Educators’ interactions with refugee pupils: knowledge, attitudes, and practices

The value of school for refugee and asylum seeking children is well established, in terms of their right to education under international law, their socio-emotional well-being, and their adaptation to living in a new country and culture. Yet there is a critical gap in our understanding of refugee education from the perspectives of educators – the people who interact with young refugees on a daily basis and influence the quality of their educational experiences. This mixed-methods study employs a survey (n=295), interviews, and participant observation to investigate how educators’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices interact when working with refugee and asylum seeking pupils at schools in one county in England. It explores: 1) the knowledge educators have about refugee pupils and how they acquire this knowledge, 2) the attitudes educators have towards refugees and refugee pupils and how these attitudes are formed, and 3) the practices educators employ when teaching refugee pupils and how these practices are shaped. Throughout, it considers the ways in which educators’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices interact – that is, how they affect each other in multi-faceted and multi-directional ways.
Educators with more previous experience of refugees – or pupils with similar characteristics – had a range of relevant knowledge and felt better prepared to teach refugee pupils. Formal training played a role in educator knowledge acquisition; however, educators emphasised previous experience and interactions with experienced colleagues as more important sources of information. Educators’ attitudes towards refugee pupils were complex, reflecting the heterogeneity of the pupil population, but overall tended strongly towards the positive. Across the study, previous experience teaching refugees was associated with more positive attitudes towards refugee pupils. At the case study schools, educators displayed a range of holistic practices related to refugee pupils’ academic and non-academic well-being. These practices were influenced by educators’ knowledge and attitudes, as well as by their school environments and larger, structural factors. Based on these findings, a novel conceptual framework – the Integrated Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices framework or IKAP – is introduced.
Overall, the thesis builds on literature showcasing positive practices with refugee pupils, adding the less-studied perspectives of mainstream educators alongside specialists. The study also contributes to literature showing that educators with more experience of refugee pupils have better knowledge about teaching refugee pupils and more positive attitudes towards refugee pupils. Finally, the study adds to knowledge by considering how educators’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices are formed and how they influence each other, via the KAP and IKAP frameworks. The findings have key implications for policy and practice, at the level of the individual, school, and education system.

Keywords: practices
refugees
teachers
asylum seeker
migration
educators
attitudes
knowledge
Advisor: Fancourt, N
Harrison, N