07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Positioning Analysis of Storys from Refugees in Education
Vibeke Solbue
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway
Presenting Author: Solbue, Vibeke
Broken relationships – a story of a boy who has lived in Norway for 7 years without residence permit.
In a narrative research project, I have followed a family who came to Norway as refugees in 2015. The family of four have two children who has been attending school since they arrived in Norway. Kalib, the oldest son, was 9 years old when he came to Norway. After a few months he started in 3rd grade. In the school year 2021/22, Kalib was in 9th grade in a new place, still without a residence permit. It was the 7th school he started at since 2015. He has moved school in the middle of the year 4 times, because the receptions center has been closed. Kalib has difficulty keeping up with school, struggles academically, and has challenges making new friends.
The paper will present a positioning analysis of the narratives. That means that the analysis seeks to look after connections between the narrator, the social context in which the activity is made, and relevant aspects of the master narrative, the wider social world.
The narrative activity can be analyzed in three different levels. The position level 1 focuses on the what in the story, how the characters are positioned to one another. The position level 2 focuses on the how in the story, the interactions between the actors int the actual situation of interactions. How do the storyteller position themselves to the audience, and how does the storyteller address the question “Who are you?”. The position level 3 focuses on how the storyteller position themselves to a wider discourse, to social and cultural processes in the situation of interactions
By analysing this family’s stories by using positioning analysis, I will seek to understand Kalib and his families’ possibilities and rights in Norway. This can give us important information about refugee children without residence permit rights in Norway. What impact can it have on a young boy’s life situation with all this changes in his life, with all those broken relationships?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedData in the project consists of notes / transcripts of informal conversations at meetings, messages via mobile phone, and two longer unstructured interviews with conversations focusing on education from the home country, during the flight and schooling in Norway. The interviews were conducted in July 2017 and February 2020 at the family's home at the reception center. The parents had to decide whether the children should participate in the interview, and at the first interview, they chose to have the interview when the children were at school. The second time, the children where there. In the interviews, I had an interpreter who translated the conversation. The first interview was recorded on tape, while the second interview was not recorded by mistake. There I wrote down both during and directly after the interview. Following the interviews, the children have returned home from school, and the interpreter and I have been invited to social meals prepared by the mother.
I did not use the interview guide who led the conversations but started by talking about the research project and sharing the information letter that the parents signed. In the first interview, I asked the parents to tell me about their own schooling, without having a template or checkpoints to follow. I wanted to let the conversation flow as freely as possible, without any prior guidance other than talking about education. The interview lasted two hours, and the parents themselves chose to tell me about their concern for Kalib. In the second interview, we took up the thread about schooling in Norway, as well as what it is like to live in different asylum reception centers and to move around so much. We discussed various issues related to this, which I had noted in advance based on previous interview and conversations with the parents.
When needed, the mother and I have communicated a lot via messages on mobile. At times it has been demanding to understand the content of the messages, since she translates from Arabic to Norwegian via google translator, but gradually I have become better at asking quite directly what she means to confirm that I have understood it correctly. The messages also contain photos from documents with the rejections, anchors, and statements from a lawyer. She also documents the various receptions with photos and describes the conditions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsA three-level positioning analysis (in progress)
At positioning level 1, I will show how all the characters in the narratives are positioned, the parents, the children, the school, the reception staff etc.
At position level 2, the focus is on the how in the story. How do the storyteller position themselves to the audience.
At position level 3, I seek to understand how the storyteller position themselves to a wider discourse, to social and cultural processes in the situation of interactions and narratives.
ReferencesBamberg, M. G. (1997). Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of narrative and life history, 7(1-4), 335-342.
Berg, B., Rose Tronstad, K. og Valenta, M. (2015). Innledning – bakgrunn og problemstillinger. I B. Berg og K. Rose Tronstad (red.). Levekår for barn i asylsøkerfasen. (s. 1 -12). Trondheim: NTNU Samfunnsforskning.
Blix, B. H., Hamran, T., & Normann, H. K. (2015). Roads not taken: A narrative positioning analysis of older adults' stories about missed opportunities. Journal of Aging Studies, 35, 169-177.
Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in Narrative Inquiry. New York: Taylor & Francis
Kjærgaard, T. K., & Jensen, N. K. (2018). Post-migratory risk factors and asylum seekers’ mental health. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare., 11(4), 257 – 269.
Deppermann, A. (2015). Positioning. The handbook of narrative analysis, 369-387.
Kjærgaard, T. K., & Jensen, N. K. (2018). Post-migratory risk factors and asylum seekers’ mental health. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare., 11(4), 257 – 269.
Lidén, H (2019). Asylum. I M. Langford, M. Skivenes & K. H. Søvig (red.) Children`s rights in Norway. (s. 332 – 360). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Michelsen, H. og Berg, B. (2015). Levekår og livskvalitet blant enslige mindreårige asylsøkere. I: B. Berg og K. Rose Tronstad (red.). Levekår for barn i asylsøkerfasen. (s.115 - 150). Trondheim: NTNU Samfunnsforskning.
Rose Tronstad, K. (2015). Barn og unge i asylsøkerfasen – hvem er det og hvordan går det med dem? I: B. Berg og K. Rose Tronstad (red.). Levekår for barn i asylsøkerfasen. (s. 29 – 46). Trondheim: NTNU Samfunnsforskning.
Rønningen, G. E. (2003). Nærmiljø: nostalgi - eller aktuell arena i fore- byggende og helsefremmende arbeid? I: H.A. Hauge & M. B. Mittelmark (Red.) Helsefremmende arbeid i en brytningstid: fra monolog til dialog?, ss. 52-73. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.
Solbue, V. (2014). Dialogen som visker ut kategorier: En studie av hvilke erfaringer innvandrerungdommer og norskfødte med innvandrerforeldre har med videregående skole. Hva forteller ungdommenes erfaringer om videregående skoles håndtering av etniske ulikheter? Bergen: Universitetet i Bergen.
Søholt, S og Valenta, M. (2015). Bofohold i asylmottak. Levekår og livskvalitet. I: B. Berg - og K. Rose Tronstad (red.). Levekår for barn i asylsøkerfasen. (s. 47 - 72). Trondheim: NTNU Samfunnsforskning.
Sørly, R., & Blix, B. H. (2017). Fortelling og forskning: Narrativ teori og metode i tverrfaglig perspektiv. Stamsund: Orkana forlag.
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Developing Educational Interventions for Inclusion of Migrant and Refugee Students in Centralised Educational Systems: A study in Greek schools
Michalis Kakos
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Citizenship, Education and Society, Leeds Beckett University
Presenting Author: Kakos, Michalis
This paper reports on the findings from an evaluation study conducted in Greece in 2022. The focus of the evaluation was the project Schools for All which aims to assist the educational inclusion of Newly Arrived Migrant and Refugee Students (NAMRS) in Greek schools. Conceptually, the project’s approach to inclusion is based on the close association of inclusive to democratic education. This approach attributes great significance to students’ active participation, avoids targeting specific groups of students who are to be ‘included’ (migrant and refugee students in this case) and involves the total of the school community in the process of inclusion (Slee & Allan, 2001; Slee, 2010; Meziou, 2016; Kricke & Neubert, 2020). Methodologically, the project is based on the training of school staff in the development and implementation for inclusive education action plans which engage the whole school community and promote a whole—school approach to inclusion (Due, 2021).
The Greek schools which provide the context for this project operate within a heavily centralised system in which the Ministry of Education has the control of the curriculum, of the appointment of staff and it dictates to a large extent the school policies (Theotokatou, 2022). In terms of the educational provision to NAMRS, the Ministry of Education appoints teachers in temporary contracts to those schools that have sufficient number of NAMRS. These teachers staff reception classes which operate alongside the mainstream ones and follow a two-zone model of educational provision. The objective of classes in the first zone is the teaching of Greek language at basic level while the second zone is open to students who already have basic skills in Greek language. Students studying in reception classes attend some school subjects in mainstream classes, regardless of their skills in Greek language. This is particularly the case for the second-zone students who are usually registered by the schools to attend all mainstream classes that do not clash with the reception classes timetable.
Reports have already highlighted that two key issues in educational inclusion of refugee students globally are their access to National education systems (UNHCR, 2022) and the quality of provision by trained staff (Thomas, 2017). Both issues are particularly relevant in the case of migrant and refugee students in Greece, a country which has been at the forefront of the refugee crisis and the educational system of which is not easily adaptable to new realities and new challenges, (Kazamias and Roussakis, 2003). Moreover, its ethnocentric curriculum (Kakos and Palaiologou, 2014) and the lack of relevant a quality teacher training programmes (Sotiropoulou and Polymenakou, 2022) pose further challenges in the efforts to develop effective educational interventions for educational inclusion of NAMRS.
Schools participating in the programme Schools for All had responded to a relevant call by the programme team. Their selection was based on the number of NAMRS registered and on the training needs of the teaching staff as identified by the school management team. A team comprised by a member of staff (usually a teacher of NAMRS receptions classes) and a member of the management team was responsible for the development and for the coordination of implementation of an Educational Action Plan aiming to support the educational inclusion of NAMRS. In a small number of schools, the coordinating team included also a parent. The attempt by some schools to recruit students’ representatives (members of students’ councils and NAMRS) was unsuccessful.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedQualitative and quantitative data was collected for this study. Online surveys to students who were directly involved in the EAPs (native and NAMRS) examined their perspectives on the quality and level of their involvement in the EAPs and on the extent to which these EAPs have the potential to improve the cohesion of the school community and the educational inclusion of NAMRS. All participating schools were invited to identify the native languages in their student population and the surveys were translated in all these languages (14 in total). Surveys with the members of the coordinating teams focused on their perspectives about the effectiveness of the efforts of the schools to include the NAMRS, their own knowledge and level of confidence in supporting such efforts, the challenges that schools have to overcome and their training needs.
The qualitative part of the study was conducted in seven schools that participate in the project. Data was collected from individual, group interviews and informal discussions with staff. In most cases the informal discussions took place at the end of the school day in the staff room with the participation of the Headteacher and of staff who were involved in the implementation of the EAPs. All individual interviews and group interviews were audio recorded, and notes were kept during informal discussions. The focus of the qualitative part of the study was on teachers’ experience from developing and implementing EAPs for educational inclusion of NAMRS, their perspectives about the educational needs of NAMRS, the extent to which the EAPs in their schools covered these needs and the overall preparedness of the school community in hosting such educational interventions.
The discussion in this paper concentrates on the analysis of data collected from school staff which focuses in particular on the priorities of the educational provision to NAMRS and the challenges to inclusion.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings indicate that according to teaching staff, the approach to educational inclusion that informs their practice is developed in the confined space between ethnocentric policies that consider language as a condition for access to curriculum and the limited opportunities for provision of the holistic support that NAMRS require. Within this context, language operates as a condition for inclusion and as an excuse for educational exclusion while the burden for integration is on the NAMRS (Sedmak, 2021: 17). Reception classes, especially those of the first zone, resemble to multilingual ghettos in which students share the experience of a type of in-school exclusion (Barker et al, 2010). Teachers report that even when attending mainstream classes, language barriers prevent NAMRS from any meaningful participation and their presence is experienced often as meaningless or as nuisance. As a result, school tolerates NAMRS’ absence from these classes and language becomes a barrier not only to curriculum access but also to other two key elements of school life: communication with peers and participation in school life.
Many participants highlight the inflexibility and inefficiencies of the centralised, bureaucratic educational system as barriers to educational inclusion. However, arguably even more concerning is the effect of the above on teachers’ motivation, self- confidence and determination to exploit the undoubtedly limited spaces that this educational system allows for the development of appropriate inclusive interventions for their school communities.
The project Schools for All offered significant opportunities to teaching staff to reflect and to challenge this reality. However, long-term and sustainable changes require interventions that target several areas, including curriculum development, educational policies and teacher training. It requires also the engagement of the educational community in a continuous, critical evaluation of their educational provision as a means and as an obstacle in the right of all children to education.
ReferencesBarker,J., Alldred,P., Watts, M. & Dodman, H. (2010) Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools, Area, 42.3, 378–386 doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2009.00932.x
Due, C. (2021) Inclusive education for students from refugee or migrant backgrounds. In: Allen, K.A., Reupert, A. & Oades, (Eds): Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy. Routledge: London. 162-168.
Kakos, M. & Palaiologou, N. (2014) Intercultural Citizenship Education in Greece: Us and Them. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 6(2): 69-87.
Kazamias, A. M. & Roussakis, Y. (2003) Crisis and Reform in Greek Education, European Education, 35:3, 7-30, DOI: 10.2753/EUE1056-493435037.
Kricke, M. & Neubert, S. (2020) Inclusive Education as a Democratic Challenge – Ambivalences of Communities in Contexts of Power, In: Meike Kricke & Stefan Neubert (Eds) New Studies in Deweyan Education: Democracy and Education Revisited. New York: Routledge.
Meziou, K. (2017) Research in the field of inclusive education: time for a rethink?, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21:2, 146-159, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2016.1223184.
Sedmak, Mateja (2021) Comparative report on qualitative research: Newly arrived migrant children. MiCreate Project report. Available online: http://www.micreate.eu/wp-content/img/D5.2%20Comparative%20report%20on%20qualitative%20research%20NAM_webpage_final_feb.pdf Accessed 24th Oct 2022.
Slee, R. (2010). The Irregular School: Exclusion, Schooling and Inclusive Education (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203831564
Slee, R, & Allan, J (2001) Excluding the included: A reconsideration of inclusive education, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 11:2, 173-192, DOI: 10.1080/09620210100200073.
Sotiropoulou, P. & Polymenakou, E. (2022) Multicultural Initial Teacher Training in Greece: Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Migrant Education and Social Justice. In: Boivin, J.A. and Pacheco-Guffrey, H. (Eds) Education as the Driving Force of Equity for the Marginalized. IGI Global: Hershey, PA. 90-112.
Theotokatou, I. (2022) The Leader who is not a Leader.: A Micro-political Analysis of the Leadership Style of a School Principal. Papazisis, Athens. (In Greek).
Thomas, R.L. (2016) The Right to Quality Education for Refugee Children Through Social Inclusion. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work 1, 193–201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-016-0022-z.
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Pedagogies of Nation in Reception Classes for Ukrainian refugees
Søren Sindberg Jensen
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Presenting Author: Jensen, Søren Sindberg
Due to the war in Ukraine, societies and school systems across Europe witnessed a sudden and large influx of refugee families in 2022 from March onwards. On a European level the situation gave rise to an unseen shared willingness to help and find common European solutions on this new ‘refugee crisis’. Denmark was no exception in this regard and special legislation was put in place to ensure the best opportunities possible for welcoming and accommodating the Ukrainian refugees, and, as a very concrete and visible sign of the solidarity, Ukrainian flags were soon to flow from official buildings.
This paper present preliminary findings from an exploratory case study on a reception class for Ukrainian children in a Danish school. Particularly, the paper discusses, critically, the pedagogies of nation, which occurred in the reception class. The discussion rests on the assumption that reception classes can be considered arenas saturated in pedagogies of nation, given that enrolling newcomers into the national cultural of the receiving society is part of the raison d'être of reception classes.
The paper adopts Zsuzsa Milleis notion of pedagogy of nation, which is an educational form of everyday nationalism that ‘recounts the continuity of the everyday re/production of national frameworks through countless situated activities’ (Millei 2019: 84). In educational research, nationalism in schools can be approached in a top-down perspective, where focus is on how learning about the nation and nationalism occur in the official and taught curriculum, and in a bottom-up perspective, where focus is how the nation and nationalism is impeded in everyday practices in formal and informal settings in the school (Mavroudi and Holt 2015). Focus is both on pedagogies of nation where the Danish nation or the Ukrainian nation occur in formal teacher initiated teaching activities and teaching materials and in the everyday practices in the reception classes among the children and teachers.
Using reception classes for Ukrainian children and youth as a case, the paper considers reception classes as an arena, where national sentiments and narratives are being (re)enforced and negotiated in high degree. When perceiving reception classes in a critical pedagogical perspective (McLaren 2017), the discussion rests on the presumption that reception classes are places where categorization revolving the nation prevail at the expense of other identity categories such as gender, class, religion etc., offering to children and youth a restricted site of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2006) with less opportunities for positive identification and a delimited set of social locations available.
Thus, the paper addresses the following research questions:
- How are ‘Denmark’ and ‘Ukraine’ discursively constructed in formal teaching activities and everyday practices in the reception classes?
- What characterizes the pedagogies of nation in the reception classes?
- What narratives of identification and positionality (Anthias 2002) are offered in the reception classes, understood as an arena for the pedagogies of nation?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe empirical basis of the paper is generated during field work at a school in Denmark during the school year of 2022-2023 by the author together with other members of an interdisciplinary research group. The field research was child-centered (Fattore et al. 2012) and art-based methods were employed to offer to the children and youth a multitude of modes to express their sentiments and viewpoints (Busch 2012; Quiroz et al. 2014). The empirical material consists of observation notes of everyday activities at the school both in formal and informal educational settings, interview with representatives from the municipality and school management, teachers, children and youth, and drawings created by the children and youth as part of the research.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe paper offers a thick description (Geertz 1973) of pedagogies of nation occurring in reception classes in the school, presenting both an operationalization of Millei (2019)’s research program for studying ‘pedagogy of nation’, in the context of reception class education, as well as new knowledge on the reception class system from a critical pedagogical perspective. By adopting a child-centered perspective (Fattore et al. 2012), the paper contributes to closing a gap in the previous research where there the has been a lack of inclusion of the perspective of children and youth (Mavroudi and Holt 2015). Moreover, the paper contributes with new insights to a growing field of educational research on nation and nationalism and migration (Antonsich et al. 2016: following; Mavroudi 2010; Mavroudi and Holt 2015). Yet, by focusing on everyday nationalism in the reception class system, the paper offers new knowledge to a much understudied educational context (cf. other studies on nationalism in education: Arnott and Ozga 2010, 2016; Baumann 2013; Bonikowski 2016; Fox 2017; Haydn 2012; Kotowski 2013; Lappalainen 2006; Mitchell 2003; Sautereau and Faas 2022; Spyrou 2011; Zembylas 2021).
ReferencesAnthias, Floya (2002), 'Where do I belong?:Narrating collective identity and translocational positionality', Ethnicities, 2 (4), 491-514.
Antonsich, Marco, Mavroudi, Elizabeth, and Mihelj, Sabina (2016), 'Building inclusive nations in the age of migration', Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 24 (2), 156-76.
Busch, Brigitta (2012), 'The Linguistic Repertoire Revisited', Applied linguistics, 33 (5), 503-23.
Fattore, Tobia, Mason, Jan, and Watson, Elisabeth (2012), 'Locating the Child Centrally as Subject in Research: Towards a Child Interpretation of Well-Being', Child Indicators Research, 5 (3), 423-35.
Fox, JonE (2017), 'The edges of the nation: a research agenda for uncovering the taken-for-granted foundations of everyday nationhood', Nations and Nationalism, 23 (1), 26-47.
Haydn, Terry (2012), 'History in Schools and the Problem of “The Nation”', Education Sciences, 2 (4), 276-89.
Kotowski, JanMichael (2013), 'Narratives of Immigration and National Identity: Findings from a Discourse Analysis of German and U.S. Social Studies Textbooks', Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 13 (3), 295-318.
Lappalainen, Sirpa (2006), 'Liberal multiculturalism and national pedagogy in a Finnish preschool context: inclusion or nation‐making?', Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 14 (1), 99-112.
Mavroudi, Elizabeth (2010), 'Nationalism, the Nation and Migration: Searching for Purity and Diversity', Space and Polity, 14 (3), 219-33.
Mavroudi, Elizabeth and Holt, Louise (2015), '(Re)constructing Nationalisms in Schools in the Context of Diverse Globalized Societies', in T. Matejskova and M. Antonsich (eds.), (BASINGSTOKE: Springer Nature), 181-200.
McLaren, Peter (2017), 'Critical Pedagogy: A Look at the Major Concepts', in Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres, and Marta P. Baltodano (eds.), Critical Pedagogy Reader (Ourtledge), 57-78.
Millei, Zsuzsa (2019), 'Pedagogy of nation: A concept and method to research nationalism in young children’s institutional lives', Childhood, 26 (1), 83-97.
Quiroz, Pamela Anne, Milam-Brooks, Kisha, and Adams-Romena, Dominique (2014), 'School as solution to the problem of urban place:Student migration, perceptions of safety, and children’s concept of community', Childhood, 21 (2), 207-25.
Sautereau, Adrien and Faas, Daniel (2022), 'Comparing national identity discourses in history, geography and civic education curricula: The case of France and Ireland', European Educational Research Journal, 147490412210863-undefined.
Spyrou, Spyros (2011), 'Children's educational engagement with nationalism in divided Cyprus', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 31 (9/10), 531-42.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (2006), 'Belonging and the politics of belonging', Patterns of Prejudice, 40 (3), 197-214.
Zembylas, Michalinos (2021), 'Conceptualizing and studying ‘Affective Nationalism’ in education: theoretical and methodological considerations', Race Ethnicity and Education, 25 (4), 508-25.
|
