Identity,boundary and schooling: perspectives on the experiences and perceptions of refugee children 1

In assuming ethnic/national identity as problematic, we examine its dynamic aspects in the context of refugee children and their educational experiences. While the starting point of our analysis is a deconstruction of ethnic/national identity in conventional terms of language, religion, education etc., the emerging focus is the notion of boundary. On the one hand, we look at the relevance of fluid boundaries for identity formation, while on the other hand, the experience of crossing boundaries will also be examined, particularly in the case of forced migration and displacement. Boundaries are conceptualised in the context of a continuum in which the experiences of refugee children range across school, home, locality and country. To illustrate the central arguments two case studies will be highlighted: a child refugee from Kosovo, the older of two brothers arriving in the UK about four years ago, who now attends a north London primary school; and several young minors, mainly from Kosovo, who attend a youth club in south London. Preliminary observations of the child, together with subsequent small group discussions and semi‐structured interviews, serve to identify how the child relates to the various spaces in the school. The analysis of his drawings forms the main part of the argument. In the case of the youth club users, observations and conversations show how these young people construct their individual and social identities by accessing global resources in response to local interests.     

Siege Cultures and the Mythology of Nationhood: The implications for the maturation of education systems

This paper examines the notion of a siege culture in which a self-defined minority community comes to perceive itself as being under threat from the dominant group within the society in which it is located and, as a response, has developed a conservative ideology based upon a mythologised collectivity. Siege cultures will tend to manifest themselves in ethnocentric terms and may frequently incorporate anachronistic perspectives on social divisions. Siege cultures may therefore be said to be in a state of continual production and reproduction-indeed, of re-invention-and require the support of educational institutions organised along separatist lines. Inevitably, this will have ramifications for national education systems, which may need to respond to the pressures resulting from resistance from such cultures to the hegemony of the dominant group. Except where the central state is strong and is able to subordinate the demands of minority communities through the process of de-legitimisation or through expulsion, there will be a tendency towards unresolved tensions, conflicts and contradictions. A possible explanatory framework for this phenomenon may be derived from the metaphor of social maturation in which societies fail to change sufficiently to meet the demands of legitimate constituencies and thus inhibit the development of a properly functioning social system. This may suggest a paradigm drawn from modernist, positivistic or even Marxist traditions, and that while current trends, as viewed cross-nationally, seem to point to the rise of ‘ethnicism’, we should be alerted to the dangers of separatist schooling which reinforces the ethnocentrism of some minority communities.     

Identity,boundary and schooling: perspectives on the experiences and perceptions of refugee children 1

In assuming ethnic/national identity as problematic, we examine its dynamic aspects in the context of refugee children and their educational experiences. While the starting point of our analysis is a deconstruction of ethnic/national identity in conventional terms of language, religion, education etc., the emerging focus is the notion of boundary. On the one hand, we look at the relevance of fluid boundaries for identity formation, while on the other hand, the experience of crossing boundaries will also be examined, particularly in the case of forced migration and displacement. Boundaries are conceptualised in the context of a continuum in which the experiences of refugee children range across school, home, locality and country. To illustrate the central arguments two case studies will be highlighted: a child refugee from Kosovo, the older of two brothers arriving in the UK about four years ago, who now attends a north London primary school; and several young minors, mainly from Kosovo, who attend a youth club in south London. Preliminary observations of the child, together with subsequent small group discussions and semi‐structured interviews, serve to identify how the child relates to the various spaces in the school. The analysis of his drawings forms the main part of the argument. In the case of the youth club users, observations and conversations show how these young people construct their individual and social identities by accessing global resources in response to local interests.