Globally the refugee 'crisis' has reached a new peak. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, as of late 2018, there were around 75 million displaced people, including 20.4 million refugees and 3.5 million asylum-seekers (UNHCR, 2019). For refugee destination societies, the issue of integration has become a critical political agenda (OECD & EU, 2018; UNGA, 2018). But the problem is not wicked—it is solvable. Empirical evidence from the European context shows that improved access to and success in education promotes integration and economic mobility of refugees (Cerna, 2019; Crul et al., 2017; Mansur, 2019; Strang & Ager, 2010). Education is instrumental in connecting refugees with host communities.

This paper focusses on issues of education and integration among African refugees in Australia. In the last three decades, Australia has settled a considerable number of African refugees. However, little is known about socio-economic participation of the refugee youth. This present study aims to address this knowledge gap. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data sets, the paper explicates the integration of refugee-background African youth (RAY) in four key domains: cultural adaptation, educational attainment, economic participation, and social engagement. These are briefly discussed here. 

(a)  Cultural adaptation. As an indicator of integration, cultural adaptation is a measure of the extent to which refugees adjust to values, culture, and expectations of the destination society. cultural adaptation is often slow and fractural. In the case of Black African refugees, in recent years, the group has been a subject of a racialized moral panic. RAY are often incorrectly labelled as inherently violent, dangerous and unsocial, as we’ve seen in recent “African crime gang” media portrayals. In the face of racialized moral panic and racial microaggressions, the refugee youth struggle to adapt. Poor level of cultural adaptation, in turn, results in identity conflict and confusion that lead to what Berry (2001) refer to as acculturative stress, which impedes their academic engagement.

(b)  Educational attainment. For forcibly displaced people, access to education is economically and socially empowering. However, globally, refugee youth have limited educational opportunities. In Australia, notwithstanding the availability of systemic and institutional equity provisions, only one in ten RAY transitioned to HE within the first five years of their arrival; the trend has not changed in the last 25 years. For those who do enter higher education, completion is a serious challenge.

(c)  Economic participation. Refugee-background Africans in Australia are positioned far behind the general population in terms of HE participation and employability. In 2016, the average unemployment rate of people from the main countries of origin of African refugees (22.4%) was over three times higher than the national average (6.9%). The group also had low access to professional occupations (22%), compared with 49% for the general population.

(d)  Social Engagement. Social engagement is expressed in active involvement in societal life. However,experience of prolonged racial vilification generates acculturative stress that inhibits meaningful engagement in the society. The damaging consequences of racial microaggressions (i.e. everyday prejudice and bias on the basis of one’s racial background) include self-exclusion of African youth from academic and social activities. With limited educational attainment and high unemployment rates, social disengagement is a serious problem among African youth. Disengagement manifests in abstention, distrust, anti-social behaviours, and imprisonment rates.

The paper draws on acculturation strategies (Berry, 1992, 1997, 2001) and the community integration framework (UK Home Office, 2019). Berry (2001) defines acculturation in terms of changes that arise from contacts between individuals and groups of different cultural backgrounds. Depending on the level of relationships they seek with the larger society and the extent to which they wish to maintain their culture and identity, acculturation outcomes of refugee groups separation, assimilation, marginalization, or integration. For refugees, integration is an ideal acculturation strategy because it offers them the opportunity to actively participate in the socio-economic lives of society without shedding their culture and identity. In an integrated community, regardless of their background, people “live, work, learn and socialize together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities” (UK Home Office, 2019, p.11). As a social process, integration is multi-directional—it involving mutual accommodation of both refugees and destination societies, and it is multi-dimensional—it depends on multiple factors, including access to resources and opportunities (UK Home Office, 2019). At the core of both aspects of integration is public action in the form of social services during and after settlement. The paper draws on a mixed method of research (Hesse-Biber & Johnson, 2015) in that it integrates qualitative and quantitative data to shed light on key indicators of African refugee integration. The triangulation of different forms of data was instrumental in comparing policy provisions with higher education outcomes of the refugee youth, which would not have been possible using only one form of data. De-identified previously unexamined quantitative data on trends of settlement and higher education participation of African refugees were collected from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training (DET). Large-scale statistical data were also collected from the Departments of Home Affairs (DOHA) and Social Services (DSS) to shed light on economic participation and social engagement among refugee-background African communities. The quantitative data were also augmented by qualitative data generated through semi-structured interviews with ten African refugee youth. The interviews were conducted between May and June 2018. The participants came from seven sub-Saharan African countries (three from Ethiopia, two from South Sudan, and the remaining five from Eritrea, Ghana, Liberia, Somalia, and Tanzania). In making sense of the data, I used basic statistical analysis (representing trends in diagrams) and thematic analysis.

The paper assesses the integration of African refugees in the domains of cultural adaptation as well as socio-economic achievements, including educational attainment, employability and social engagement. The key argument is that with low educational attainment, acculturative stress, and poor job prospects, refugee-background African communities are destined to remain at the margin of society. In light of such concerns, the paper calls for an expansive view of the disadvantage of the refugee youth, specifically highlighting the need for (a) addressing structural factors of exclusion, (a) recognizing personal heterogeneities, and (c) providing substantive educational opportunities that can be converted into valued outcomes. In other words, the ability of African refugees to participate fully in the socio-economic and cultural life of Australian society is in part a function of social arrangements put in place by the government. While mutual accommodation is critical, there is an urgent need for a collective commitment to providing substantive opportunities, protecting rights, and addressing problems of discrimination and racism among African refugees in Australia. Adequate and quality education is particularly a valuable predictor of integration outcomes mainly because it facilitates cultural adaptation, prepares refugees for meaningful social engagement, and nurtures a sense of belonging and bonding. Unlike the identity of ‘refugee’ which is “heavy with loss”, the identity of ‘student’ is positive, it is “hopeful with possibility” (Ferede, 2018, p.8). Educational attainment is also instrumental in enabling refugees to succeed in the labor market. Gainful employment is, in turn, essential for the social and economic wellbeing of the refugees.

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