How can teachers improve interactions between themselves and students in order to create

a safe and supportive learning environment for refugees?

It is essential that teachers create a supportive environment for their students to

enhance learning and development throughout their schooling years. This literature review

will look at what teachers can do to create a safe and supportive environment for refugees.

The review will provide theoretical evidence and pedagogical principles to determine what

strategies can be used to create a safe and supportive environment for refugees. The review

will focus on recent studies and research indicating what strategies will be useful and have

proven to be successful in creating a safe and supportive environment.

It is apparent that refugees and asylum seekers are growing in numbers over the past

few decades and it is important that teachers are able to create a safe and supportive

environment. The main concern is that teachers are not able to maintain social unity among

students (Taylor & Sidhu 2012). Along with social unity, there has been a misunderstanding

on what inclusive education means. Educators fail to realise that refugees have experienced

life threatening situations and the learning environment may cause problems for them. Seeing

as they are refugees, it is considered that they are from very diverse backgrounds with many

different needs. It is therefore an educator’s responsibility to ensure a safe and supportive

learning environment is present within the classroom. According to Taylor & Sidhu (2012),

refugees were hardly addressed with their own policy but rather thrown into classes such as

English as a second language (ESL). This does not influence inclusivity among the classroom

as it does not consider refugee students’ needs but rather classifies them into certain groups.

On the other hand, Ovando & Combs (2018) reveal that English as a second language classes

have proven to be beneficial to refugees as the knowledge they have acquired has helped

them advance with their studies. ESL classes can be beneficial to students’ needs if addressed

correctly without discrimination. It is therefore the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that

students do not feel discriminated in their ESL classes to create a supportive environment for
refugees. The problem behind mainstream schools is that refugee students are essential placed

into these schools and are expected to adapt without experience (Law 2005). Hence the

importance of ESL classes which can enhance a student’s ability to learn and understand.

For educators to create a safe and supportive environment for refugees there needs to

be leadership from the very top of the system. Such leadership must begin with the principal,

if the principal takes initiative so will the rest of the school. By doing so, teachers are able to

gain a sense of comfort and encouragement whilst proceeding with classroom initiatives. In

doing so, the school shows that they care about the students and are willing to do what they

can to create a safe and supportive environment for refugee students. In turn, students will be

able to feel safe and secure at both an academic level and personal level due to racial issues

being cast out of the school. The principal of the school must reveal to the community that

refugees matter and how they are included in the community. To make assimilation easier for

refugees, programs need to take a step back and go back to basics to ensure refugees

understand what is required of them in schools. Teachers can create activities that allow

refugees to understand what is required of them at a basic level. For example, something as

simple as using images to explain bell times for classes can potentially be easier to

understand rather than putting it in writing.

To ensure a safe and supportive environment for refugees, educators need to create

positive attitudes towards students guaranteeing a welcoming environment. This can be

created through leadership groups run by fellow students but overlooked by education

authorities. By doing so, students are able to fit in to society without discrimination as the

school is supporting these acts. These leadership groups must make certain that activities and

are inclusive and represent the diverse needs of students (Bartlett, Mendenhall & Ghaffar-

Kucher, 2017). Multicultural days are an example of creating a supportive environment for

students as they are able to express their culture and beliefs without discrimination. This can
create a positive attitude among students as they may have cultural characteristics in common

and therefore students are able to socialise and feel comfortable within their surroundings.

According to Block, Cross, Riggs & Gibbs (2014), parents also have a vital role in

creating a safe and supportive learning environment for refugees. Parents need to encourage

their children to be culturally accepting and by doing so will encourage holistic approach

within the school environment. Schools can also initiate parent nights where students’ parents

come together at the school for the soul purpose of inclusion of refugee students. Through

these meetings teachers are able to explain to the parents how important inclusive education

is for their students. Educators will be to explain what their goals are for their students and

how they wish to achieve it (Miliszewska and Horwood, 2004). By empowering parents to

become involved with their children’s school work, you provide them with guidance and

support allowing them to make a change in the school for the better and create a safe and

supportive environment for refugee students.

Mujis et al., (2007) suggests that schools should remove any barriers that hinders a

student’s ability to participate and achieve outcomes as it will therefore create a positive

belief among refugee students. By reducing the gap between mainstream Australian schooling

and refugee students, teachers are able to enhance student learning and achievement

throughout the school. Pugh, Every, and Hattam (2012) suggest that in order to remove

barriers schools should embrace a holistic approach and can be achieved through various

initiatives. Approaches should be embraced by every level in the school body from the

principal to the canteen workers to ensure all staff members work collaboratively towards the

school goal of inclusion. A school support program funded by the Victorian Department of

Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) aimed to close the gap between

refugees and Australians through a school support program. This program provides teachers

with many alternatives for inclusive education to create a safe and supportive environment
for refugee students (“Department of Education and Early Childhood Development", 2018).

Such alternatives include wellbeing campaigns, capacity building and awareness campaigns

that can be integrated into the schooling system which teachers can introduce in their

classrooms to create a safe and supportive learning environment for refugee students.

Through this literature review, it has become evident that there are many different

strategies that educators can use to create a safe and supportive environment for refugees.

These strategies are used to close the gap between mainstream Australian education and

refugees. It is evident that school based programs can educate staff and students to encourage

inclusivity in school. Studies have shown that school based classes such as English as a

second language (ESL) can be beneficial to student’s needs if there is no discrimination.

Part B: Chosen protocol - Observation

Listed below are questions that I will observe which will help me gain a deeper

understanding based on refugee students’ safety within the schooling environment.

The following questions are going to be used in order to gain data on the question “How can

teachers improve interactions between themselves and students in order to create a safe and

supportive learning environment for refugees?”.

-Does the teacher create a safe and supportive environment within the schooling context?

-Does the teacher create lessons which look to integrate multiculturalism in class?

-Does the school have programs that help refugees combat with the problems that they are

facing (socially, mentally, academically)?

-What programs (if used) were present throughout the school? Were they beneficial and

meaningful to refugee students?

Contract
Part C: Data collection protocol explanation.

The protocol was designed for the purpose to gather data based on how teachers can

create a safe and supportive environment for refugees. To understand the struggles that

refugees go through, it is necessary to examine what school policies are in play. In saying so,

the observation aims to gather data based on what teachers and schools are doing to maintain

a safe and supportive environment for students, in particular refugees. The questions

specifically target the topics that were discussed within the literature review ensuring data

collection is relevant to the study (Borich, 2016). The observation is designed to allow the

researcher to gather precise knowledge and information on the chosen sub-topic to

distinguish any similarities or differences between data collection and the literature review.

Essentially, the observation is to ensure that teachers are focussing on students’ unmet needs

and how we can enhance their ability to learn though the school environment.

The observation targets teachers in school with the sole purpose to identify if there are

any strategies being used to assist refugee students in class. It will allow the researcher to

decide what is successful and beneficial to the study as well understand whether the approach

taken by the teacher is sufficient (Brown & Link 2015). The researcher will be able to

identify any underlying reasons as to why the teacher cannot provide a safe and supportive

environment for the students. It can raise many questions such as, ‘what is the school doing to

close the gap between refugees and Australian students?’, ‘Are there any real initiatives

presented by the schooling system?’, ‘Is there any discrimination towards students?’ ‘What is

the school principal doing to address these problems?’.

The questions raised will allow the researcher to grasp a deeper understanding on the

topic thus allowing for an analytic approach justifying reasons for the results. This qualitative

method will allow for a more concentrated approach on the sub-topic but will also provide
information for the overarching topic: ‘Creating a safe and supportive learning environment’.

This new found data will then raise concerns for the overarching topic, whether or not the

data we have collected matches the literature review.

Each sub-topic has been created in order to gain different perspectives from different

teachers based on their experiences. Each sub-topic will be vital for the overarching topic as

each sub-topic serves its purpose in order to identify if there are any similarities or

differences between each study. Through this the gathered data, researchers are able to gather

a more informative understanding on how teachers create a safe and supportive environment

for their students. Through this research the objective is to ensure that teachers are able to

cater for all students regardless of their background or any issues that they may face (Hébert

et al., 2014).
References

Bartlett, L., Mendenhall, M., & Ghaffar-Kucher, A. (2017). Culture in acculturation: Refugee

youth’s schooling experiences in international schools in New York

City. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 60, 109-119.

Block, K., Cross, S., Riggs, E., & Gibbs, L. (2014). Supporting schools to create an inclusive

environment for refugee students. International Journal of Inclusive

Education, 18(12), 1337-1355.

Borich, G. D. (2016). Observation skills for effective teaching: research-based practice.

Routledge.

Brown, P., & Link, S. (2015, June). Probabilistic keys for data quality management.

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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. (2018). Retrieved from

https://researchdata.ands.org.au/department-education-early-childhood-

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Hébert, T. P., Corcoran, J. A., Coté, J. M., Ene, M. C., Leighton, E. A., Holmes, A. M., &

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Classroom Environment. Gifted Child Today, 37(2), 95-101.

Law B (2005) Experiential learning in the context of educating for a sustainable future: Is it

an appropriate pedagogy for shifting teachers’ thinking and engaging learners? Set no.

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