On the brink of education: Experiences of refugees beyond the age of compulsory education in Austria

Abstract

This paper offers first-hand accounts of refugees beyond the age of compulsory education having arrived in Austria during the last five years. Their accounts were collected using qualitative interviews and a visual method to allow for different approaches towards their educational biographies. Nine individual and two group interviews (altogether with 16 young people) were conducted, where the majority of the young refugees are from Afghani background. All interviewees were older than 16 years. In addition, five expert interviews were conducted. Their experiences having arrived in a new country, the importance of education for them, and their aspirations in the new system became visible in the interviews. Arbitrary provision and the one-sided language focus of the system present challenges to the core of a (school) system that has proved resistant to the influx of pupils from many different cultural backgrounds for years. The results of this qualitative study show that educational segregation is common for this group, including having less chances to obtain a university entrance exam.

Education is my passport: experiences of institutional obstacles among immigrant youth in the Swedish upper secondary educational system

“…Immigrant youth in this study recognise a long-term value of education in accessing institutionalised cultural capital. This is in keeping with previous research (Atanasoska et al 2018;Devine 2009;Nilsson Folke 2015;Sharif 2016). This study also shows that students aspire to accumulate institutionalised cultural capital, endowing them with resources convertible into economic capital, within or outside country borders.…”

“…However, current and previous findings (Atanasoska et al 2018;Nilsson and Axelsson 2013;Nilsson Folke 2015;Skowronski 2013;Torpsten 2013) demonstrate that mastery of the majority language before entering mainstream programmes is prioritised over mobilising and acknowledging immigrant youths' multicultural and multilingual backgrounds. This monolingual focus makes it urgent for us to emphasise the relevance of cooperation between students' mother tongue education and formal instruction in mainstream courses, in order to help students bridge the gap between their past and present learning.…”

“…Immigrant youth entering the school system carry with them high aspirations (Atanasoska et al 2018;Jepson Wigg 2016;Kalalahti, Varjo, and Jahnukainen 2017;Turcatti 2018) in combination with an awareness of the importance of education to achieve social inclusion and respect among native inhabitants as well as migrants (Sharif 2017). Moreover, aspiring to make friends with native students and to manage the language for educational purposes, immigrant youth find it expedient to learn the majority language (Nilsson Folke 2017).…”

“…However, even though immigrant students have attended mainstream instruction in lower secondary education and aspire to enter mainstream upper secondary classrooms, they are often not accepted and end up in Language introduction, a situation conceptualised by Nilsson Folke (2017) as a 'postponed future'. Because of prioritising second language learning, students' development of their knowledge base in mainstream courses is endangered and time for educational careers is lost (Atanasoska et al 2018;Nilsson and Axelsson 2013;Skowronski 2013).…”

A Comparative Study on Multicultural Attitude of University Students: Austria, Hungary and Turkey Sample

“…Austria has a formal multicultural education program and the relations between cultures have been an important component of the curriculum since 1992, but the idea behind multicultural education reform is not clearly reflected in the educational system (Mitchell & Salsbury, 1996;Queen's University, 2011). Despite Austria's long history of refugee movements, educational system is still passive in terms of multicultural approaches and the Austrian school system still persists in a single language of instruction and regards the school environment as homogeneous (Atanasoska & Proyer, 2018;Queen's University, 2011). It can be said that multicultural education is ignored and the students with diversities are expected to adapt to the monolingual and monocultural school system (Fürstenau & Gomolla, 2011).…”