Looking Beyond the Bigger Picture: Implications of Classroom Micro-Level Activities for the Inclusion of Refugees in Education in Host Countries

Background

In this chapter, the term refugee may refer to three types of people. First, those who are outside of their countries of nationality and have either been granted protection upon application for asylum on the ground of “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in particular social group or political opinion” (UNHCR, 2010, p. 14). Second, people who have been resettled in third countries from different refugee camps across the world in cooperation with the UNHCR, and finally, people who have been resettled through private sponsorship in various countries such as “Australia, Canada and the United States” (Cerna, 2019, p. 9). Needless to mention, the accompanying family members of all the above groups may be understood as refugees.

The right to education is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, art. 26) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, art. 28). This right is irrefutable in the most countries, irrespective of the immigration status of a child. Dryden-Peterson (2016a) writes,