Is refugee education indeed educational? The Freirean perspective to refugee education beyond humanitarian, rights, or development rationale

Abstract

With increasingly protracted conflict and crisis situations and today’s sustainable development imperative, the global community is facing challenges in providing quality education to refugee learners. The article reflects on conventional approaches that have been adopted by the global stakeholders and questions whether the current state of refugee education is indeed educational. Based on Paulo Freire’s theoretical standpoint, the article draws on limitations of the dominant approaches in the field of refugee education. It argues that there needs to be an alternative view perceiving refugees beyond merely beneficiaries of educational interventions, and education beyond a tool for domestication.

Keywords:

• Refugee education
• Paulo Freire
• humanitarian
• human rights
• development

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Subin Sarah Yeo

Subin Sarah Yeo is a Professor at Linton Global School, Hannam University. Her research areas include international education and development cooperation, refugee education, teacher education, and Southeast Asia.

Sung-Sang Yoo

Sung-Sang Yoo is a Chair Professor of the Department of Global Education Cooperation at Seoul National University. His research focuses on the areas including international education and development cooperation, comparative and international education, and educational sociology.