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Title: 

Voices of Refugee Youth: Reflections on a Participatory, Youth-Centered Study

Authors: Barnes, Katrina
Daltry, Rebecca
Ashlee, Amy
Emerusenge, Aime Parfait
Khan, Khalid
Rabi, Asma
Mukankusi, Aimée
Pacitto, Julie
Hollow, David
Sikes, Bethany
Keywords: refugees;education;participatory research;youth;youth-centered methodologies;Pakistan;Rwanda;field note;training
Issue Date: Dec-2023
Publisher: Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies
Citation: Barnes, Katrina, Rebecca Daltry, Amy Ashlee, Aime Parfait Emerusenge, Khalid Khan, Asma Rabi, Aimée Mukankusi, Julia Pacitto, David Hollow, and Bethany Sikes. 2023. “Voices of Refugee Youth: Reflections on a Participatory, Youth-Centered Study.” Journal on Education in Emergencies 9 (1): 183-95. https://doi.org/10.33682/su9c-xzkg.
Series/Report no.: Volume 9;Number 1
Abstract: Involving young refugees in the research process has significant potential to address current gaps in refugee research in a rigorous, equitable, and empowering way (Clark 2004; Haile, Meloni, and Rezaie 2020). This field note is a report on Voices of Refugee Youth, a research initiative in Pakistan and Rwanda that aims to build the evidence base for postprimary refugee education, while also increasing young refugees’ access to and representation in this field of research. The purpose of this field note is to reflect critically on the participatory approach adopted by the initiative, whereby young refugees work as coresearchers who advise, collect data, and contribute to the deliverables. In the note we highlight the benefits of this approach, but also problematize it to offer valuable lessons about involving young refugees meaningfully in the research process. The authors conclude that participation must be approached with flexibility in order to facilitate different levels of participation, based on the skills or knowledge level of the young refugees in question. It is critical that participation is accompanied by rigorous training that responds to participants’ contexts and experience levels, and addresses ethical issues such as positionality-based bias.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2451/69899
ISSN: 2518-6833
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33682/su9c-xzkg
Rights: The Journal on Education in Emergencies, published by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Appears in Collections:Volume 9, Number 1

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