In the years 2015 and 2016 the numbers of refugees who came to Europe and applied for asylum reached the highest level in the Post-World-War II era. In both academic and public discourse, the phenomenon received a lot of attention. The focus on the presence and actuality of the so-called refugee crisis indicate that the entry of refugees into the European education systems is not only a new occurrence, but also that it had not been researched and discussed before. The result is an over-dramatization and a neglect of already existing resources of both (national and immigrated) communities and the education system.

Our aim is to bring the history of refugee-immigration in Europe back on the agenda, to highlight continuities as well as changes and to understand refuge not only as a single event, but also in a historical context and as an inter-generational social process. Indeed, “[t]he multi-disciplinary field of refugee studies lacks a reflection on conceptual, theoretical and methodological challenges of its historical perspective. Until recently, it faced a historiographical lacuna with few historians researching forced migration systematically and, in turn, little historical research being adopted in refugee studies (Marfleet, 2007).” (Kleist, 2017: 161) This diagnosis also applies to educational research on refugees. Furthermore, “there is much to recommend in an approach to refugee experiences over time which is sensitive to one or another of the senses of generation […].” (Loizos, 2007: 207), and this is in particular important to educational research.

Going back to the first decades of the 20^th century and the area of the two World Wars, a tremendous amount of people had to leave their countries of origin. As “(m)igration is a constituent of the human condition such as birth, reproduction, illness and death” and “(t)he history of the hikes is as old as the Human history; because Homo sapiens has become homo migrans spread over the world.” (Bade, 2002: 21), flight and refuge can be understood as a major social phenomenon of the 20^th century. Furthermore, refugees have always been an issue of social policies in the countries they were seeking asylum. Concerning education, the discourses differed both throughout time and between European countries (Waters and LeBlanc, 2005).

Looking at the research on refugees, we can state that perspectives differed and still differ, but rarely include the voices of the refugees themselves. The three contributions of this symposium intend to tackle this desideratum from different European perspectives and research approaches. The aim is to start a discussion between different fields of educational research who deal with refugee issues and to bring together historical and recent studies to learn more about refugees and education, refuges in education, and also refugee-education.

By means of interviews with descendants of Belgian refugees in Birmingham during the First World War, the first paper gives an insight in how refugee stories and family histories are intertwined and transmitted inter-generationally. The second paper gives an insight in Iceland’s history of refugee-education in the post-war era. The third paper will have a look at adolescent refugees and the (non)emergence of their voices in public discourses, in particular in terms of educational issues in Germany throughout time, from the post-WWII era until the recent so-called refugee crisis.

Bade, K. J. (Ed.) (2002). Migration in der europäischen Geschichte seit dem späten Mittelalter. Vorträge auf dem Deutschen Historikertag in Halle a.d. Saale, 11. September 2003 [i.e. 2002]. Deutscher Historikertag. Osnabrück: IMIS Inst. für Migrationsforschung und Interkulturelle Studien (IMIS-Beiträge, 20). Online access: https://repositorium.uni-osnabrueck.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:gbv:700-201001304862. Kleist, J. O. (2017). The History of Refugee Protection. Conceptual and Methodological Challenges. Journal of Refugee Studies 30(2): pp. 161–169. Loizos, P. (2007). ‘Generations’ in Forced Migration. Towards Greater Clarity. Journal of Refugee Studies 20(2): pp. 193–209. Marfleet, P. (2007). Refugees and history: Why we must address the past. Refugee Survey Quarterly 26(3): 136–148. Waters, T. and LeBlanc, K. (2005). Refugees and Education: Mass Public Schooling without a Nation‐State. Comparative Education Review 49(2): pp. 129–147.