The global population of forcibly displaced persons surged to unprecedented levels in 2023/2024, with over 110 million refugees currently documented worldwide. Nearly 40% of those forcibly displaced are children (UNHCR, 2023). The armed conflict in Ukraine has fueled these numbers since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 with more than 6 million Ukrainians forced to flee the country and further 3.7 million persons internally displaced (UNHCR, 2023). More than 1.1 million of those fleeing Ukraine arrived in Germany, with more than 350,000 Ukrainian refugee children currently residing there (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2024). Concurrently, the population of persons with disabilities is growing too. Approximately 1.3 billion individuals worldwide live with a disability, constituting 16% of the global population. The global prevalence, however, increases with age. Among children under 14 years of age, 5.8% live with a disability (WHO, 2022). Despite the diverse and heterogeneous nature of both populations of refugees and persons with disabilities, they often share common experiences of discrimination, exclusion, and inequality, extensively documented thus far.

The aforementioned heterogeneity within refugee communities and persons with disabilities also gives rise to a subset of individuals who concurrently identify with both groups. This specific population is, however, far less visible. Indeed, the prevalence of disabilities among refugees remains unknown (Crock et al., 2017), including the subgroup of refugee children with disabilities. Some reports even suggest that the incidence might surpass that of the general population (HelpAge Internation & Handicap International, 2014), although reliable statistical data remains lacking. Furthermore, the lived experiences of refugees with disabilities, who face diverse practices of intersectional discrimination and multidimensional exclusion not only when accessing their right to (inclusive) education, remain equally invisible.

In the framework of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy (Levinas, 1986), the ‘Other’ - in this context, a displaced child with disabilities - stands at the school gate, often unnoticed and invisible. Levinas argues that the face of the Other calls us to respond with an infinite and asymmetrical responsibility, an ethical imperative not to abandon the Other (Casper, 2020). This responsibility does not arise from a conscious decision or rational consideration. It is an immediate response to the presence of the Other, to the face of the Other.

Drawing on Slee’s argument that inclusive education should engage with goals and aspirations beyond technical considerations (Slee, 2011), and Veck’s view that the ethical imperative to include the Other “originates in a perfectionist moment or responsibility that precedes all readily available answers to moral difficulties” (Veck, 2014, p. 462) and involves listening to the voice of the Other in a silence that allows for attention (Veck, 2009), this article aims to listen to the voices of Ukrainian refugee children with disabilities living in Germany. By doing so, it seeks to learn from the Other and address the betrayal of inclusion (Veck, 2014).

The talk will present findings from a section of a broader mixed-methods study investigating the educational experiences and aspirations of Ukrainian refugee children with disabilities and their families in Germany. As part of the study, qualitative interviews with five forcibly displaced children with disabilities were conducted. The children were aged between 10 and 13 years, attended both mainstream and special schools in Germany and had diverse disabilities ranging from chronic disease to visual impairment and Autism spectrum disorder. The participants were recruited through diverse NGOs supporting refugees and/or families with children with disabilities in Germany. Initially, ten parents expressed interest in having their child participate in the interviews. However, due to multiple practical constraints, only five interviews were ultimately conducted. The semi-structured interviews were carried out without interpreters in either Russian or Ukrainian by bilingual research assistants with one exception, where the interview was conducted in English at the child's request, with the principal investigator leading the interview. Avoiding the use of interpreters during data collection was a deliberate measure aimed at enhancing the quality of interaction between the children and the researchers. However, the data was subsequently translated into German and English and analyzed by the principal investigator, whose knowledge of and lived experience within the Ukrainian context are limited. These linguistic and cultural differences represent notable limitations of the present research project. The main focus of the interviews was on the children’s educational experiences in Ukraine and Germany, as well as their aspirations for the future including e.g. questions on favourite and least favourite aspects of schooling in Ukraine and Germany as well as career aspirations. The length of the interviews varied, influenced by factors such as the child's temperament, their familiarity with the interview process, and their specific needs. All interviews were translated into English and analyzed using an inductive approach to coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1994).

Through the open coding process, two major categories emerged: ‘seeking recognition’ at the level of the individual children and ‘epistemic ignorance’ at the level of educational institutions. The first step in overcoming epistemic ignorance is to see and recognize the unique epistemes refugee children with disabilities bring to their host education systems. This process presupposes a genuine encounter with the face of the Other, as Levinas urges. We must not only direct an attentive gaze toward all of our students but also toward ourselves. Engaging in reflective practice demands courage and a deliberate effort to resist the laziness of thought that leads to the passive acceptance of pre-established knowledge systems and uniform discourses (Veck, 2009). Once the epistemes of refugee children with disabilities are recognized, they also need to be received appropriately even if it may not be possible for us to fully comprehend the logic of the gift. Learning to receive the gift of the epistemes of the Other und thus offering recognition without totalizing attempts to contain the Other might indeed foster educational hospitality, which is rooted in our responsibility for the Other. This hospitality does not, however, operate within the binary give-and-take logic of the exchange paradigm, but instead follows the indigenous concept of the logic of the gift, where “gifts are not given first and foremost to ensure a countergift later on, but to actively acknowledge the relationships and coexistence with the world without which survival would not be possible” (Kuokkanen, 2008, p. 66). This non-reciprocity resonates with Levinas’ idea of asymmetrical responsibility for the Other who goes so far as to claim I am a hostage to the Other (Lévinas, 1998), though this relationship is nonviolent and, paradoxically, forms the foundation of my freedom.

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