“If You Need Help, They are Always There for us”: Education for Refugees in an International High School in NYC

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• 作者：Mary Mendenhall ; Lesley Bartlett ; Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher
• 关键词：Refugee education ; Resettlement ; International high school ; Academic support ; Curriculum ; Pedagogy ; Assessment ; New York City
• 刊名：The Urban Review
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：49
• 期：1
• 页码：1-25
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Education, general; Community and Environmental Psychology; Sociology, general;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-1960
• 卷排序：49

文摘

This qualitative study examines how an “international” high school in New York City responds to the needs of refugee students. It asks: What are the specific academic needs of secondary-level refugee students? How does one school meet their needs, and what challenges are encountered? To complement one-on-one semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, this qualitative study also entailed a participatory visual methodology through which students were provided digital or disposable cameras and asked to take photographs of the people, places and/or things that contributed to their schooling experiences. The exercise and resulting images provided students and researchers with a creative way to shape the project and address emerging issues. The findings document key school-based factors that contribute to academic inclusion of refugee and asylee students, including: educator support, care and encouragement; linguistic support from teachers; learner-centered pedagogical approaches; and flexible and responsive curricular approaches and assessment strategies. Refugees are generally grouped with other immigrants, with insufficient attention to their unique experiences and needs and thus inadequate services for refugee children. The findings from this study will help to remedy this gap and yield important insights regarding how to improve schooling for vulnerable populations in urban settings.