Who Can Participate, Where, and How? Connections between Language-in-Education and Social Justice in Policies of Refugee Inclusion

Abstract

Amidst growing displacement, global policy is increasingly oriented towards the inclusion of refugees in national education systems in countries of exile. This shift is understood to enable improved education for refugees as well as post-school opportunities but also means that refugee young people must often contend with education in unfamiliar languages. This article engages the definition of social justice as ‘parity of participation’ to examine the relationship between economic, political, and cultural participation and language in refugee education. Analysing 76 semi-structured interviews with Sudanese and South Sudanese refugee heads-of-households living in Uganda, national Ugandan teachers working in schools attended by refugee and national children, and policymakers and program leaders intervening in refugee education, this article considers tensions between education policies premised on English for economic opportunity and the kinds of political, cultural, and economic participation refugees seek in the present and for the future.