Refugees in the German higher education system: implications and recommendations for policy change

Unangst, Lisa

doi:10.1080/23322969.2019.1643254

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Educational attainment is both a marker and a means of refugee integration (Strang and Ager 2010). However, in Australia and globally, refugees have limited level of higher education (HE) participation (Earnest et al 2010;Ferede 2018;Naidoo et al 2018;Stevenson and Baker 2018;Molla 2019Molla , 2020aNaylor et al 2019;Unangst 2019;Jungblut, Vukasovic, and Steinhardt 2020). The United Nations Refugee Agency specifically noted that even though young people (aged between 18 and 24 years) account for a significant portion of the refugee population, as of late 2018, only 3 in 100 refugee youth were enrolled in HE.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugees and equity policy in Australian higher education

Molla

2020

Policy Reviews in Higher Education

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Measured in per capita terms, Australia has one of the most generous refugee resettlement programs in the world. This paper investigates the extent to which refugee status is recognized as a category of disadvantage in Australian higher education. Drawing on a scalar view of policy work and Fraser's notion of misframing, the paper assesses the policy visibility of humanitarian entrants. It compares sectoral equity provisions with national and institutional arrangements that target refugees. The findings reveal scalar misalignments. That is, although national educational and multicultural initiatives recognize refugee status as a category of disadvantage, refugees remain hidden from the sectoral policy view. However, in translating sectoral policies, many universities have managed to maintain a balance between compliant enactment of equity strategies and responsive adjustment of equity targets. The paper also highlights instances of policy misframingequity provisions that target refugees are characterized by issue omissions and deficit accounts. It is further argued that the convergence of scalar misalignment and policy misframing constitutes a structural factor of disadvantage that inhibits higher education participation of refugees. For Australia to fully integrate humanitarian entrants, there is an urgent need for a streamlined policy response to the educational needs and aspirations of the group.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugees and equity policy in Australian higher education

Molla

2020

Policy Reviews in Higher Education

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“…Including public and private actors, several ministries, work agencies, several welfare organizations, district and city councils, union and industry representatives, and chambers of crafts. Unangst, 2019). This can be seen in Saxony, where the majority of refugee children attend preparatory and regular classes at the Oberschule, which is more focused on professional aspects than academic.…”

Section: Vet Programs As a Priority In Educational Planning For Refugmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On average, young people in Germany take up VET between the ages of 16 and 18 (BIBB, 2017). For a policy analysis of refugees in the German higher educational systems, see Unangst (2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

What Shapes the Integration Trajectory of Refugee Students? A Comparative Policy Analysis in Two German States

Korntheuer

Damm

2020

Refuge

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Enabling the successful integration of refugee students into the German schooling system poses a crucial challenge for the coming years. Drawing from the human rights frame- work of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies standards, we applied a rights-based approach to policy analysis on educational provisions for refugee students from 2012 to 2018. According to international and European law, Germany is obliged to grant similar access to education for nationals as well as refugee children and youth. In reality, the realization of educational rights varies from state to state. This will be highlighted and discussed in this article, using the example of two very different German states, Hamburg and Saxony. The sudden rise of numbers of refugees led only slowly to an increase in educational policy density and intensity on federal state and national levels in 2016 and 2017. We find that the differences in compulsory schooling, models of integration into schooling, and the asylum and settlement policies in both states shape the educational participation of refugee children and youths. Both states implemented parallel integration models that might bear risks of stigmatization and limit educational possibilities. However, transition and language support concepts in both contexts contain integrative phases offer- ing language supports in the regular classrooms. Asylum policies and state-specific settlement policies have profound implications for the rights and access to education. Further, vocational education and training programs play a crucial role, especially in Saxony, to tackle demographic challenges.

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“…Refugees have been noted to have strong educational aspirations but also to face interdependent challenges, and even though it is a diverse group, they are assumed to share structural similarities in challenges and needs, often related to a new educational system, cultural environment, language proficiency and missing or not acknowledged social and cultural capital (Grüttner et al 2018;Ramsay and Baker 2019;. In response to the influx of newly arriving asylum applicants in 2015 and '16, German HEIs and preparatory colleges started additional offers for refugee students (Berg 2018;Unangst 2019). The support was mostly based on voluntary pioneerengagement and got formalized, mostly using public funding schemes, such as the federal projects 'Integra' and 'Welcome' as well as programs on state-level (Berg et al n.y.).…”

Section: Study Preparation: An Educational Phase During Higher Educatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Person Is Presumed to Fit the Institution? How Refugee Students’ and Practitioners’ Discursive Representations of Successful Applicants and Students Highlight Transition Barriers to German Higher Education

Berg

2020

European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade

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During recent years, German higher education institutions implemented a variety of support programs for refugees on their way to higher education. This newly highlighted questions of widening participation and informal as well as formal access barriers to higher education. This paper looks into discourses on successful students as a form of knowledge that implicitly highlights transition barriers to higher education. The qualitative study is based on expert interviews with teachers, program coordinators and student counsellors as well as interviews with prospective refugee students in a case study of a preparatory college (‘Studienkolleg’) and a university in a case study of one city in Germany. They are analysed using Keller’s (Forum qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum Qualitative Social Research 8(2), Art. 19:1–32, 2007) approach to discourse analysis. The paper describes personal, institutional and structural characteristics of ideal higher education transitions. Institutional presuppositions and assumptions about individual characteristics, the social organisation of time, academic practices and knowledges as well as discursively represented norms are discussed as crucial factors influencing higher education transitions. The paper ends with a working hypothesis on the influence of discourses on transitions and recommends that institutional settings should develop more awareness of and adapt to diverse applicants and students in order to widen access to higher education.

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Refugees in the German higher education system: implications and recommendations for policy change

Cited by 21 publications

References 69 publications

Refugees and equity policy in Australian higher education

Refugees and equity policy in Australian higher education

What Shapes the Integration Trajectory of Refugee Students? A Comparative Policy Analysis in Two German States

Which Person Is Presumed to Fit the Institution? How Refugee Students’ and Practitioners’ Discursive Representations of Successful Applicants and Students Highlight Transition Barriers to German Higher Education

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