How Young Refugees Cope with Conflict in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Urban Schools

Abstract

Objective

This study compared how young people from diverse migration backgrounds (refugee, immigrant, and local) cope with interpersonal conflicts with an aim to understand how practitioners can most effectively support young people of different backgrounds. Productive, non‐productive, and reference to other coping styles were expected to differ according to students’ age, exposure to trauma, and migration backgrounds.

Methods

Mixed methods were used to explore the meaning of conflict within culturally and linguistically diverse school settings, and investigate how social factors influenced students’ preferred coping styles in relation to conflict. Eighty students attending mainstream and specialist language schools in Melbourne completed measures regarding their exposure to traumatic events and preferred coping styles when dealing with conflicts.

Results

Significant positive correlations were found between exposure to trauma and age, as well as exposure to trauma and the use of non‐productive coping across the sample. Analyses on traumatic event items revealed that young refugees, compared to immigrant or locals, were more likely to have been exposed to events such as sudden death of a person, fire, or war zones.

Conclusions

Findings suggested practitioners must consider how multiple factors such trauma, social environment, and everyday stressors influence how young people cope with conflict. Universal interventions with a problem‐solving and coping framework are likely to be beneficial to those students exposed to trauma and whole school communities.

Key words:

• adolescents
• conflict
• coping
• refugees
• schools
• trauma

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. We wish to thank the students, parents, teachers, and schools for their consent and participation in the study.