‘The subjects are just means to an end’ : a qualitative study of teachers’ adaptation to meet refugee students’ needs

Abstract

In this thesis, I explore how teachers adapt their education to best meet the needs of refugee students. The analysis is based on interviews with seven teachers who work with refugee students either as teachers in introductory classes, or as class or contact teachers in regular classes. The focus of the research design was initially on what happens in the classroom – the educational methods and tools used by teachers who taught refugee students. I found that the teachers interviewed adapted their education in much the same way, through methods of concretization and visualization, through reducing concepts and simplifying content and language. However, I also found that the teachers, when asked what aspects of refugee students’ education they found challenging, pointed to surrounding conditions such as organization, ways of sharing information, and students’ psychosocial needs as equally or even more influential than the ways in which teachers adapted their educational practices. The main challenge however, agreed upon by all the teachers interviewed, was how to adapt to students’ Norwegian language skills.