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This chapter examines the perspectives of culturally responsive teachers of immigrant and refugee youth in a high performing school in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Academic success in the region has been traditionally designated for ethnic Germans and nonnatives who suppress their culture and assimilate into normative German culture. Assimilating to normative German culture through the lens of global meaning making is a preordained social order that perpetuates exclusion for immigrants in society and school. The consequences of failed intercultural education in Europe have prompted increased demands to consider diversity in teacher training and to provide more equitable opportunities for immigrants. Gymnasium Baden welcomed a few Syrian refugees where immigrant youth represented one 10th of the population during the 2015–2016 academic year. In a broader context of limited access and opportunity to higher education among immigrant and refugee youth, this chapter examines teachers who interrupted existing frames and maintained high expectations and mindfulness for their students. The perspectives and voices of teachers who employ culturally responsive practices were documented through interviews and examined through the lens of Tierney's (2018) dimensions of global meaning making, more specifically the models of interrupting existing frames, critical literacies, and being mindful. Participants' perspectives interrupted existing frames and were documented against the grain of a conservative region that has experienced dilemmas of integrating immigrants and refugees into school and society. An examination of interview transcripts revealed teachers who maintained high expectations through an asset orientation and were overwhelmingly supportive and responsive to longtime immigrant and newcomer refugee youth.

Using conceptions of transnationalism to (re)evaluate the field of comparative and international education (CIE), this chapter analyzes educational programming and policy for migrant refugee youth at the margins and borderlands of the nation-state system. Drawing from newspaper articles about displaced youth on Kenya’s eastern border and the southwestern U.S. border, this chapter focuses on comparative and international education’s potential influence on programming and policies in borderland regions. Both populations present the need for targeted educational programming within and outside of formal education systems and urgency for research linked with practice. We argue that CIE scholars can fill a critical, activist purpose to draw attention to educational access and curricular content in educational projects at the borders of the nation-state system, to investigate programming, and to work with practitioners and policy makers to address the needs of youth on the physical and figurative margins of education.

Given the backdrop of a global influx of refugees and high numbers of youth under the age of 18 among counts of forcibly displaced persons, this chapter examines the literature on educational experiences among resettled refugees in Western countries. Young refugees typically face a complex set of unique challenges and adversities including disruptions in their schooling, displacement, exposure to potentially traumatic events, and resettlement stressors. Youth and parent interactions with schools are influenced by linguistic and cultural differences, which can make it difficult to communicate and advocate for young refugees' educational needs. The chapter provides a review of educational literature on resettled refugee youth. We use a socioecological framework and offer a protective and promotive lens, including psychosocial issues, to consider for school-based prevention and intervention programs. The chapter builds upon Pastoor (2015), who advocated a holistic approach with refugee students in school-based settings.

Recent figures show that half the world’s refugees are children, with young people now representing more than 50 percent of victims of global armed conflict and displaced persons. Increasing numbers of refugee youth are entering their host nations’ compulsory and postcompulsory educational systems having experienced frequent resettlements and disrupted education, which in turn, pose major barriers for educational and future employment. The consequences of these experiences raise pressing equity implications for educators and educational systems. However, the picture is not uniformly bleak. Employing Bourdieu’s thinking tools of habitus, field and capital, Yosso’s concepts of community cultural wealth and photovoice methods, this chapter draws on studies of refugee youth of both genders from diverse ethnic and faith backgrounds, conducted in regional Australia. It examines how everyday spaces for learning, for example, church, faith-based and sporting groups and family can play a crucial role in enabling young people to build powerful forms of social and cultural capital necessary to successfully access and negotiate formal education and training settings. Its findings suggest first that everyday spaces can act as rich sites of informal learning, which young refugee people draw upon to advance their life chances, employability, and social inclusion. Second, they suggest that how one’s gender and “race” intersect may have important implications for how refugee youth access social and cultural capital in these everyday spaces as they navigate between informal learning and formal educational settings.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the ways that refugee and forced im/migrant (RFI) youth move across time and context in their educational experiences. In particular, the contextual characteristics of determinism, duration, and mobility are explained, and the factors most often associated with RFI youth educational experiences (i.e., trauma, identity, and language) are discussed in reference to the ways that educational infrastructure, capacity, and sustainability are typically established and maintained in educational situations worldwide. This chapter also provides a brief overview of the volume’s chapters and the ways that each chapter addresses one or more of these themes or topics.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the promise of and challenges to providing effective and culturally responsive trauma-focused mental health services to immigrant and refugee youth and their families within school settings.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter utilizes “practice-based evidence” to outline successes and address the barriers associated with the implementation of school-based, trauma-focused, evidence-based interventions in four immigrant or refugee-dense cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Boston.

Findings – Making cultural adaptations to identified trauma interventions that were consistent with community priorities, cultural norms, and values resulted in more accessible programs and greater engagement in treatment services.

Practical implications – The strategies tested in these real-world settings contribute to the development of culturally competent trauma-informed services for immigrant and refugee youth and their families. Mental health providers and program developers will better understand the need for multilevel engagement strategies and for culturally driven modifications when employing evidence-based programs with immigrant and refugee youth.

Originality/value – This chapter adds to the scarce evidence about useful methods to engage immigrant and refugee youth and families in treatment and to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.

Forcibly displaced populations face economic, social, and spatial restrictions that impact how they navigate and make sense of their surroundings. In refugee camps, children and youth’s agency may look less dynamic and obvious. In this study, the authors examine the concept of “thin agency” or “everyday agency” in children’s and youth’s daily decisions and actions in a highly restrictive environment. By analyzing written narratives of 55 adolescent girls in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the authors find that children and youth are constantly exercising agency and/or are actively involved in “agentic practices” on a spectrum consisting of three major categories: thinking, action, and change. Hence, the authors propose taking a balanced approach in the field of refugee education that recognizes not only the multiple complex challenges in forced displacement but also the capabilities and strengths embedded in both the personal and social sphere that help children and youth overcome those barriers.

This chapter summarizes a therapeutic art-based education project in Houston and two United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement camps in Burkina Faso, a small landlocked country in West Africa. The project, which was developed and led by the authors, Be the Peace – Be the Hope, was born from a spirit of hope and concern for the plight of children; particularly, for the mounting numbers of children displaced by war and conflict. Many of these children now live in resettlement camps. The ages of the participating students ranged from 8 to 22 in the camps. Many participating Houston middle and high school students had arrived recently in the United States and several had been refugees themselves.

Canada’s immigration goals are multifaceted and ambitious, reflecting both a desire to attract those who can contribute economically and culturally and offer protection to the displaced and the persecuted. Alongside these goals is a pledge that newcomers will receive the services and supports they need to fully integrate into Canada’s cultural and economic landscape. This chapter argues that post-secondary institutions, working in partnership with community organizations and primary/secondary schools, are well positioned to facilitate economic and cultural integration, particularly for otherwise vulnerable refugee groups. However, the authors’ previous research illustrates the many barriers refugee youth face in accessing Canadian post-secondary education. The authors hypothesize that efforts to increase post-secondary access – and, thereby, facilitate the accomplishment of immigration goals – will be most effective when specific age groups within the refugee demographic are targeted; in particular, younger children who have spent more time in the Canadian education system. This approach requires a shift in settlement practice from that of meeting only initial, urgent settlement needs, to one that enables the development of economic and cultural capacity. The authors envision a program that, on the one hand, helps refugees to value and gain the broad benefits of post-secondary education, while, on the other hand, directs post-secondary institutions to offer programs and pathways that are more inclusive to the unique challenges faced by this vulnerable demographic.

Germany has become the most important destination country for young refugees in Europe (Destatis, 2021). Vocational education and training can make an important contribution to overcome educational barriers and gain participation in society (Will & Hohmut, 2020). Since 2015, rural regions have faced new challenges in establishing effective support systems for young apprentices with forced migration experience (Ohliger et al., 2017). The participatory LaeneAs research project seeks to identify educational barriers and to promote successful educational pathways for young refugees in vocational training. In four distinct rural areas in Germany, stakeholders in formal, non-formal, and informal learning environments and young refugees will be brought together in real-world laboratories. The authors aim to open space for a co-constructive knowledge production process between scientific and political stakeholders, educational practitioners, and refugee youth. Real-world laboratories are a socio-spatial methodology that combines research and a sustainable capacity building process. The lifeworld expertise will be used for a contextual condition analysis of structural, societal, and individual barriers to education as well as for practice transfer. Building on the discussion of the current state of research and the identification of significant gaps in the practice and research landscape, this essay will focus on the critical discussion of the methodological implementation of the study.