Betwixt and between Cultural Milieus: African Female Refugee Adolescents Striving for Scholastic Success in USA

Vincent M Mugisha

doi:10.5539/jedp.v6n1p1

Abstract

In this article I investigate how three ethnically diverse African refugee female adolescents navigated the intercultural complexity that contextualized their schooling in a small Northeast American city. Using ethnographically contextualized case study methodology, this article explores the participants’ perceptions of the African and American cultural milieus that they straddled as refugee adolescents. Additionally, the article examines the strategies these refugee youth had to develop in order to transcend intercultural complexity and remain academically engaged. The findings suggested that the refugee adolescents demonstrated agency and a considerable degree of intercultural competency, which I conceptually juxtaposed here as Agentic Intercultural Competency in Schooling (AGICS). The findings further suggested that the AGICS concept was critical for these socially disadvantaged female adolescents to maintain high levels of scholastic engagement in the face of intercultural complexity.

Highlights

1.1 Defining the Research ProblemAfrican refugee students in the U.S often experience a triple disadvantage of being black, poor, and having had limited pre-resettlement literacy development opportunities in refugee camps (Rong & Brown, 2001, 2002; Roy & Roxas, 2011)
Based on my data analysis, I found that the young refugee women displayed solid knowledge and understanding of the cultural milieus between which they straddled as high school youth in the U.S They experienced conflict and dissonance stemming from divergent cultural expectations
This research provided evidence that this disadvantage partly stems from the American cultural milieu where, despite the social ideals of diversity, equality, and justice (Adams, 1988; Hollins, 1996 as cited in Sheets, 2005), ethnocentrism and racial prejudice persist potentially contributing to a degree of scholastic disengagement among African Muslim refugee students (Bigelow, 2009)

Summary

Introduction

African refugee students in the U.S often experience a triple disadvantage of being black, poor, and having had limited pre-resettlement literacy development opportunities in refugee camps (Rong & Brown, 2001, 2002; Roy & Roxas, 2011). In addition to the triple disadvantage, many African refugee students (e.g., Somali and Somali-Bantu) are Muslim, a religion that is eschewed by some Americans, and which many Americans associate with violence and terrorism especially since the September 11, 2001 events (McBrien, 2003). Refugee schoolgirls that observe this religious tradition often experience rejection from their American peers, which sometimes leads refugee students to shunning and mentally disengaging from schooling (McBrien, 2003, 2005; Roy & Roxas, 2011)

Methods

Results

Conclusion