Conference Agenda

The recent research on displaced/refugee children has focused on their immediate suffering and needs (Eide, 2020; Hirvonen, 2013). Receiving nations have become more restrictive in preventing the migration of children (Waters, 2007). Additionally, newcomers, both refugee children and those in asylum-seeking phases, are regarded as temporal visitors (Derluyn & Broekaert, 2008; Kalisha, 2020) on the threshold of society, waiting indefinitely for inclusion. In some instances, there is a tendency to have them included as excluded (Hilt, 2015), allowed to enjoy some privileges of inclusion like schooling and housing temporarily. The situation is even dire for those living in protracted refugee situations. Education is offered as an immediate help to order their daily lives, as Pastoor (de Wal Pastoor, 2016) claims.

What, in this context, is the role of education? Shall education be narrowly conceived as preparing them for the future- with skills to help them upon return to their countries or offering it for its own sake? What would be the teacher's response(ability) in encountering newcomers new to a nation, culture, and language? How is it possible to conjure an environment where both the newcomer and natives share responsibility for their common world? How do we conceptualize education to encounter them in their realities of being both strange, new, neighbor, and temporal, and yet also address them as worth of address and as political beings? These questions have no direct answers, and their exploration is tentative in this symposium.

In this symposium, we explore whether education, as developed for immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seeking children, can help create communities in which both natives- those born in the place and newcomers share the responsibility for their commonplace (and the world) in the face of climate change. Can multicultural education be conceived of in the Anthropocene? Additionally, another paper sees the presence of migrant children as reflecting the "struggle of the world"; therefore, their education and those children themselves must be seen as "belonging to the world" and not elsewhere. Two examples further complicate this; one that interrogates what education means for young persons who have lived in protracted refugee situations where educational policies are tailored to exclude them. Moreover, an empirical illustration of whether teaching understood as "pointing" allows for bypassing linguistic barriers in education for newcomers.

Rather than educating the youth about the Anthropocene, educators must conceive their task as educating in the Anthropocene (Wallenhorst and Pierron, 2019). As such, education cannot only be conceived as an existential issue of striving to live well and at peace in current conflictual societies. Instead, it must be radically transformed as climate change represents an ultimate existential threat concerning the future survival of (non)-humankind (Bonneuil, 2022; Sæverot, 2022). A fundamental question thus is about what earth we want to leave for our children and what children we want to leave for our planet (Rhabi, 2010). Unfortunately, the gravity of this question often leaves pedagogues empty-handed. Where to begin and where to go; what to hope for in the Anthropocene era (Straume, 2019)? However, it also must be stated that emergent eco-cultural activities at school are flourishing in many places (see, for instance, "Profs en transition," a national teacher network for outdoor education in France). For exploring the notion of existential education in the Anthropocene (Wallenhorst and Pierron, 2019), we suggest in this contribution discussing a specific experience of creating community with nature, looking at the concrete work of planting trees. Based on the pedagogical innovation from the French NGO LIKEN, we discuss educational experiences of resonance with trees (Rosa, 2022; Wallenhorst, 2021) and convivialist community upbuilding (Convivialist International (2020). LIKEN located in Pau southwest of France has been a charity for environmental preservation since 2015. Their associative projects link art, nature, and education with participants of different ages and social backgrounds. One key mission is to restore urbanized areas with trees re-inhabiting Pau's schoolyards, public space, and University campuses. The small data collection consists of interviewing students and volunteers through anonymous questionnaires conducted during the school year of 2023. The respondents are both new-coming and returnee participants in LIKEN's planting project. The study is in progress, and the contribution will highlight respondents' personal experiences. However, the data collected through the study only can show glimpses of resonance and convivialist education as existential education cannot be comprehended once and for all, keeping its foundational openness. The abstract further explores doing community with trees in higher education (Brossard Børhaug & Meunier Kjetland, under publication). In the present contribution, we expand our theoretical focus for reflecting on existential convivialist and resonance education by doing community with trees through respondents' perceptions.

Bonneuil, C. (2022). Terre. In D. Fassin (Ed), La société qui vient (pp. 37-54). Seuil. Brossard Børhaug, F. & Kjetland M. C. (under publication). Community. In N. Wallenhorst & C. Wulf (Eds.). Handbook of the Anthropocene. Springer Nature. Convivialist International (2020). THE SECOND CONVIVIALIST MANIFESTO: Towards a Post-Neoliberal World. Civic Sociology, 1(1), 12721. https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.12721 LIKEN Association. LIKEN. Retrieved from 29.01.2023 www.liken.fr Profs en transition. Profs en transition ̶ Agir ensemble vers une pédagogie écoresponsable, solidaire et citoyenne. Retrieved from 29.01.23 Profs en transition - Agir ensemble vers une pédagogie écoresponsable, solidaire et citoyenne Rhabi, P. (2010). Vers la sobriété heureuse. Babel. Rosa, H. (2022). Pédagogie de la résonance: Entretiens avec Wolfgang Endres (Traduit de l’allemand). Le Pommier. Sæverot, H. (Ed.) (2022). Meeting the challenges of existential threats through education innovation: A proposal for an expanded curriculum. Routledge. Straume, I. (2019). What may we hope for? Education in times of climate change. Constellations, 27(3), 540–552. 10.1111/1467-8675.12445 Wallenhorst, N., & Pierron, J.-P. (Eds.) (2019). Éduquer en anthropocène. Editions au bord de l’eau. Wallenhorst, N. (2021). Apprendre la résonance. In N. Wallenhorst (Ed.), Résistance, résonance: Apprendre à changer le monde avec Harmunt Rosa (pp. 63-84). Le Pommier.

Gibran's poem On Children (1923) directs our attention to the intricacies in addressing the issue of children's belonging, a fundamental need of every human being and a matter of recognitional and associational justice. However, although children want and need to belong, Gibran cautions that children do not belong to and are not owned by anybody. This raises the issue of the responsibilities of adults for their educational upbringing as not being overly constrained by specific expectations to be and feel at home. The question of children's belonging becomes more pronounced where the education of migrant children is concerned. Immigrant children's bonding to the school is crucial to their educational development and economic independence (Bondy et al. 2019, Janta & Harle 2016). Parents of children with backgrounds of migration who experience themselves as "guests" within schools are often grateful for education despite its assimilative tendencies and are fundamentally concerned with making a good living. Nevertheless, the price they pay for assimilating into ways of life prevalent to their new home country cannot be underestimated, considering the fraught experiences of living in borderlands, in between differing cultures pertaining to their original home and new home (Ahmed 1999, Anzaldua 2017, Winer 2021). Educators, even those committed to integrating children socially, politically, and culturally are challenged by their obligations to nurture children's freedom of thought, expression, association, and action. Because of the increasingly interconnected being in the world (due to globalization, technological advances, war, disease, ecological destruction and climate change) this paper argues that rather than considering children as belonging to particular homes, their education should aim for their belonging to the world ( Biesta 2021). This entails the decentralization of the seemingly universal conceptions of what it means to be human in the world (Heidegger 2011) combined with a paradigm shift in education that accentuates the uncertainties of belonging to the world rather than the world belonging to human beings (Braidotti 2013, Snaza 2014) and the future responsibilities of being in the world with and next to human and non-human others. To borrow Gibran's metaphors what does it take for educators to be the 'stable bows' for children to belong to 'life's longing for itself' ( Gibran 1923)

Ahmed S. (1999) Home and Away. Narratives of migration and estrangement. International Journal of Cultural Studies 2(3). 329–347. Anzaldua G. (198r) Borderlands/ La Frontera, United States Aunt Lute Books. Bondy, J. M. et al (2019). The Children of Immigrants' Bonding to School: Examining the Roles of Assimilation, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Social Bonds. Urban Education, 54(4), 592–62. Biesta G. ( 2021) World-Centred Education. A View for the Present New York, Routledge. Delpit L. (2006) Other people's children. Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, New Press. Braidotti R. (2013) The Posthuman. Cambridge, Polity Press Gibran K. (1923) The Prophet, New York, Knopf. Heidegger, M. (2011b). Letter on humanism. Basic Writings. Oxon: Routledge. Janta B. & Harle E. (2016) Education of Migrant Children. Cambridge, California. Rand Europe. Snaza N. (2014. "Toward a Posthuman Education." Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 30 (2): 39-55. Winer N. (2021) "A Home of My Own": The Experience of Children of International Migrants" Clinical Social Work Journal 49:325–335.

During the 2015 "migration crisis" in Europe, Nesta Devine responded by urging that we ought to "instill some courage in our politicians in order for them to work faster to reintroduce education" for migrant children (Devine, 2015, p. 1376). Unfortunately, the sense of agency she advocates for is, at best univocal (Papastephanou, 2017, p. 5). It does not state the purpose of education other than the heightened call for being hospitable by host nations and offering a 'safe' space to be integrated and socialized in the new environment. Their teachers decide what they will learn, yet their length of stay in school remains unclarified. What is interesting, for example, about teaching unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Norway is that the curriculum focuses on their integration into Norwegian society (Valenta, 2015). Recently, the Norwegian government released a strategy paper that shifted focus to unaccompanied teenagers' teachers' competencies. A strategy, Competence for Diversity 2013-2017, was developed to prepare teachers to teach Norwegian as a second language and equip them with multicultural skills and skills on how to combat radicalization in schools (Lødding, Rønsen, & Wollscheid, 2018). Cross-cultural education and the relevant skills teachers need in the changing dynamics of schooling become only relevant because of the continuous availability of asylum-seeking and refugee children. To be competent as a teacher, by implication, means understanding "difference" and providing relevant "educative" solutions that eventually lead to a reduction of difference and assimilation into existing acceptable categories like minority language pupils (Kalisha, 2021) I use teachers (from interviews with teachers and observations in two high schools on the west coast of Norway) experiences in this contribution that point to frustrations with unaccompanied teenagers (15-18 of age) misunderstanding during a Norwegian language class. Sometimes, it leads the teachers to let them "dwell" with some pictures and use them to re-tell a story in a language of their understanding. This, letting dwell with pictures, allows the students to recreate their own stories, some in simplified, basic Norwegian and others in English, and re-tell them to others. Could this be a possibility to rethink teaching in Ranciere's (1991) terms as an act of an ignorant teacher teaching an ignorant student? The paper points out to the idea of ignoring the immediate temporality of the newcomers and thinking on the feet about what is possible when one is called to study (Bingham et al., 2010).

Biesta, G. (2022). World-Centred Education: A View for the Present. Routledge. Bingham, C., Biesta, G. J. J., & Rancière, J. (2010). Jacques Ranciere : education, truth, emancipation. Continuum. Kalisha, W. (2021). "You have to wait.": a hermeneutic phenomenological exploration of unaccompanied minors waiting for asylum response in Norway University of Oslo]. Oslo. Kalisha, W., & Sævi, T. (2021). Educational failure as a potential opening to real teaching – The case of teaching unaccompanied minors in Norway. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 21(1). Kohli, R. K. S. (2014). Protecting Asylum Seeking Children on the Move. Revue européenne des migrations internationales, 30(1), 83-104. Papastephanou, M. (2017). Cosmopolitan dice recast. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(14), 1338-1350. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1278675 Rancière, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster : five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Stanford University Press. Valenta, M. (2015). Tjenestetilbudets innvirkning på asylsøkende barns levekår. In B. B. K. R. Tronstad (Ed.), Levekår for barn i asylsøkerfasen. NTNU Samfunnsforskning. https://samforsk.no/Publikasjoner/Laevekar_2015_WEB.pdf. Van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of Practice. Left Coast Press. Zeus, B. (2011). Exploring Barriers to Higher Education in Protracted Refugee Situations: The case of Burmese Refugees in Thailand. Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(2), 256-276. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fer011

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