This presentation by Dr Mary Kimani discusses a qualitative study exploring success stories of refugee students from Sub-Saharan Africa. It considers African refugee students’ experiences in schools, what African refugee students bring to schools that can be incorporated positively into their learning and school experiences, and how best schools can serve African refugee students. Presented at The Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE) inaugural one-day symposium on students from refugee backgrounds in higher education, at the University of Newcastle on 20 November 2015.

1. Best Practice Model for teaching and
Learning of Refugee Students from
Sub- Saharan Africa
Dr. Mary Kimani

2. The Problem
• The national origin of refugees and humanitarian
entrants has changed substantially.
• Increasing numbers of refugees coming from
Africa.
• Changing cultural backgrounds pose new
challenges to Australian communities in general
and in particular schools
• Children coming from Africa have either no prior
schooling or have disrupted schooling
• Low or no literacy in their mother tongue or any
other language

3. The Problem cont.
• Little or no knowledge of how schools work
• Trauma associated with refugee experience
• These challenges make settling as well as
learning difficult
• Schools have generic refugee programs
• Lack of informed and targeted educational support
• Ill equipped teachers often lacking background
knowledge, skills and resources

4. The Problem cont.
• New arrivals with minimal prior formal schooling,
little or no literacy in their own language, trauma
experience “double disadvantage’ and are
typically several years behind their EAL new
arrival peers in attaining comparable literacy skills
levels (Brown, Miller and Mitchell, 2006).
• High representation of refugee students among
the underachieving students in Australia (PISA
2012)

5. Need for a different discourse
• Current literature is dominated by images of
disadvantaged refugee youth as victims with
associated mental trauma issues and negative
outcomes.
• Such diagnoses can be profoundly disempowering
and stigmatising (Pupavac, 2008)
• Need to interrogate the current deficit discourses
• Need for a different discourse that highlights the
funds of knowledge that refugee students possess
• Need for evidence based approaches informed by
the refugees from the different regions.

6. Research Methods
• A qualitative study exploring success
stories of Refugee students from Sub-
Saharan Africa
• Research Questions:
1) What are African refugee students’
experiences in schools?
2) What do African refugee students bring to
schools that can be incorporated
positively into their learning and school
experiences?
3) How best can schools serve African

7. Methodology
• Biggs (2006) 3P Presage-Process-Product model
used as the framework for the study
• Biggs suggests the 3Ps represent different
learning factor levels and contribute towards
student’s learning process outcomes.
• Presage factors set the learning environment
characteristics prior to the learning engagement
and include: students factors-prior-knowledge,
abilities, intelligence, personality, home
background and experiences

8. Methodology cont.
• Process-conceptions of learning and teaching,
teaching style and methods, curriculum
organisation, task difficulty, assessment
procedures; time available, freedom allowed,
classroom management, resource material and
the classroom climate
• Product- student learning outcomes may be the
quantifiable measures of academic achievement
and/or the qualitative measures of how well
material is learned or experienced, and may result
in a net grade or set of graduate attributes.

9. Sampling and data collection
• Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used for
data collection
• Purposive and snowballing sampling methods
were used to select 10 students that participated
in the study.
• Four state schools with a high concentration of
refugee students from Sub-Saharan Africa were
initially approached to participate in the study
• 2 Schools agreed to participate in the study while
the other 2 declined explaining that they did not
have many students from Sub-Saharan Africa

10. Participants
• Participants included
– Principals of the two state schools
– 5 teachers from the two schools
– 10 refugee students from Sub-Saharan Africa
with a minimum of two high school education in
Australia comprising of:
– 3 - Congo,
– 2- Burundi,
– 2- Rwanda,
– 1- Somalia
– 1- Southern Sudan.

11. Participants
• Students were studying different courses at
different in Melbourne including:
 International Business,
 Bachelor of Commerce majoring in actuarial
studies and mathematics,
 Chemical engineering and computer science,
another one was pursuing degree in
 Production media at and another
 Bachelor of Health Sciences.
 Beauty therapy and
 Food technology

12. Data analysis
• Data were analysed using Nvivo
• Used a grounded approach highlighting common
themes
• Students words were used to capture the general
themes that emerged from data
• Direct quotes are used in reporting to maintain
students’ voice

13. Findings: Students funds of knowledge
• The current study sought to highlight success
stories of Sub-Saharan Africa refugee students.
• Success in this study is contextualised as going
through at least two years in high school here in
Australia and qualifying to join one of the
universities.
• The findings demonstrate how students used their
past experiences, cultural and family values,
practices and expectations and current
opportunities presented to them in the new
country of residence to realise success.

14. Funds of knowledge cont
• Students talked about the factors that contributed
to their success: Among these included:
• Refugee experiences prior to coming to Australia
• Aspirations/high career expectations
• Family expectations
 Cultural ties and links
• Self-efficacy and determination
• Limited English proficiency
• High value for education

15. Funds of knowledge cont
• Refugee experience prior to coming to Australia
• Zeus (2010, 269) talks how refugee camps can be
both limiting and enabling.
• Resilience gained through living harsh conditions
with minimal or no basic needs.
• Students appreciated the importance of
educational opportunities presented to them and
the fact that it had the potential to improve their
educational life chances.

16. High career expectations
• They have high career expectations as well as
effective educational strategies that are mobilised
to achieve their desired career goals.
• Students’ high expectation and determination
propelled them in navigating the information and
knowledge gap about possible pathways that
existed for them.
• They exercise personal agency to produce
change in their life experiences and social
realities.

17. High career expectations cont.
• Students sought “classified” information which
could only be accessed through cunningness and
self-initiative as it was not publicly available.
• This “classified” information was accessed
through networks with those who had been in the
country longer and therefore understood the
system better

18. High career expectations cont.
• Students faulted counselling offered to them in the
initial stages of their settlement which centred on
helping them cope with past experiences.
• Most of them said they wanted to move on and
take advantage of the opportunities that had been
presented to them.
• They wanted counselling to include information on
pathways that they could take in their future life in
the country.
• They faulted the system that saw them as of low
potential only able to join middle colleges.

19. High career expectations cont.
I wanted to go to Uni to do medicine. When I told
them about my ambitions I did not receive any
support for such ambitions. I do not know whether it
was out of ignorance or deliberate, but I realised that
the kind of support we were being provided won’t
help me realise my dreams. … no, no way. This is
not what I wanted. My ambition was to go to uni. I
had to be proactive. I talked to another guy who told
me to enrol in TAFE for Year 11 and 12. (S005)
I also got advice from my friends. For instance I
would not have known about TAFE if I did not hear it
from somebody (S006).

20. Family expectations
• Students talked about high family expectations as
a motivating factor to their success.
• Students felt obliged to do well academically so
that they could help their relatives whom they left
behind in Africa.
• Teachers talked of parents and families as being
unrealistic

21. Family expectations
• I feel so happy and unique. I am happy that I was
given this opportunity. There is nothing easy in life.
I am the first in the family to go to university. I want
to be a role model for my people. You know about
85% of Somali women do not have education. I
have goals to achieve. Many of the Somali women
are only prepared to get married. But you know I
don’t have to get married (S002)
• Unrealistic expectations on the children which can
sometimes be stressful. Parents fail to understand
that although their children are capable they have
missed a lot of learning. So they will need more
time to catch up before they can become or
pursue the careers that they want them to pursue.

22. Self-efficacy and determination
• Students were well aware of the challenges that
stood between them and their success. They
believed that with determination and hard work it
was possible to succeed despite these
challenges-
• “This is my moment” is also used to describe any
experience of success in their learning. There was
a feeling of wanting to assert themselves to be
recognised as knowing something.

23. Self-efficacy and determination
• My motivation was personal motivation. I did not
come here for games and despite the challenges I
had to go through. I wanted to get a job and be
better. The best experience is that everyone is
given the opportunity to learn compared to where I
come from where your parents must have money
for you to go to school. That opportunity has given
us the courage to move forward no matter what.
(S003)
• I was good in maths. When I go to the maths class
then I felt this is my moment. (S001)

24. Silence
• Naidoo talks about silence as a form of resistance
on the part of the marginalised over strong and
more powerful.
• students reported that they used silence as a way
of protecting themselves from ridicule from other
students and teachers.
• students were reluctant to show that they were
struggling with the English language.
• students were therefore silent during the normal
classes but opened up during one-on-one
interactions where they perhaps felt saver and
from the limelight of their peers.

25. High value for education
• Students highly value education and see it as the
key to upward social and economic mobility.
• Students saw the increased educational
opportunities that they are provided with as the
means to improve their socio-economic status and
that of their families particularly those left behind
in Africa.
Education is the way of life. It is the only way to
achieve your goals. (S004)
Somehow I knew I could not survive here if I don’t
have education. Education is the key of life.
Education is the key to everything (S001)

26. High value for education
They are very expressional, they want to be able to
do well in school, and go to the university.
…Particularly all the African students they all want to
do well and be able to go to the university. Education
is seen as a way of making it to better lives so they
are quite aspirational as to what they want to gain
from school. T07
T02 When you form relationships with the family
members then you get a sense that education is
important to them.

27. Self-actualisation/ Social
obligation
• A sense of social responsibility among the African
students
• Students frequently talked about their obligation to
their families, the community and those they left
behind in Africa
• Most students came to Australian through or with
relatives
• All the students had relatives in Africa whom they
occasionally sent money to
• Academic success was seen as a key to
improving their financial status in order to provide
the needed support

28. Self-actualisation/ Social
obligation cont.
• I was 14 when I got here. My sister was the head
of the family and I appreciate all that she has done
for me and even for her thinking that I could come
with her. S001

29. Best practice teaching and
learning model
• Emerged from data
• Captures students funds of knowledge at presage
level as enablers to students positive success
• Teacher characteristics and learning environment
at process as enablers working together with
presage factors
• Disablers at individual and family level
• Disablers at school and system level
• Interventions at individual and family level and
systemic level counteract disablers

31. The Model
• Contains both enablers and disablers
• Responsive and inclusive pedagogies
• Policies at school and system level
• Funding
• Professional development for teachers
• Support for schools and teachers
• Curriculum
• Teaching and learning materials
• Support for individual families and students
• Targeted support programme