Forging a Sense of Belonging for Refugee Background Students in Out-of-School Spaces

• In Event: Constructing New Possibilities: Minoritized Youth Researchers and the Mental Health Crisis in K–12 Schools

Abstract

Refugee Background Students (RBSs) are constantly othered as they navigate the educational systems in the United States from various vantage points: refugee background students often fall into homogenized identities and limited, stereotypical understandings of their experiences from school staff and students (Davies, 2008; Matthews, 2008); teachers are often ill-equipped to recognize RBSs’ skillsets and experiences for engagement within classroom settings (Kirk & Cassity, 2007; Kristiina Montero, Newmaster, & Ledger, 2014); toxic, often politically based, rhetoric surrounding refugee and immigrant identities also takes a toll (Loring, 2016) along with the weight of being identified by the label of “refugee” (Zetter, 1991). RBS experiences are also complicated by many additional issues of cultural dissonance (Miled, 2020; Haffejee, 2015) as well as the stigmatizing effect of carrying the label of “refugee” (Zetter, 1991; Gupte & Mehta, 2007). Because of these barriers and struggles realized in traditional school settings, turning to different models of participative education in out-of-school spaces is a topic deserving of exploration.

This paper examines a prime example of the strengths of an out-of-school program by reflecting on experiences within Youth Voices, a pathways program through University Neighborhood Partners, that focuses on refugee and immigrant background youth in high school where students engage with college curricula for college credit. RBS within Youth Voices participate in crafting a space of belonging and inclusion to counteract the lived realities within traditional schools (Chen, 2019) by engaging in complex and diverse topics as well as engaging with participatory arts to foster collaborative environments where transformative work can exist (Nunn, 2018).

Through interactive conversations with the students of Youth Voices, as well focused interviews and observation, the students themselves explore the differences between their experiences in traditional schools settings compared with what they find/build at Youth Voices.

Students speak of Youth Voices as a community space that allows freedom to discuss topics that are often taboo in traditional school spaces. Whereas in schools, racism, Islamophobia, and marginalization were regular occurrences for several of the students, Youth Voices instead operates as a space of inclusion based on the very factors that exclude the students from belonging in schools (namely race, religion, citizenship/refugee status, etc.). Several of the students spoke of Youth Voices as a free space where they are free to interrogate complex issues and celebrated the space as a place where they can find commonalities with other participants.

Social inclusion is vitally important for refugee background students to find a sense of belonging within educational structures (Miller, et al., 2021). While this is made more difficult because of countless barriers to inclusion in traditional academic settings, programs like Youth Voices can be spaces that allow them to negotiate their own identities against the homogenizing effect of ordinary refugee narratives (Omerbašić, 2018) where refugee background youth can forge a sense of wellness and belonging.

Author

• Joshua Samson, University of Utah