Educational aspirations and experiences of refugee-background African youth in Australia: a case study

ABSTRACT

Access to educational opportunities is instrumental for social integration of refugee youth. This paper reports on a qualitative case study of educational aspirations and experiences of refugee-background African youth (RAY) in Melbourne, Australia. Guided by a capability approach to social justice, in-depth interviews were conducted with two groups of RAY: those who have transitioned to higher education (HE), and those who have not transitioned to HE after completing high school. The findings show that: (a) RAY share a firm belief in the value of HE; (b) but they are differently positioned to convert opportunities into achievements – e.g. only the refugee youth with high levels of navigational capacity take advantage of the available flexible pathways to HE; (c) the stress of racism pervades the educational experiences of both groups; and (d) some African refugee youth have shown a considerable level of resilience in that, despite the challenges of racism, a history of disrupted educational trajectories and a lack of scholarly resources at home, they have transitioned to and thrived in HE. In light of these findings, the paper draws some implications for equity policies and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• African refugee youth
• Australia
• higher education
• educational aspirations
• the stress of racism
• resilience
• microaggression
• antifragility

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the methodology, coherent and readability of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research for Educational Impact, REDI, Deakin University.

Notes on contributors

Tebeje Molla

Tebeje Molla is an Australian Research Council (DECRA) research fellow in the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia. His research focuses on education policy analysis, educational inequality and policy responses, teacher professional learning, and research training policy. Theoretically, his work is informed by critical sociology and a capability approach to social justice and human development. His latest publications include: Higher Education in Ethiopia (Springer, 2018); Human Development Optimism and Political Pitfall in Ethiopia (in Forum for Development Studies, 2018); and Access to Languages Other than English in Australian Universities: An Educational Pipeline of Privilege (in Higher Education Research and Development, 2018).