‘Not everyone thought I would make it. But here I am!’

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Migration and education: life stories in motion

Proposal

Exploring school achievement for refugee youth in Sweden this paper narrates how available opportunity structures for learning, within and outside school, can enhance youth’s scope of action within educational settings. We will learn from the educational biographies of two young Somali Muslim women. They came to Sweden in their teens with very different educational backgrounds. After five years in Sweden, they are performing well in school and are firmly on track to reach their academic goals: graduating from high school with a clear picture of their next educational step; i.e., university studies. While sharing their experiences of receiving support but also of facing discriminatory practices inside educational institutions we will increase our understanding of how conditions for learning for newly arrived youth are related to network of friends, family and local community as well as to individual learning/educational histories and hopes for the future.

Author

• Anna Lund, Stockholm University