Refugee students' needs in high school: relationships, pedagogy, and care

Abstract

Based in a theoretical framework of the ethics of care (Noddings, 2005), researching lived experience through semi-structured interviews, and the individual-environment relation, the central research question asks: What insights into needs of refugee students can be understood through their own words about their lived experience in high school? Conceptually, the research literature focusses on refugee students’ expressed needs and ethics of care, including working with refugee students as a teacher and administrator. Five recently graduated refugee students’ lived experiences and their expressed needs are investigated through interviews and thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The participant researchers included three male and two female refugee students. To counteract appropriation of voice in the participant researchers’ words, Bishop’s (2015) methods and reflections on becoming an ally and respectful listener are employed. Each participant engaged in an opportunity to do a member check for accuracy of content and voice. This doctoral research documents their expressed needs and capabilities. It contributes key insights, themes, and new information from refugee students’ experiences to add to collective education understanding about new Canadians and explores significant implications for better pedagogy and learning success.