Community Cohesion in Refugee Youth in School Environments

Looking into the school community cohesion and how refugee youth integrate into schools is important when addressing refugee resettlement issues at large. It is important that school community identity (SCI) formation for refugee high school youth is understood in order to develop school programs that can better assist integration process of refugee families. Looking at high school refugee youth from Arizona a model was created that better displays the specifics this study found when dealing with this population. Unlike non-refugee high school youth, refugee youth do not develop school community cohesion through voice, resonance, or empowerment like other studies have shown. This study shows that they must first develop a SCI before they can have a strong school community presence. School community identity is an important first step that facilitates sense of school community. Two focus groups were down at the Somali American United Council, and from these two groups four common themes surfaced: faculty support, emotional security, cultural understanding, and partnership/collaboration. Using these themes a refugee school identity model was created to represent the data collected. The participants in the focus group often told stories and used phrases that indicated a lack of identity in their school, and no claims to a need of a voice within their school community was mentioned. This indicates that refugee students need an identity within their school community before they will express a need for voice or influence.