Migrants, Asylees, and Refugees: Efforts and Responses to Welcoming Newcomers to New York City Schools

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In 2023, the United Nations reported 43.4 million people registered as refugees, in addition to an estimated 68.3 million people internally displaced worldwide (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2023). The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees called for providing education for refugee students through national education systems, rather than through parallel programming that assumes repatriation. This global push for integrating and including refugee students in national education systems has primarily targeted low- and middle-income countries which host the majority (approximately 83%) of refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced people worldwide (UNHCR, 2022). These countries attempting to provide access to high-quality education for displaced children face numerous challenges, including scarce resources, the uncertain and protracted length of displacement, and the need for psychosocial support (PSS) for displaced children (Bergin, 2017; Save the Children, 2018; UNHCR, 2019 cited in Burde et al. 2023). At the same time, the remaining percentage of displaced populations constitute a sizable group in high income countries, and current crises in Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela have added newly displaced populations to this group. The presence of these displaced populations has assumed an outsized importance—politically and socially, to the host communities in which they live. Indeed, the political tensions surrounding refugees and asylum seekers in high income countries have upended long standing commitments to international refugee law (e.g., in the United States, UK, Greece, Italy) and challenged social and education services even in well-resourced cities (e.g., New York). While recent investment has focused on understanding better efforts to include displaced populations in low- and middle-income countries, parallel, systematic academic research about these displaced populations in high-income environments is limited.

The projects presented in this panel explore both how newcomers–including newly arrived immigrants, asylum-seekers, and resettled refugees–are integrated into life and the education system in the New York region as well as how these newcomers respond to their new homes and services after arrival. Examining refugee inclusion in high-income cities provides important insights into both the context of existing data on these questions from low-income settings (see Burde et al. 2023) as well as into common political tactics that support or undermine efforts to include newcomers.

Sub Unit

• Global Migration SIG

Chair

• Haider Fancy, New York University

Individual Presentations

• Migrants, Asylees, and Refugees: Understanding Efforts to Integrate Newcomers into New York City Schools - Dana Burde, New York University; Sofia Antonia Gomez-Doyle, New York University; Mohammad Jawed Nazari, New York University

• Integrating Afghan "Evacuees" in the United States: An Oral History of Family Dynamics Following the 2021 Regime Change in Afghanistan - Mohammad Jawed Nazari, New York University

• Contexts of Reception and Access to Education: Perspective of Diverse Newcomer Families in New York City - S. Garnett Russell, Columbia University Teachers College; Camille Fabo, Teachers College Columbia University; Victoria H Jones, Columbia University Teachers College; Javiera Zamora Iturra, Columbia University Teachers College; Leonardo Arevalo, Columbia University Teachers College

• Urban Refugees and Interracial Alliance Building in Education: Geographies of Race, Space, and Place in the making - Jamie Lew, Rutgers University-Newark

Discussant

• Jennifer Riggan, Arcadia University