Prelims

Half Title Page

Refugees in Higher Education

Series Title Page

Great Debates in Higher Education is a series of short, accessible books addressing key challenges to and issues in Higher Education, on a national and international level. These books are research-informed but debate-driven. They are intended to be relevant to a broad spectrum of researchers, students and administrators in higher education, and are designed to help us unpick and assess the state of higher education systems, policies and social and economic impacts.

Title Page

Refugees in Higher Education

Debate, Discourse and Practice (2nd edition)

By

Jacqueline Stevenson

The University of Exeter, UK

And

Sally Baker

The Australian National University, Australia

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Copyright © 2024 Jacqueline Stevenson and Sally Baker.

Chapter 7 © 2024 William Mude, Sally Baker and Jacqueline Stevenson.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-978-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-975-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-977-6 (Epub)

About the Authors

Professor Jacqueline Stevenson is a Honorary Professor in the Centre for Social Mobility at the University of Exeter and a part-time academic at a number of UK universities including the Open University and Leeds Beckett University. She is a sociologist of education with a particular interest in policy and practice relating to equity and diversity, access and student success and pedagogic diversity. Key areas of interest are the social and academic experiences of religious students, and policy and practice relating to the access of refugees and asylum seekers to higher education. She draws on the theoretical lenses of resilience, belonging, mattering, time, temporality and future selves. Her research is primarily qualitative, using biography, narrative inquiry and life history. Jacqueline is the Vice-chair of the Governing Council of the Society for Research into Higher Education, and was previously Professor of Higher Education at Leeds Beckett University, Professor of Educational Research at Sheffield Hallam University and Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Leeds.

Dr Sally Baker is an Associate Professor in Migration and Education at the Australian National University. Sally is a critical sociologist of higher education, whose teaching and research interests centre on care, academic language and literacies, transitions and equity in higher education, particularly with people with lived experience of forced migration. Her research is principally qualitative, using longitudinal ethnographic approaches to following how changes unfold over time. Sally is the founder and a co-chair of the Refugee Education Special Interest Group, which is a national, cross-sectoral network who advocate for better educational opportunities and outcomes for people with forced migration experiences.

Dr William Mude is a public health professional, academic and advocate for refugee education. Born in South Sudan (then part of Sudan), William's childhood was marked by hardship and displacement due to the civil war, and he spent much of his early life in refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya. William is now a Senior Lecturer in Public Health at the University of Canberra, where he teaches epidemiology and communicable diseases to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Acknowledgements

We dedicate this book to the many refugee students who we have worked with over the years, and who have invariably influenced our practice, research and advocacy. We have seen what meaningful access to higher education (with support and care) can do to elevate a person's sense of what is possible, and how they can rebuild some of the resources and opportunities lost through forced displacement. We have often heard our students express enormous gratitude for the opportunity to study, despite the impediments that universities inadvertently impose through inflexible, unresponsive and punitive structures, systems and practices. We recognise that these students seldom get to speak about their educational experiences into powerful spaces like this book, and when rare opportunities to share the higher education experiences of refugee students are opened, these often trumpet the resilient individual, thus ignoring the many refugee students engaged in higher education. This book is a testament to all those students.

We would also like to thank Aaliyah, Andy, Sadiya and William whose stories appear in this book. In addition, we express our immense gratitude to our very patient families and offer heart-warm thanks to Anna Xavier, Carla Bassil, Michelle Manks and many others for their intellectual support with the writing of this book, as well as those other scholars and practitioners working to open up higher education spaces to refugees in the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere.