“I Saw the Look on Her Face:” Engaging the “between” Spaces of Work with Refugee-Background Students and Families

Ramona Fruja; Kevin Roxas

doi:10.29333/ejecs/2243

Authors

Ramona Fruja Bucknell University https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8858-0622
Kevin Roxas https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0010-5414

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/2243

Keywords:

Refugee youth, refugee education, belonging, identity, humanization

Abstract

This paper bridges critical refugee studies concepts with the literature on refugee education, advancing the possibilities of humanizing educational discourses and practices for refugee youth and families. We consider educational practices that move beyond labels and seek what is possible in the “in-between” spaces that sustain agency to define the parameters of belonging and participation. We examine how educators’ and schools’ work needs to takes place between recognizing the refugee status and its implications and not reducing the person to that identity category; between supporting the refugee student in their needs, and yet not trapping the youth in that category indefinitely by inadvertently disallowing self-definition; between ensuring the needed service and supports, and yet accepting what refugee youth and their families have to offer to the institution and the educational process; between rejecting derogatory labels for refugees as ‘resource-takers’ and yet resisting the commodification of these youth as “resources” themselves. Amid framing discourses of idealizing and demonizing discourses of worthiness and danger, educators are invited into the “in-between” spaces that offer rich moves into belonging.

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Author Biographies

Ramona Fruja, Bucknell University

Ramona Fruja is an Associate Professor of Education at Bucknell University. She examines the intersections among educational contexts, immigration and identity, focusing on immigrants’ transitions and their experiences with education and citizenship in their multiple forms. Her work includes the edited volume Citizenship, Identity and Belonging in the 21st Century and has appeared in journals such as Globalizations, Educational Studies, and Multicultural Perspectives.

Kevin Roxas

Kevin Roxas is the Dean of the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. His research focuses on the contexts of reception for immigrant and refugee youth; the dynamic creation of immigrant adolescent identities in response to discriminatory systems; and on how teachers and social service providers can re-conceptualize how they respond to the needs of these students in classrooms and communities. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals including the Harvard Educational Review, Educational Studies, the Journal of Latinos and Education, and Educational Leadership. Roxas is the recipient of the National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) Carl A. Grant Outstanding Research Award (2019) and NAME’s Pritchy Smith Multicultural Educator of the Year Award (2023).

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