Refugee education for living well in a world worth living in

Abstract

Like all education, refugee education is prefigured by the cultural, material and political conditions of broader societal contexts and realised in local classroom practices. Utilising Habermas’s notion of system and lifeworld and theories of practice, this article explores how teachers in Finnish, South African, and Australian schools work towards the double purpose of education; that is, supporting refugee students to live a good life in a world that is worth living in for all. Our focus is on the teachers’ visions of what they are doing, and how these practices are impacted by the larger contexts in which students live. The findings drawn from video data, qualitative interviews and classroom observations show that teachers understand that refugee students will face barriers in their national systems and aim, through their pedagogical practices, to bridge students’ lifeworlds and educational system demands.