Arts education
Creative (en)counterspaces: Engineering valuable contact for young refugees via solidarity arts workshops in Thessaloniki, Greece
This article explores the role of non-formal arts education in Thessaloniki, Greece for fostering contact considered valuable by the young refugee community. Drawing on accounts of their daily life, gathered over eight months of ethnographic fieldwork for a project on their post-15 educational participation, the article details how around the city, young refugees (aged 15-25 years) experience conflicted encounters involving…
2023
Asylum seekers’ experiences of participatory barriers in the educative pre-integrational programmes
How a society supports its most vulnerable individuals can serve as a barometer of social inclusion. By engaging in previous debates on how the influx and resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers challenge European educational spaces, this study investigates asylum seekers' non-engagement and non-participation in one engaged learning project in Finland (the KOTO project - Kotoutuminen taidolla ja taiteella [Integration…
2023
Using composite case material to develop trauma‐informed psychoeducation for social care workers looking after unaccompanied minors in residential care in Ireland
Although the provision of trauma‐informed psychoeducation for carers of adolescents who have experienced traumatic events has been shown to be a fundamental aspect of the recovery process, it is not routinely made available to the social care workers who look after unaccompanied asylum‐seeking adolescents living in residential care. Furthermore, the development of the content of trauma‐informed psychoeducation is rarely informed…
2022
THE ONLINE COMMUNICATION OF ART-BASED EDUCATION ORGANISATIONS WORKING WITH UNDERAGE REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS IN EUROPE
Communication is one of the critical issues organisations working with migrants and refugees in Europe must face. Our research question is how do art-based education organisations’ projects working with underage migrants and refugees communicate online? There is a gap concerning three key discursive approaches that we wish to tackle when communicating about these populations: miserabilism, even-image, and gender-neutrality. We propose…
2022
A Music Therapy Intervention for Refugee Children and Adolescents in Schools: A Process Evaluation Using a Mixed Method Design
Refugee children and adolescents have often experienced negative or traumatic events, which are associated with stress and mental health problems. A specific music therapy intervention is developed for this group in school settings. The aim of the present study was to set the first steps in the implementation of this intervention. A process evaluation was performed using a mixed method…
2022
Music facilitator experiences of working in asylum seeker centres: Complexities, dilemmas and opportunities
Accommodation centres for those seeking asylum present particular contexts in which to facilitate music making. Contextual and systemic difficulties abound. An exploration of a music project within six asylum seeker centres in Ireland is presented with a focus on the experiences of the four facilitators involved. Data are presented from facilitator reflective logs, researcher observations and recorded professional development sessions…
2022
The word “refugees” will always be stuck to us: Music, children, and postmigration experiences at the Simrishamn Kulturskola in Sweden
This dissertation centers on the stories and perspectives of young refugees from Syria and Afghanistan enrolled in Sweden’s municipal music-and-arts school, or kulturskola, programs. Kulturskolor are voluntary music and arts programs regulated by Sweden’s local municipalities. These music-and-arts schools were established in the 1930s and 1940s, corresponding with the rise of Sweden’s welfare state system. There are schools in nearly…
2021
Policy and leadership discourses in Sweden’s Art and Music Schools: the inclusion of refugee children
Sweden’s Art and Music Schools (SAMS) have assumed some responsibility for facilitating refugee children’s social inclusion. This article investigates how the inclusion of refugee children in SAMS is introduced by leaders as well as how the theme is constructed and addressed as a topic in policy documents (related to the national policy process for SAMS). Two data sets constitute the…
2021
Empowerment of the refugee migrant community through a cooperation project on art education in Greece
This article contributes to the inclusion of the refugee community located in Polykastro (Greece) through an art cooperation project between the University of Seville and the NGO Open Cultural Center. We suggest that art education promotes the full development of the individual and the community. This study examines the identification stage which took place in October 2019. Using a Logical…
2021
Jihadists and refugees at the theatre: Global conflicts in classroom practices in Sweden
In democratic societies schools have an obligation to address complex societal issues such as ethnic/religious tensions and social conflicts. The article reports an exploratory study of how theatre plays were used in upper-secondary schools to generate pedagogically relevant platforms for addressing the current Middle East conflicts and their impact on European societies in the context of religious education and civics.…
2019
Art and/as open education: A collaborative action with refugee artists
The article illustrates the potential of engaged arts-based pedagogies in higher education with respect to integration interventions for young refugees in Europe. It discusses the conception and implementation of the collaborative initiative “Find Refuge in Art”, which was part of the research Project PRESS at the Hellenic Open University. This example shows how artistic synergy may become an integral part…
2023
Dealing with stress using social theatre techniques with young Syrian students adapting to a new educational system in Turkey: A case study
After a migration process, people begin to yearn for the settledness of their previous lives; this includes those in the education process. After the crisis in Syria, millions of refugees came to Turkey, in that, many of whom were students. The students started to enrol and although the schools' curricula are in Arabic, students of these schools must pass a…
2018
Research for CULT Committee – Why cultural work with refugees
Cultural work with refugees has a long history. It is a contentious area. Instrumental approaches to cultural work with refugees raise significant issues. This briefing outlines the contentions, provides a theoretical basis for the work, gives leading examples of cultural work with refugees, including work that promotes intercultural understanding and work that promotes fear. It outlines key findings and recommendations,…
2017
The role of arts in raising ethical awareness and knowledge of the European refugee crisis among social work students. An example from the classroom
This paper presents and discusses an arts-based project, carried out by the first-year students in the classroom, at the Department of Social Work, in Athens, Greece. The project was designed for raising ethical awareness and knowledge of the 2015 Europe’s refugee crisis among social work students. The purpose of this project was three-fold: (1) to help students to better understand…
2017
A comparative study of attitude and motivation for learning English, among adult refugees and ethnic Norwegian 10th graders
The research focus of this study is adult refugee learners sitting the Lower Secondary Exam in written English, in Norway. Since 2014, the exam has been the same for all candidates, regardless of their background. In spring 2015, the majority group of exam candidates, ethnic Norwegian 10th grade learners, received the average grade 3.9, while the average exam grade for…
2016
Exploring student attitudes to the refugee crisis: Songs on migration [Proučevanje odnosa študentov do begunske krize skozi izseljenske pesmi]
The issue of migrants and refugees has occupied Europe for the last few months. Much of the discourse surrounding this issue has been overwhelmingly negative, lapsing at times into stereotype, prejudice and even hate speech. As language teachers at a humanities faculty, we have a responsibility to address this issue in the classroom, especially as classroom experience tells us that…
2016
Towards a well-being focussed language pedagogy: enabling arts-based, multilingual learning spaces for young people with refugee backgrounds
Abstract: The following article explores the conceptual background and pedagogical realities of establishing a well-being focussed language pedagogy in the context of an informal educational event called ‘Language Fest’. The event was organised as part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded large grant project ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State’ –…
2016