(iPoster) Studying to Leave, Learning to Stay: Educational Investment in Protracted Urban Displacement

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Migration and Citizenship & Political Beliefs and Democratic Legitimacy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Migration & Citizenship

Abstract

As displacement becomes increasingly urban, protracted, and concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, refugee families make long-term investments under conditions where neither local opportunities nor onward mobility is guaranteed. In Yaoundé, Cameroon, refugee parents often sacrifice food, housing security, family unity, and bodily wellbeing to keep their children in school. These sacrifices are made despite an urban labor market where degrees rarely guarantee salaried work and where mobility abroad remains uncertain. Drawing on qualitative research, this article asks what refugee households believe education will buy them and what returns education produces. The findings show that families invest in education not primarily because they misunderstand the constraints around them, but because schooling offers one of the few routes they can actively pursue toward a better future. Education holds out the possibility of scholarships abroad, professional employment, and family security. These returns, however, materialize only rarely and often depend on exceptional ability, persistence, and fortunate connections. More often, education produces quieter returns within Cameroon: social networks, recognition, linguistic ease, confidence, and a greater capacity to imagine local futures. This article argues that education in protracted urban displacement is neither a guaranteed ladder out nor an empty promise. Where protracted displacement closes many routes, education becomes an investment in possibility.

Author

• Ariana Schmidt, American University