Strangers in a Strange Land: Educational Attainment of Refugee Adolescents (2016)

Undergraduate: Le Feng

Faculty Advisor: Guang Guo
Department: Sociology

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North Carolina has one of the nation¿¿¿s top 10 largest refugee populations. Refugee resettlement is pivotal to refugee adolescents, who usually have sporadic educational experience, poor English language skills, and low socioeconomic status. These disadvantages become barriers and hinder their chances of higher education. Many academic researches have been conducted to evaluate social capital¿¿¿s role in the adaptation and integration of involuntary displaced refugees. By social capital, I mean refugees¿¿¿ social networks with others in the community, at schools, or at work settings. However, I will focus on examining refugee adolescents¿¿¿ high school experience and how school structures shape their success and failure. While local high schools seek specialized educational program (after-school homework program, ESL classes) to help refugee adolescents adapt to American society, a question occurs. Is the school-based social network helpful in achieving academic success among refugee adolescents? This case study conducted in Carrboro will help answer the question. I argue that school-based network is essential to refugee students¿¿¿ academic attainment. However, specialized educational programs and groupings of refugee students might lead to their disconnection with other students and negative learning experience. The research methods I will employ are observational study in classrooms, semi-structured interviews with teachers, and quantitative data analysis from schools.