Inclusion and exclusion within a policy of national integration: refugee education in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp

Abstract

This article explores the impact of global policy shifts toward ‘national integration’ on schooling for refugee youth in Kenya. Based on interviews and classroom observations in Kakuma Refugee Camp, we theorize that integration manifests in a multidirectional, hierarchical manner as few refugees integrate “up” into government schools, while most integrate “down” into segregated camp schools. We examine how youth interpret and navigate these oppositional paths, imbued with assumptions about quality and status. We argue that global policy can foster structures for physical integration; however, social integration, integrally connected to protection and opportunity, depends on local strategies and practices, encompassing formal decisions about adapting policy, as well as embedded beliefs about the purposes of educating refugees and their long-term inclusion in host societies. This study responds to calls for deeper sociological attention to education and global migration, as states expand educational opportunities for refugee populations while negotiating educational rights amongst citizens.

Keywords:

• Educational quality
• global education policy
• inclusion
• social integration
• refugee

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

We express our thanks to youth, teachers, and educational staff in Kakuma for sharing their time and experiences with us. We also thank Elizabeth Adelman, Vidur Chopra, and BJSE reviewers and editorial team for discussions on ideas we develop here.

Notes

1. Colloquially, public, government-run schools located outside Kakuma Refugee Camp are often referenced as ‘national schools,’ distinguishing them from ‘refugee’ or ‘camp schools.’ The Kenyan educational system differentiates between four types of schools at National, Extra-County, County, and Sub-County levels. For clarity, we refer to National schools only when referencing one of the 103 ‘centres of education excellence’ (i.e. the most elite of the four types of schools). In this text, schools located outside the camp are referred to as government schools, with rural/urban and other descriptors when available.