Where Am I? Refugee Youth Living in the United States

Based on a qualitative study of fifteen female refugees from Bosnia, this article explores the contribution of critical theories to refugee identity development in the context of the educational setting. The article examines both the theoretical and the practical discussions of ethnic identity development among refugees attending secondary schools in New York. By applying research from the ‘cultural turn’ to the study of refugee education and adaptation, the article challenges the validity of current educational and psychological theories in refugee adaptation, and, by extension, opens up debates around long-held beliefs about refugee ‘adaptation’ to the United States. By examining the role of schools in adaptation, this article shows how the debates objectify the individual, and how the needs of refugee populations can be better met by their teachers and schools even when the students are academically successful. Refugees have experienced life as tenuous and fragile, and they understand the meaning of transience. Hence, they tend to strive to ensure that they have basic, transferable skills and knowledge, which they acquire through education. With a critical theoretical lens, it becomes clear that by incorporating the experiences of students into the classroom, educators not only work to overcome the hidden curriculum that confines and encloses refugees as ‘other,’ but also enrich the classroom for both the refugee students and their classmates.