Including Students from Refugee Backgrounds in Australian Schools
This chapter contributes to the current discourse about refugees, education and inclusion, in particular within the Australian context. The purpose here is to argue that identity is an important part of any discussion of the education of students with ref
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7. INCLUDING STUDENTS FROM REFUGEE BACKGROUNDS IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter contributes to the current discourse about refugees, education and inclusion, in particular within the Australian context. The purpose here is to argue that identity is an important part of any discussion of the education of students with refugee histories. Structured into four parts, the chapter firstly provides a brief outline of the global refugee situation. Second, the chapter examines a number of concepts for addressing marginalisation, identity and space and how these play out in the refugee community in Australia, particularly for those with African heritage. The chapter then argues that identity needs to be supplemented by the notion of subjectivity, which might provide a sense of belonging and entitlement to success in education. Finally, the chapter suggests that inclusive education strategies could play an important role in everyday practice to address the challenges confronting students from refugee backgrounds. The essay concludes that simply enrolling this group of students into schools is not sufficient; consideration must be given to their sense of belonging and sense of entitlement if they are to achieve educational success. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: THE REFUGEE CRISIS
A refugee is someone who has been recognised under the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees as any person who: … owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it…. (UNHCR, 2007, p. 16) Disturbing images of Europe’s deteriorating refugee crisis have been portrayed in the media in recent times (Williams & Esieba, 2014; Reinisch, 2015). To put these images and their political ramifications into perspective, 0.85 per cent of the global human population or 1 in every 122 people in the world is either displaced or a refugee, with an overall estimate of 59.5 million being refugees out of a total of V. Plows & B. Whitburn (Eds.), Inclusive Education, 95–105. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
O. OLAGOOKUN & J. White
7 billion people around the world (UNHCR, 2014). The international community is deeply divided over how to handle this most serious refugee crisis since World War II (Cohen & Deng, 2012). On a global scale, in the past five years at least 15 conflicts have erupted with eight in African nations alone: Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, north-eastern Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Burundi. In the Middle East there is conflict in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. In Europe, the refugee situation has worsened amid a decision to scale back resettlement of Sy
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