Inclusion and membership Through Refugee Education?

Abstract

This chapter explores tensions between the stability that a model of integrating refugees into national education systems promises and the precarity that it creates. Global refugee education policy has, since 2012, focused on integrating refugees into national education systems, a radical shift from the dominant previous approach of separate schools for refugees. The policy of integration reflects the protracted nature of displacement, where return to a country of origin is elusive, and aims toward the creation of stability for young people within contexts of exile. The practice of integrating refugees, however, often tends toward experiences of isolation and exclusion for young people. The chapter demonstrates how the structures and content of education within national systems can place refugee young people outside of membership in society and limit their future opportunities.