Learning amidst Liminality: Asylum-seeking Parents’ Navigation of Education Access on the Borderlands of Greece

• In Event: Access to Education Amidst Displacement, Conflict, and Climate Emergencies: A Qualitative Lens

Proposal

Over the past decade, countries in the Global North have faced increasing political and humanitarian pressure over their treatment of people seeking asylum at their borders. Since 2015-2016, when over two and a half million people sought asylum in Europe, the European Union (EU) has grappled with how to process asylum claims and support newcomers. With the EU receiving over half a million asylum claims in 2023, the highest since 2016, prominent receiving countries such as Greece are once again under the spotlight for their reception policies toward people seeking asylum.

Importantly, of the world's 6 million people seeking asylum, approximately half of them are school-aged children. For people going through the asylum process, education is arguably one of the most critical human rights and a cornerstone of integration. The right to education is considered an enabling right because it allows people to access other human rights and economic and social opportunities. Nonetheless, gaining asylum in the Global North can be a years-long process riddled by uncertainty and legal limbo.

Through a qualitative study with over 60 semi-structured interviews with parents and NGO workers, this paper explores how asylum-seeking parents navigate education access for their children on the Greek island of Lesvos. To explore challenges of equal access to education for children in the asylum system in Greece, this research draws on previous work on liminality, borderlands, and crimmigration related to the asylum process. This work focuses specifically on how parents and guardians access education for their children while going through the asylum process on the borderlands of the Global North. Given that parents make educational decisions for their children and are tasked with navigating the asylum process for their kids, this research is conducted with parents and legal guardians, and the nonprofits that support them during the asylum process, to better understand the landscape of education access. Research was conducted in 2025 on the Greek island with the highest number of people arriving to seek asylum, Lesvos. Additionally, observational data collected through working with NGOs in the borderlands of Greece will reveal challenges of access to education for asylum-seeking children in refugee camps in Greece.

Author

• Victoria H Jones, Columbia University Teachers College