‘Are You Able … to Learn?’: Power and Access to Higher Education for African Refugees in the USA

Abstract

Using discourse analysis focused on identity and politics, we analyze the narratives of two Congolese refugees to explore issues of access to higher education. Data for this analysis come from a larger ethnographic study of educational opportunities for refugees in one US city. The narratives that these participants tell reveal both the ways in which various institutional factors limited their access to higher education and the agentive ways in which these refugees advocated for themselves. Refugees' educational experiences and aspirations may be invisible to those in power in resettlement contexts, or those in power may question, doubt, or ignore such experiences and aspirations. As a result, various institutions act as gatekeepers to limit refugees' access to higher education.