ABSTRACT
Children and adolescents from refugee backgrounds encounter significant educational disadvantages due to challenging experiences beyond their control, particularly as a result of forced migration due to wars, conflict, violence and persecution. The pressures and vicissitudes of migration to a refugee-receiving country, as well as having to learn a new language aggravate these educational disadvantages. As a refugee-receiving country, Australia delivers free public education from Foundation to Year 12 to children from refugee backgrounds. These children are also provided with English language courses in order to access the Australian Curriculum and achieve positive outcomes in a wide range of subject areas. However, certain disadvantages present themselves and impede learning, and as such, continue to be a major issue to their schooling. This article explores the experiences of Arabic-speaking children from refugee backgrounds, who are currently enrolled in schools in four major states in Australia (South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria). With a specific focus on English language learning, it also investigates the complexity and intersectionality of disadvantages as well as the challenges they face at home, in school and the community, including the experiences that support or impede their English-language learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty children from Syria, Iran and Afghanistan, which currently represent the majority of nationalities receiving humanitarian support in Australia. Findings from this study reveal that while the Australian Government’s settlement policies have increasingly emphasised English language skills as a key factor to long-term and successful settlement, state policies and schemes can only work if they are not subsumed under a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Another important issue identified was that within refugee programs in Australian schools, there needs to be continued and ongoing case management for students from refugee backgrounds as these children’s vulnerabilities impinge on their learning. Additionally, as high-needs students, they must be recognised and supported as a discrete population with targeted funding for assistance programs, which means that the needs of refugee student population must be reflected in funding for specialist education programs, resources and staffing. The findings discussed in this article are of primary importance to teachers, school administrators, leaders and policymakers. The article concludes with recommendations for practice and future research.
