Schools as institutes of acculturation: a question of belonging

This paper considers the position of students with refugee experiences in Neo Liberal classrooms. It explicitly raises questions about the notion of belonging, school culture and invariable tensions these constructs create in the context of age - related standardized testing, the epistemological foundations of the curriculum and the inevitable context of competition that is characteristic of economy based schooling. It questions the capacities of Neo Liberal educational systems to educate these students in ways which acknowledge their relative strengths, their cultural richness and their need for holistic, supportive teaching and learning interactions. It also examines the cultural tensions that are created by educational spaces which exclusively privilege the majority culture, as is currently the case in many of the 'host' countries in which these students find themselves. The widespread focus on individualism at the expense of community and on personal achievement and gain as a replacement for collaborative, joint effort may be tolerated as a necessary evil in many western cultures, but may prove to be the ultimate devastating challenge to students with refugee experiences as their communities struggle to come to terms with the horrors of displacement and the subsequent battle to retain their sense of identity.