Language and Education for Refugee Students: Navigating an Unknowable Future

• In Event: Navigating an unknowable future: language of instruction, teacher obligations, and aspirations of refugee youth pursuing education within national education settings

Proposal

Language of instruction policies and practices for refugee children fall at the intersection of contradictory bodies of research in the fields of language and literacy, and international education and refugee studies, a tension which my study explores. On the one hand, research in the fields of language and literacy supports the use of home languages in the early years of schooling, with a deliberate transition to additional languages like French or English thereafter, depending on policy requirements. This research also reveals the negative outcomes for learning and school persistence, as well as for identity development and a sense of belonging, for students who are “submerged” at school in languages they do not understand (Benson, 2002).

On the other hand, research and policy work in the fields of international education and refugee studies highlights the benefits to refugee learners of being integrated into national school systems in the host country. Scholars and policymakers site increased access and sustainability of schooling for refugees integrated into national systems, and the related long-term barriers that refugee learners face if segregated into refugee-only schools (UNHCR, 2016). Yet this integration into national schools usually requires that refugees attend school in unfamiliar languages (Dryden-Peterson, 2016), a practice that has been shown to be harmful to children (Shin, 2013; Valenzuela, 1999).

What is particularly complex related to language instructional policies for refugees is the connection between language and future possibilities. Refugee children are caught in an “unknowable future,” not knowing whether they will remain in the host country, return to the country of origin, enter a third country through continued migration or formal resettlement, experience on-going transnationalism, or contend with some combination of these trajectories (Dryden-Peterson, 2017). The languages refugee children and families need in these settings are difficult to predict, making it challenging for children, families, and teachers, as well as education policymakers and other stakeholders to know which language(s) of instruction is/are most appropriate (Chopra & Dryden-Peterson, 2015; Dryden-Peterson, 2006). Refugees’ possible futures also change over time, with each new migration destination, and sometimes unexpectedly, with outside events like the closing of a refugee camp or modifications to national refugee education policies shifting what languages are available or preferable (Chopra & Dryden-Peterson, 2015).

In this paper, I present the findings from field work I conducted in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya, exploring refugee children’s and families’ experiences of language in exile. I purposively sampled three schools in each setting that serve refugee and national students together. In each of these schools, I conducted data collection over the 2018 fall-2019 early spring, including classroom and community observations, as well as interviews with children, parents, teachers, and educational authorities related to education, language, and the future.

Author

• Celia Reddick, Harvard Graduate School of Education