Inclusion or Exclusion? Education for Syrian Refugees in Jordan

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

In its 2012-2016 Education Strategy, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) overthrew decades of widespread educational practice, which segregated refugee students in their own schools with the home curriculum taught through mother-tongue instruction. Instead, the new strategy called for the integration of refugees into national school systems. To accommodate the educational needs of the 300,000 Syrian refugee children and youth living in Jordan, the government adopted the UNHCR Education Strategy and opened its schools to Syrians. While thousands of refugee students attend school in this integrated context, little is known about its effect on the lived experiences of schooling and how it shapes notions of inclusion and exclusion in the classroom.

In this ethnographic study, I examine the process of cultural citizenship among Syrian refugee youth, what Ong (1996) refers to as the “dual process of self-making and being-made.” This study sheds light on the processes that shape young refugees’ notions of belonging as formed through the school, a key institution through which young refugees encounter the state and the dominant discourses that shape the parameters of membership in society. Understanding how daily practices of schooling construct notions of belonging and how student experience inclusion/exclusion in school is critical for providing a just and equitable education for refugees and migrants around the world that will foster a positive sense of belonging not only in schools, but in society at large.

Author

• Elisheva Cohen, University of Minnesota