Contrasting perspectives on higher education among nonprofit staff and refugee clients in greater Washington, D.C.

• In Event: Geopolitics and migration: Universities in the center

Proposal

This paper blurs conceptual and empirical analysis. It considers how clients and staff of a refugee resettlement agency in greater Washington, D.C. describe supports and barriers for displaced students pursuing higher education in the region. It draws upon interviews, focus groups, and resource mapping exercises. Our work addresses a data gap – how displaced learners are supported at the tertiary level – that inhibits the work of state and institutional policy makers.

Background

Crises around the world have resulted in the highest number of displaced people worldwide since the end of the second world war (UNHCR, 2019). How many displaced students are enrolled at US colleges and universities? There is no comprehensive, reliable data on the number of degree-seeking displaced students, a circumstance paralleled in other countries that has been widely discussed and problematized (Ferede, 2010; Woldegiyorgis, 2020). Displaced individuals enter the US at every life stage; they may access HEIs shortly after resettlement or participate in the K-12 curriculum before pursuing college. Further, adults frequently seek education to qualify for their profession in the US, to change fields, or to improve English language skills. Moreover, support for displaced people in the US is available through a web of formal and informal networks including nine federally-recognized refugee resettlement agencies (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2021). The mandated priority of these groups is the achievement of economic self-sufficiency through employment; higher education advising is not included in how agency employees are assessed, despite staff often being a first point of contact for displaced learners.
Conceptual Framework
This project applies the transformative paradigm, responding to Hurtado’s (2015) call for researchers to develop ‘an intentional plan to target an area for challenging the reproduction of inequality with a focus on social justice’ (p. 286). The transformative paradigm suits the blurred, public–private orientation of refugee resettlement agencies that receive federal funding, but which operate as private entities that are cash-strapped, offer relatively low compensation for employees, and nonetheless are a primary source of support for displaced people who have frequently experienced significant trauma prior to and during their resettlement journeys (Barkdull et al., 2012; Brown and Scribner, 2014; Wachter et al. 2016). We understand the agencies as a buffer for the present neoliberal regime – inculcating competition among social actors and institutions per Hilgers (2012) – that outsources vital supports for displaced people who often experience racialization and exclusion across the US. As Kliewer (2013) has written, ‘‘neoliberal ideology has changed the relationship between the market, civil society and the state’’ (p. 72). Thus, the individuals in focus here engage with both the uneven power structures of market-oriented economies and state-specific education systems.

Data collection and analysis

Data included in this study is as follows: 22 interviews with staff; focus groups with 82 clients; two 80 minute resource mapping sessions, one with staff and one with clients. We also draw from synthesizing comments provided by Community Advisory Board (CAB) members. The CAB was composed of 5 women and 5 men, and with a range of academic backgrounds including completed medical training (in Afghanistan), bachelor’s degree obtained in the US, current enrollment in an online Master’s program, etc. Data was collected from August 2022 through August 2023.
Our team used a combination of weekly conversations, notes, and exchange of relevant readings to consider the intersection of nonprofit staff and client conceptualizations of education and support. A preliminary codebook was developed following the data collection, augmented by an inductive codebook drawing from existing literature (Saldaña, 2021). First-cycle descriptive coding was complemented by second-cycle coding to identify themes across transcripts. The research team interrogated the emerging themes, placing them in conversation with additional survey and interview data collected throughout the duration of the project.

Findings

How did interview participants discuss education? For the purposes of this proposal we are outlining three primary findings of our data.


First, we have found that refugee clients situate higher education as a human right, while staff situate higher education in the US as capacity-driven and tuition-driven. An understanding of education as a human right is consonant with the supranational humanitarian architecture, but clients more often connected this to free education systems in their countries of origin. Several mentioned that they had looked forward to pursuing higher education in the US after arrival having heard of the system’s high quality, and discussed their fundamental belief that the US system needed to change to be accessible to all qualified learners.


Second, clients consistently discuss higher education in the US as related to their previous academic study, staff as related to local labor market needs. Learners we spoke with connected their discussion of higher education plans with their previous academic work and passion, almost always noting that they had hoped to pursue the same subject. Sometimes, those plans changed when they learned more about short term higher education options connected to local workforce needs, and promoted by agency staff.


Third, clients frequently describe higher education structures and staff as unwelcoming/inconsistent, whereas staff describe this as “normal,” or as the reality of the US tertiary sector in 2023. The direct interactions of clients with HEI websites and constituents were not experienced as supportive: they did not “see” themselves on websites, in admissions/financial aid descriptions, and conversations with different staff members at the same institution often provided contradictory information.


Significance

Between 2021-2023 the US will welcome over 200,000 displaced people. Understanding how refugee resettlement agency staff and clients conceptualize higher education and support is critical groundwork for more expansive research into educational policies centering this diverse group of learners, who we understand as -- in this data -- protesting the current, inequitable status quo. Moreover, it is clear that there is enormous potential (and need) for nonprofit staff to collaborate and share resources. Space for innovation abounds; the need for that same innovation is urgent.

Authors

• Lisa Unangst, SUNY Empire State University

• Kerri Evans, University of Maryland Baltimore County