Challenges and Initiatives in Refugee Education

Book excerpt: As a result of the massive refugee flows in 2015-2016, more than 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers were stranded in Greece, awaiting decisions regarding their status. Meanwhile, the Greek state itself was completely unprepared to provide shelter and education to these populations. This collection of papers presents educational initiatives undertaken by both official and unofficial agencies in order to provide Greek language courses to refugee students of various ages. The studies presented here highlight various challenges such as the teachers’ inexperience and lack of material and infrastructure, the students’ diversity in terms of ethnic, social and educational background, and their lack of motivation and sense of stability. Moreover, the contributions here point to the importance of adopting innovative and holistic approaches to teaching refugee populations. Such approaches take into account their linguistic and cultural capital, as well as the need to empower them through the learning process. This volume will be of interest to researchers, policy makers and practitioners involved in refugee education in Europe and beyond.