah, a town in the Somali region of Ethiopia. For nearly three decades, the local and resettled refugee communities shared the resources the region had to offer, adopted a new common cultural norm, and fostered some levels of social cohesions. It is the education sector, however, that caused social conflicts and hatred between resettled Somalis and the native Somali-Ethiopians. Currently, the education of Somali refugee children is funded by various international organizations, such as the United Nations. On the contrary, the local Somali-Ethiopian children pay their way to schools which leads to poor educational experiences. Using autoethnography as the research method, this article examines the formation of educational gaps between the local and refugee children. Findings suggest that educational inequality can exist between refugee and host communities, if not properly managed, and can ultimately impact social cohesion and stability in the refugee-hosting regions.

Article 22: The Right to Protection for Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Children

Article 22 guarantees the substantive application of all Convention rights to the particular situation of asylum seeking and refugee children, and also guarantees them protection and assistance in advancing their immigration and residency status claims and in overcoming the hurdles posed by international migration channels, including guarantees of due process. The rights of refugee and asylum-seeking children can be analyzed in relation to four essential attributes. First of all, Article 22 insists upon appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance. Refugee children are not granted a special status under the Convention, but they are not given any lesser status. They are to be treated as children first and foremost and not as migrants per se, in the sense that national immigration policy cannot trump child rights. The basic rights to education, health, and child welfare of these children needs to be protected to the same extent, and as much as possible, as children who are nationals of the host country. The second attribute preserves the rights of refugee children not only under the Convention but under all other international human right treaties and humanitarian instruments binding on the relevant States Party. These may include, for many governments, the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Minors, 1961, among others. A third attribute of Article 22 insists upon the duty to protect and assist refugee children. This entails a clear duty to provide children with appropriate due process rights throughout their asylum and refugee claims procedures, including the child’s right to be heard and participate in all the processes determining the child’s residence or immigration status, border admission, deportation, repatriation, detention, alternative measures, or placement, including best interest determination processes. The fourth and final attribute of Article 22 asserts that two basic principles should guide each activity with the refugee child: the best interests of the child and the principle of family unity.

Intentional Inclusion

Finding models and insight into the best and most effective strategies and programs to teach English language learners in respectful and equitable ways is a persistent topic in practitioner and educational research. This chapter shares the voices and work of Toronto educators whose embrace of multiculturalism and multilingualism has contributed to the academic success of English language learners and refugee children in the Toronto schools. Through a series of interviews and classroom observations, the author explored the practices and programs used to support and empower these young English language learners. The chapter presents three major themes that emerged from this study: teacher mindset, family engagement, and targeted refugee education. These themes shed light and provide a deeper understanding for educators of the why and the how of Toronto's success. Educator takeaways are shared.

Challenges to Afghan Refugee Children’s Education in Pakistan: A Human Security Perspective

Human security is an essential component of the contemporary intra-state conflicts; promulgating renewed understanding of the perpetuating nature of the Afghan problem. Afghanistan, from the Soviet invasion to the US’ long war, faces continued Human Security challenges, especially lack of education in around 80 percent of school-aged children of Afghan refugees. Pakistan, which itself has the second largest number of school-aged children out of school, faces illiteracy in children of Afghan refugees as the surmountable challenge that links down to the seven broader components of human security identified by Mahbub-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s former finance minister and economist, in the 1994 Human Development Report. The growing illiteracy in second and third-generation Afghan refugees is the product of poverty, socio-economic disparities, and socio-cultural restrictions, especially in regards to the relative discouragement of female education. In order to offset the gravity of challenges to the educational aspect of human security, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is continuously cooperating with the Pakistani government in enhancing educational infrastructure in terms of community and home-based schooling, vocational and technical training, and capacity building of Pakistan’s schooling system to accommodate Afghan refugee children. Therefore, the paper takes qualitative checks of the primary sources from the government of Pakistan and UNHCR and secondary sources to find the answers to three following questions in different four parts of the paper. The result of this study is that the main challenge for Afghan refugee child education in Pakistan is the poor quality of education. Therefore, UNHCR should work with the Pakistani government to develop investment programs and put in place solid surveillance and oversight of schools to improve their quality to an acceptable standard.

Special Needs Assessment in Bilingual School-Age Children in Germany

Educational and (psycho-)linguistic research on L1 and L2 acquisition in bilingual children sketches them as a group of language learners varying in many aspects. However, most studies to date have based evaluations of language proficiency or new assessment tools on data from heritage children, while studies on the appropriateness of assessment tools for school-age refugee children remain a notable exception. This study focuses on the standardized assessment tool BUEGA for primary school children, which is, among others, a widespread tool for the assessment of pedagogical support or special needs (SN) in Germany. We compare the performance of 12 typically developing monolinguals (Mo-TD: 7;3–12;1), 14 heritage-bilinguals (BiTD: 7;1–13;4, L1 Turkish and Arabic), 12 refugee- students (BiTD: 8;7–13;1, L1 Arabic), and 7 children with developmental language disorders (DLD: 7;7–13;9) on the subtests of grammar, word-reading, and spelling. Overall results show that refugee-BiTDs perform in the (monolingual) pathology range. No significant differences emerged between students with DLD and typically developing (TD) refugee students. Considering the assessment of school-related language performance, bilingual refugees are at risk of misdiagnosis, along with the well-known effects of educational disadvantage. This particularly applies to children with low socioeconomic status (SES). Looking beyond oral language competencies and using test combinations can help exclude language disorders in school-age children with limited L2 proficiency.

The role of different school organizational models in the psychological adaptation of refugee adolescents

Given the high number of refugee children and adolescents around the globe, it is critical to determine conditions that foster their adaptation in the receiving country. This study investigated the psychological adaptation of recently arrived adolescent refugees in Germany. We focused on whether psychological adaptation reflects the organizational approach taken by the school that refugee adolescents initially attended. School is an important context for the development and acculturation of young refugees. As in other European countries, the schooling of refugee adolescents in Germany is organized in different models: separate instruction in newcomer classes, direct immersion in regular classes, and mixed approaches. To answer our research questions, we used self-reported data from 700 refugee adolescents (12-, 14-, and 17-year-olds) in a representative survey of refugees in Germany. As indicators of their psychological adaptation, we analyzed their sense of school belonging, their emotional and behavioral problems, and their life satisfaction. Comparing them to non-refugee peers, the refugee adolescents showed similar levels of psychological adaptation, and an even higher level in the case of school belonging. Multiple regression analyses provide limited support for the assumed advantage of the mixed school organizational model: While students who initially attended a mixed approach reported higher levels of school belonging than those in other models, no differences emerged on the other indicators. We discuss the implications of our findings for the schooling of newly arrived refugees.