Gender and Racism: Considerations for Digital Learning Among Young Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Abstract

Young refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) in the UK face barriers related to language and accessing formal schooling. While HCI research has focused on migration, less work has been done with young RAS and less so on how digital platforms may be used to support young RAS during times in which they are unable to access schooling. Through co-design workshops with young RAS in the UK, we explored social and contextual factors influencing their engagement in and experiences with digital tools to learn and develop their learning skills outside of school. Our findings highlight and nuance gender, culture and racism as factors that need to be accounted for when designing digital education tools for this population. More specifically, we detail how accounting for the aforementioned factors may inform the: (1) learning approaches that may underpin such technologies, (2) the timing and duration of digitally facilitated learning activities and (3) the platforms through which learning activities may be mediated. We argue that not accounting for these factors may result in reduced engagement and in propagating existing gender inequities. As such, our research contributes to a growing body of work focused on HCI, migration and education.