Slides - Pre conference resource.

1. Refugee education
in Croatia and
England: Country of
transit vs.
destination country
Haya Fakoush and Kristina Pokasic

2. 2
Country of transit vs. destination country
15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
England
Longitudinal Qualitative study
Semi-structured interviews
with young resettled Syrian
refugees and home visits over
a period of 16 months
Semi-structured interviews
with resettlement case
workers and educators
Croatia
Qualitative study
Semi – structured Interviews
with headteachers, teachers,
experts in pedagogy and
school psychologists
4 schools

3. 3
15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
Croatia as a transit Country
• Refugee crisis (Lucassen, 2018; Stone, 2018)
• Croatia as both transit and resettlement country
• On the pathway of migrations towards the countries on the west (Tadic,
Dragovic & Tadic, 2016; Buzinkic, 2018) – Balkan Route
• Challenges to schools and school systems to look for an answer to less
homogeneous classrooms (Ainscow, Dyson, Hopwood, & Thomson,
2016; Taylor & Sidhu, 2012)

4. 4
15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
The Croatian education system

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15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
Timeline
2015 until January 2016 March 2016 January 2017
- 600,000 refugees passed - Croatia is closing the borders - children are
through Croatian territory (EU border) included in
schools
Croatia

6. 6
15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
England as a destination Country
• David Cameron announced in September 2015 that the UK government agreed to
resettle a target of 20,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees by May 2020
under the VPRS policy. The Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme.
• Earlier resettlement policies such as the European Volunteer worker workers in
Britain (1945-1951) are developed on a strong link between the economic benefit of
refugees (Kay and Miles, 1988).
• Assisted international migration dates back to after the second world war and the
over population of Europe (Marks, 1957).
• In 1957 migration transformed to self-funded movements to transfer what is
described as the financial burden from nation state to individuals based on the view
that migrants are provided with better opportunities to seek an economic livelihood
in their new host society, therefore they should invest their own resources.

7. The migration crisis is a crisis of difference
• The UK hosted a high number of Belgian refugees during the world war
one that by far exceed that of the Syrians today, but it was not a ‘crisis’
then (See in Fiddan-Qasymiah, 2020).
• The former refugee/migrant of the world war one and two has shared
characteristics with the host communities such as religion and skin
colour
• The Alien Act (1905) emphasised the difference between citizen and
migrants (Campbell, 2019).
• Foreseeing upward social mobility of immigrants is a pressure on the
education system (Swann, 1985).

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15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
Figured Worlds
• The framework of Figured worlds (Holland
et al, 1998) is sociocultural approach
identity
• Positional identity is drawn from the
social culture context as it influences the
positions of individuals within it.
• Space for authoring: combining the
position extended to them and their own
understanding of their position,
individuals categorized themselves and
behave within a social world.
• Improvisation: Individuals interact within
the social world and the collection of
their actions becomes the figured world.

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15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
The Figured world of education within the context of
forced migration
• Positional identity is drawn from a social culture context heavily
influenced by the politics and the legal and social position of
migrants. ‘uncertainty’ is relevant in both transit and destination
cases.
• Space for authoring: Young people are both migrants and learners,
they act through their perception of themselves and the
expectations of others within the social world they encounter.
Educators are also becoming bound by the uncertainty of migrants.
• Improvisation: The interactions of educators and learner within the
social educational world and their behaviours forms the figured
world which impacts future positions extended to individuals.
• The figured world of education within the context of forced
migration is based on the interaction of individuals which forms
their identity as they behave in relations to artefacts which sits
different discourses impacting the the identity of the social actors
within the figured world.
Educators
Young people
Uncertainty
Travel
document,
Id Papers
International law,
Human rights
Grades,
performance
OECD,
National tests
and outcomes
News
articles,
Media
Policies

10. 10
15 August 2021 Fakoush, H. & Pokasic, K., Department of Education
References
Ainscow, M., Dyson, A., Hopwood, L., & Thomson, S. (2016a). Primary schools responding to diversity: barriers and possibilities. A report for the
Cambridge Primary Review Trust. York: Cambridge Primary Review Trust.
Buzinkic, E. (2018). Welcome to vs. Welcome Through: Crisis Mobilization and Solidarity with Refugees in Croatia as a Transit Country. In E. Buzinkic, &
M. Hamersak (Eds.) (2018), Formation and Disintegration of the Balkan Refugee Corridor: Camps, Routes and Borders in Croatian Context (pp. 143-
167). Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Centre for Peace Studies, and Faculty of Political Science. München: bordermonitoring.
eu.
Campbell, J. R. (2019). BUREAUCRACY, LAW AND DYSTOPIA IN THE UNITED KINGDOM’S ASYLUM SYSTEM. ROUTLEDGE.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020). Refuge in a Moving World: Tracing Refugee and Migrant Journeys Across Disciplines. UCL Press.
Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Harvard University Press.
Lucassen, L. (2018). Peeling an onion: the “refugee crisis” from a historical perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(3), 383-410.
Kay, D., & Miles, R. (1988). Refugees or Migrant Workers? The Case of the European Volunteer Workers in Britain (1946–1951). Journal of Refugee
Studies, 1(3–4), 214–236. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/1.3-4.214
Marks, E. (1957). Internationally Assisted Migration: ICEM Rounds Out Five Years of Resettlement. International Organization, 11(03), 481.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300024000
Ministarstvo znanosti i obrazovanja [Ministry of Science and Education] (2008). Drzavni pedagoski standard osnovnoskolskoga odgoja i obrazovanja
(DPS) [Government Pedagogical Standard of Primary School System of Education] (K. Cunovic & A. Stropnik, Trans.) Republic of Croatia: Official
Gazette NN 63/2008. Retrieved from https://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2008_06_63_2129.html [In Croatian]
Stone, D. (2018). Refugees then and now: memory, history and politics in the long twentieth century: an introduction. Patterns of Prejudice, 52(2-3),
101-106.

11. Thank you