Refugee education in Australia: reflections on resettlement policy, educational provision, and schooling practices

Abstract

With increasing global forced migration and Australia’s commitments to humanitarianism, the current study explores how refugee resettlement and education policies in Australia are reflected in, or reconfigured through, school-level practices to foster inclusive, empowering education or reproduce structural disadvantages. The authors employed a hybrid theoretical lens that combines two theoretical perspectives to guide this research. First, Vidovich’s policy cycle framework, which is rooted in the policy sociology model developed by Stephen J. Ball. Second, a Freirean perspective. Guided by this integrative framework, the current study used a qualitative interpretive approach in analysing documents related to national resettlement and education policies, as well as curriculum frameworks. Peer-reviewed literature was used to inform and contextualise the analytical interpretation of policy texts. The findings show that national discourse promotes inclusion. However, policy texts and school practices often reflect assimilationist logics that disadvantage refugee students, though transformative spaces persist. Theoretically, this study extends Vidovich’s model by integrating Freirean principles of agency, voice, and justice–offering a dual lens to assess policy coherence and ideological intent. It calls for reimagining refugee education through dialogical, emancipatory practices and advances a framework for future research to engage more equitably with refugee students’ lived realities and aspirations.