‘I'm Telling You … The Language Barrier is the Most, the Biggest Challenge’: Barriers to Education among Karen Refugee Women in Australia

Abstract

This article examines factors influencing English language education, participation and achievement among Karen refugee women in Australia. Data were drawn from ethnographic observations and interviews with 67 participants between 2009 and 2011, collected as part of a larger qualitative study exploring the well-being of Karen refugee women in Sydney. Participants unanimously described difficulty with English language proficiency and communication as the ‘number one’ problem affecting their well-being. Gendered, cultural and socio-political factors act as barriers to education. We argue that greater sensitivity to refugees' backgrounds, culture and gender is necessary in education. Research is needed into the combined relationships between culture and gender across pre-displacement, displacement and resettlement and the impact of these factors on post-immigration educational opportunities. Training is needed to sensitise educators to the complex issues of refugee resettlement. The paper concludes with recommendations for service provision and policy.

Lessons Learned: Insights into One Teacher’s Experience Working with Karen Refugee Students in the United States

“…Louisa Benson Craig, a former Miss Burma, was one of the many Sgaw Karen women who held important military positions within the insurgency and later in the Karen Diaspora community in the U.S. Today, Karen women, such as the award-winning author, Zoya Phan (see Phan, 2010), are important spokespeople in the Karen Diaspora community. However, like Watkins, Razee, and Richters' (2012) study of Karen women in Australia, I found some troubling trends related to Karen women and girls in the U.S.…”

Using Digital Concept Maps to Distinguish Between Young Refugees’ Challenges

“…Forty seven nominated English language as their single biggest challenge, and their accounts of their experiences varied across the three samples with different educational settings. Many researchers and advocates emphasise the impact of language barriers on refugees' settlement experiences (e.g., VEOHRC 2008; Watkins et al 2012;Deng & Marlowe 2013;Stroud & Ibrahim 2016). In the present study, English language was not merely a difficulty facing refugees; it was substantially bigger than ten other challenges, and endorsed as such by a diverse group of refugees varying in educational setting, cultural background, and time lived in Australia.…”

“…Their accounts of their schoolwork experiences suggest that young refugees would benefit as much from support with academic English as they do from support learning conversational English. As advocates have noted, such support would likely require much more time than the allocated 510 hours (Matthews 2008;Watkins et al 2012).…”

“…Well-documented difficulties include dealing with family separation that occurred during or prior to the refugee journey (Harris & Marlowe 2011), discrimination and social isolation (Sharp et al 2007;Correa-Velez et al 2012), financial issues (Fozdar & Hartley 2013), and learning the English language (e.g., Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission 2008; Brooker & Lawrence 2012;Watkins et al 2012). Due to the complexity of each difficulty, many of these studies focus their analysis on exploring single issues.…”

Challenges international married couples face during their first year of graduate studies

“…Additionally, it has been found that trainers cannot assume that all participants in training courses understand the technical terminology used (Welsh, 2012). Furthermore, international students often explain difficulty with English language expertise and communication as the main difficulty affecting their wellbeing (Watkins, Razze, & Richters, 2012). Thus, language barriers are possibly some of the most common problems for international students from diverse linguistic backgrounds.…”