Schools and Teachers as Brokers of Belonging for Resettled Refugees

• In Event: Barrier-Free Access in a (Super)Diverse World: Lessons for Policy and Practice From Refugee-Background Students and Teachers of Diverse Classrooms

Abstract

Objectives and theoretical framework

Schools are strategic sites of first encounter for resettled refugees. Teachers may broker or disrupt a sense of inclusion or belonging, and enable or preclude young people’s access to rights and resources (Simonsen, 2016, 2017). This paper draws on data from a study with refugee-background young people in southern Aotearoa NZ (n=44) to consider how schools and teachers fostered or disrupted ‘settlement’ (Matthews, 2008), or a sense of safety and belonging.

Yuval-Davis (2006) theorises belonging in relation to three levels: social location – imagined or assumed belonging to particular groups and different axes of power; identities, identifications, and emotional attachments; and ‘ethical and political value systems through which’ belongingness is judged (p. 199), for example, how boundaries (such as citizenship) are drawn and maintained through institutional or interpersonal practices. The paper illustrates the role of schools as ‘boundary drawing’ sites (Picton & Banfield, 2020; Simonsen, 2016, 2017; Yuval-Davis, 2006) where notions of nationhood and belonging are articulated through informal interactions and formal curricula (Picton and Banfield 2020).

Methodology and analysis

The study was a conducted as a participatory action research (PAR) project with participants as co-researchers (Kincheloe, 2009). Our research questions were: how do refugee-background students imagine, experience and navigate educational transition; what institutional practices support their ‘navigational capability’; and how might their navigational experiences inform resettlement, teaching and educational support practices? Data were collected through jointly planned workshops, and included audio and video-recorded discussions, fieldnotes, and artefacts created with participants. Data analysis was multi-layered. Participants chose what to share and engaged in collaborative analysis (Kindon, 2016). The research team also analysed data through an ethnographic process of noticing and reflection (Braun, Clarke, & Hayfield, 2019; Kincheloe, 2009), using NVivo to generate “summary themes” and engage in “reflexive thematic analysis” (Braun, Clarke, and Hayfield, 2019, p. 5).

Significance

Participants revealed a sense of cruel optimism (Berlant, 2007; McWilliams & Bonet, 2016) when comparing pre-arrival expectations and exclusive schooling experiences that promoted a sense of unbelonging in school, and in some cases, in Aotearoa NZ more broadly. Examples included ineffective dominant language tuition, teacher and peer discrimination, and refused enrolment. In contrast, factors that brokered a sense of belonging both in and beyond school included alliances with other minoritised (especially indigenous) peers; and empathetic teacher behaviour that supported students’ sense of confidence, competence, agency and connection.

Study findings highlighted the need for attention in resettlement contexts to the “stories people tell themselves and others about who they are (and who they are not)” (Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 202), including to colonial histories and their ongoing impact on relations between people in education settings. Promises that ignore historical and ongoing inequalities and their likely impact on newcomers’ reception risk entrenching a sense of unbelonging and disenfranchisement rather than trust (McWilliams and Bonet, 2016). Our study also highlighted the critical role of teachers, suggesting a need to re-value “the affective, ethical and relational dimensions” of teachers’ work as a basis for inclusive practice (McLeod, 2015).

Author

• Vivienne Anderson, University of Otago
  Presenting Author