To educate is to include: A Baghdadi Palestinian refugee’s school days in Chile

ABSTRACT

Support for immigrant children, and in particular those who have fled conflict, is crucial for facilitating integration into a new life. The school environment is a key space for providing psychosocial support to mitigate the impact of the displacement experience and for promoting successful settlement outcomes. This study considers the historical context which sees Chile adding, to considerable Latin American immigration, selected cohorts of humanitarian refugees from the other side of the world, in this case, Farid, a boy from Baghdad’s Palestinian community who arrived with his family in Chile after living two years in the Al-Tanf camp. Based on a qualitative approach, including three ninety-minute interviews, the study considers Farid’s pre-, peri- and post-immigration experiences, paying special attention to instances and processes of integration and exclusion in the Chilean school context. The research contributes to understanding the refugee experience in a country broadly unfamiliar with the reception of highly vulnerable people from markedly different cultures. Ultimately, the inclusion of refugees is a challenge and an opportunity for an education system and a society connecting ever more intricately with the wider world.

KEYWORDS:

• refugee education
• school integration
• intercultural education
• international solidarity
• youth violence

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cientìfico y Tecnològico [grant number 3170397].

Notes on contributors

Pete Leihy

Pete Leihy is a researcher of education and society. He worked on this project as a postdoctoral fellow at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is interested in the history of ideas and group identification.

Héctor Arancibia Martini

Héctor Arancibia is Professor of Research Methods in the Institute of History of the Faculty of Humanities and Education, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. His research interests include intergroup relations, multiculturalism, human rights, well-being, immigration, and prejudice.