Pedagogical challenges in integrating refugee students in the global North

• In Event: Educating in emergency contexts: Schooling, curriculum, and innovation

Proposal

For many years now in the Global North, cultural diversity has been changing school environments that are often the product of monocultural traditions. Migration and the inclusion of ethnic minorities involve a variety of practices to value multiple affiliations or to fight injustice. From the great waves of migration in Europe (in the 1970s) or the period of Civil Rights in the United States (in the 1950s and 1960s) to today, much has been done to promote the inclusion of cultural minorities in education systems. However, this does not mean that there are no obstacles left to overcome.
Indeed, new migrations have taken place: conflicts, persecutions, natural disasters... the reasons for fleeing one's country of origin in search of security and stability have multiplied. For the year 2019, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (hereafter UNHCR) estimates that one percent of the world's population is uprooted, 26 million people have refugee status, and 4.2 million people are in the process of applying for asylum (UNHCR, 2020). While the Global South is hosting the majority of refugees, countries in the North are faced with receiving a small share of these populations and thus with the schooling of refugee children. Many of these countries are, moreover, signatories to international conventions aiming to guarantee the right to access education; we are thinking in particular of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child or, in the European context, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter. The latter text specifies the implementation of the right to education by establishing as pillars (among others) free primary and secondary education, accessibility and efficiency of education, equal access to education for students from vulnerable populations, including refugee children, or children in the asylum process (Ruşitoru, 2017).
The above-mentioned texts reflect the inalienable nature of the right to education. However, different authors – from the Global North - highlight the way in which the right to education comes up against a political context that does not always work in favor of the reception or integration of asylum seekers or refugees (Mendonça Dias & Rigoni, 2019; Armagnague & Rigoni, 2018; Sanchez-Mazas, Changkakoti, & Mottet, 2018). In this regard, Sanchez-Mazas et al. (2018) describe the tension between a willingness to propose coherent schooling projects and migration policies that reinforce the uncertainty of pathways.
In order to analyze, support and encourage the development of initiatives developed in favor of refugee education, it seems essential to produce a critical inventory of existing practices, knowledge produced in this respect and issues already identified. To this end, this presentation highlights relevant aspects of the schooling of refugee students or in the asylum process. Through this work, we will attempt to answer the following question: How does school in the Global North organize the schooling of students from new migration (refugee and asylum-seeking), and what are the main pedagogical challenges?. In this respect, this work is characterized by a tension between educational urgency and the need to analyze school environments.

Author

• Myriam Radhouane, University of Geneva