Navigating Hostile Environments

Abstract

Many refugees are motivated to pursue higher education in host countries. However, they face a myriad of challenges in their trajectories in higher education systems. Some of these challenges include absence of alternative pathways, lack of academic language, complex admission procedures, difficulty of getting their qualifications recognised, financial barriers, discrimination, lack of information, and traumatic experiences. Moreover, many Western host countries have become increasingly hostile to refugees; and as a result, they have introduced restrictive policies to make the host countries as unfavorable as possible to refugees. Higher education institutions are operating in these environments with all the impacts the socio-political contexts might have on them. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to explore experiences of refugees in navigating higher education systems in these hostile environments. Refugees employ various forms of capital such as aspirational, social, and navigational capital to overcome challenges they encounter in higher education institutions.