Reducing vocational education inequality for students from refugee backgrounds

ABSTRACT

Vocational decisions made at school have significant long term impacts on young people’s life chances, their opportunities for securing decent jobs and economic growth for themselves, their families and communities. In the short term, their aspirations dictate the decisions they make about educational pathways in post-compulsory years of schooling and vocational and higher education. For young people from already marginalised backgrounds, the quality of support they have in making these decisions is crucially important. This paper examines a rapidly expanding vocational education program specifically designed for students with refugee backgrounds that was codeveloped between a state education authority and a community service provider in Sydney, Australia. Through an ecological understanding of individuals as nested within interrelated networks, this paper explores the perspectives of stakeholders ranging from the educators, careers teachers, employers, civic partners, and, crucially, the young people themselves in order to determine whether and through what means key program elements meet the needs of students from a refugee background and where gaps in the program ecology need to be addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education
• work education
• refugee education
• educational inequality
• ecological approach

Introduction

For students from refugee backgrounds in Australian schools, careers advice and preparation has been consistently identified as a point of vulnerability and as an ideal opportunity for intervention. Successful transition of young people from secondary schools into work and further education are key to future economic, personal and community well-being (Parliament of Victoria 2018). However, research suggests that transitions are contingent on a range of diverse factors. These include knowledge of the workforce, educational options and contingencies, goal setting, life experiences, community networks, one’s own needs, aspirations and capacities to imagine the self in the future, and skills in mapping out pathways towards desired futures (Daniel 2019). While these factors impact on work readiness and transitions for all school leavers, young people from refugee backgrounds have varying access to the knowledge and experiential resources that are essential for successful transitions (Naidoo et al. 2015).

This paper examines a vocational learning program codeveloped by a service provider and state education authority that targets secondary students from refugee backgrounds to enhance employability by building capacity, and linking schools, industry and civic organisations. Through interviews and focus groups with stakeholders differently located in the systems supporting the vocational education initiative, we construct a ‘vertical slice’ extending from school students through to civic partners in order to identify how schools and education systems might better meet the needs of this group of students through the lens of an ecological systems model. This study critically analyses the implementation of the targeted program to identify key principles across the program ecology that foster engagement and positive outcomes for young people from refugee backgrounds, and gaps in program design that could be addressed.

The paper begins by surveying literature on the challenges facing young people from refugee backgrounds in vocational education, as well as the factors influencing their vocational success and transitions. We move then to key features of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model and its capacity to account for the complex nested systems required to facilitate successful vocational education. We outline the methods we developed to investigate perspectives of students, facilitators, teachers, community and workplace providers and report themes and findings in relation to each level of the model.

Vocational education needs of young people from refugee backgrounds

Students from refugee backgrounds have complex needs and face a range of pressures, including pressures to leave school early to take up unskilled, unstable and precarious work. Their precarity often stems from their citizenship or Visa conditions, with only some categories of refugees and people seeking asylum being allowed to work in Australia. Those who are able to find work are often in insecure employment. The Australian Employers’ Guide to Hiring Refugees states that refugees are motivated to work and build a new life, but for a range of reasons are not securing jobs at similar rates to other job seekers. Effective vocational education for these students requires targeted focus and funding, nuanced understandings of Australian work culture, and sympathetic teachers committed to equitable education outcomes (Ahmed 2017). Students from refugee backgrounds rely on their schools to broker access to high quality early experiences in the world of work. These students are particularly vulnerable to feeling socially isolated in unfamiliar surroundings which may exacerbate the impacts of ineffective or demoralising work placements. Students’ first encounters with employers and sites of employment must be positive in order to build confidence (Liu and Nguyen 2011). Workplace learning is about much more than skills, and positive experiences can open horizons and deepen students’ connection with their learning by sharpening their resolution and clarifying their career goals. Although this is important for all students, those from refugee backgrounds experience complex issues including uncertainty about their futures and their goals, and uncertainty about Australian society and its expectations of them, all of which are shaped by previous life experiences, including racism and discrimination (Victorian Settlement Planning Committee 2008). Furthermore, pedagogies for refugee students must be targeted to encompass their breadth of language competencies, educational backgrounds, cultural histories, skills, knowledge and priorities (Woods 2009).

Research on refugee career education tends to focus on post-compulsory vocational education, however, there is scope for much earlier engagement with the world of work. A key milestone for successful transition in the Australian system is age 15 when students should have acquired sound knowledge of career options and education and training pathways (Liu and Nguyen 2011). A government inquiry into career education identified numerous issues faced by refugee students including unfamiliarity with systems of education and work, inadequate knowledge of career options and prerequisites, isolation, trauma, disruptions, lack of connections and mentors, parents’ limited knowledge and expectations (Parliament of Victoria 2018). Career advisers may have limited understanding of students’ backgrounds, and lack of engagement with their families. They may not recognise cultural barriers between themselves and students, and may direct students towards stereotypical and limiting career pathways. While assistance from teachers and mentors is crucial for successful transitions, there is often inadequate support and a tendency in schools to see students in deficit terms (Naidoo et al. 2018).

Recognition of capabilities and strengths is a crucial foundation for successful settlement, acculturation and transitions (Sellars and Murphy 2018). Researchers working with adult refugee job seekers also identify agency and empowerment as crucial for positive vocational outcomes (Abkhezr, McMahon, and Rossouw 2015) and career adaptability (Zacher, 2020). Approaches that are based on ‘positive appreciative mindsets’ enable job seekers to build confidence and adaptability, move through obstacles, develop curiosity and explore their dreams (Wehrle, Kirab, and Klehea 2019, 107). Effective vocational education resists deficit assumptions about vocational and educational trajectories of students from particular backgrounds.

Much of the research regarding refugee vocational education makes reference to the varying impacts of parents and community, often described in terms of access to ‘capital’, which can be economic, symbolic, cultural and social (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Family attachments contribute to resilience and cohesion for young people from refugee backgrounds (Sellars and Murphy 2018). The social resources of family and community networks may assist with job searching, but may have little value in the wider labour market (Zacher, 2020). While family expectations of higher education vary widely, parents may have unrealistic aspirations or perceive university education as the only valid pathway to future success (Abkhezr, McMahon, and Rossouw 2015). Expectations may be too high or too low and they may be unable to engage with career development for their child because of language barriers, financial or time pressures, and unfamiliarity with the education system (Parliament of Victoria 2018). Successful workplace learning programs extend beyond the family and immediate community, expanding the ‘social capital’ of young people, contributing to wellbeing and educational outcomes, achievements and participation with the potential to offset the effects of disadvantage (Liu and Nguyen 2011). While social capital can be expanded ‘horizontally’ amongst familiar communities, Zacher (2020) argues that ‘vertical bridging social capital’ – where networks connect people from very different social backgrounds – is most important for improving employment outcomes for people of refugee backgrounds. Expanding social capital contributes to successful integration as economic self-sufficiency via employment is the most common and important measure of refugee integration into Australian society (Squires 2020).

This paper foregrounds the voices and perceptions of stakeholders in a vocational education initiative, including refugee and new arrival students, teachers, careers advisers, community based educators and partner organisations. All of these stakeholder relationships work together in an interconnected, complex vocational educational arrangement that can be understood as a multilayered network, ecosystem or ecology that has as its focus better vocational outcomes and transitions for students from refugee and new arrival backgrounds. In understanding this interconnected complexity, and the simultaneous immediacy and distance of vocational education, we draw on Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological ‘nested’ systems approach which has been of particular utility in inclusive education research. In the next section we outline key insights from the ecological model, and how it helps us to describe, analyse and report on the vocational education program under investigation. Then we move to details of the program, and our research into its operations and effectiveness.

An ecological model for vocational education

Bronfenbrenner’s contribution to understanding human development was an explicit turn from the interiority of the subject to the social environments within which a young person develops or grows into themselves – an ‘ecological’ (1979) or ‘bioecological’ perspective (1995). Inherently sociocultural and constructivist in its orientation, though scientific in its intentions, Bronfenbrenner’s model incorporated immediate settings and the larger contexts within which they are embedded, and provided scope to examine and describe continuous, reciprocal and multidirectional relations between these through the lifespan. It provided conceptual tools for recognising variously located human subjects and environments as participants in an active dynamic ecological set of systems, of transactions, adjustments, effects, actions and accommodations. Initially described as ‘nested’, like a series of Russian matryoshka dolls (1979, 3), the model describes how a person’s development is directly influenced by settings far from that person’s immediate context, including abstractions like public policy settings (1975). Interactions occur through complex processes – including those that are closest to the subject and therefore ‘proximal’. Later iterations drew attention to the components of person, process, context, time – allowing for analysis of intimacies of family life through to impacts of large historical events (1995).

The ecological model is complex, nested and interconnected through layers of microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems and macrosystems which together form environments for human development. The microsystem entails patterns of activities, roles and relations in a particular material face to face setting, and how these are experienced and given meaning by the person (1979, 22). In education, it could be a classroom, a playgroup, an educational event or experience. The mesosystem is an expansion which focuses on relations between two or more settings. In education, these might be home and school, or sport or parttime work where knowledge and attitudes from one setting influence knowledge, attitudes and experiences in another of these settings (1979, 25). They might include learning activities explicitly designed to broker experiences across multiple settings. The exosystem acknowledges the influences of settings that impact on the developing person, even though they are not direct or active participants in those settings (1979, 25). These may be, in an educational setting, classes or activities that siblings or peers attend, workplaces of family and community, systemic decisions made by education authorities. The macrosystem entails the largest scale sociocultural contexts, belief systems and ideologies (1979, 26). In education, these might include assumptions about educational markets and the relative values and conditions that enable public and private schooling to exist, as well as expectations of school completions and standards as transition points to the world of work and further education. This system also incorporates wider perspectives on society and culture. Later versions of the model explicitly include the critical dimension of time, or the chronosystem, to account for how persons and environments change over time (1995). This seems particularly relevant to vocational education which is inherently concerned with imagining and strategising towards possible futures.

Bronfenbrenner was particularly interested in what he called ‘ecological transitions’, or shifts in roles and settings that are both consequences and instigators of developmental processes, and powerful motivators for change and growth. Such transitions can even have a ‘magiclike power to alter how a person is treated, how she acts, what she does and thereby what she even thinks and feels’ (1979, 6). Active engagement in or exposure to an activity can be a potent incentive and encouragement for a person to take up or aspire to that activity. Even in this early work, he was concerned about the increasing alienation of young people and schools from other components of young people’s lives. He mentions vocational education as an example of mesosystem processes in the context of a study where ‘processes of interchange’ were set up between school and the world of work, which featured reciprocal exchanges, complementarity, collaboration, expansions of significant others in young people’s lives, and greater information and communication across settings (1979, 229–230). The ecological model has been taken up by vocational education researchers (Patton and McMahon 2014; Xiao, Newman, and Chu 2018) and by inclusive education researchers looking at transitions between educational sites and settings (Hewett et al. 2020; Martin et al. 2021; Pitt, Dixon, and Vialle 2021). In each of these studies, an ecological model has interrogated the complexity of interrelated systems required to facilitate effective transitions. The ecological model’s insistence on the active participation and agency of individuals within social contexts has been particularly important. For the young people and the vocational education program that we explore in this paper, anticipated (rather than already achieved) transitions into the world of work are the focus. Therefore the dimension of time is also crucial.

The current study

The program featured in this paper is RAW: Ready Arrive Work.¹ The program comprises ten structured sessions that are delivered in school sites by an external provider, followed by two additional days outside school to connect participating students with industry and civic partner organisations. The program was initiated a decade ago and has grown from a local suburban focus in western Sydney to a city and state-wide program open to schools with numbers of refugee students. This qualitative study was designed to identify the impacts of the vocational learning program as reported by key stakeholders. Positive impacts were reported for participating students, schools, industry and civic organisations (see Final Report). Our findings suggest that the vocational learning program should be continued, expanded and celebrated. The high regard held for the program, although interesting and important in its own right, serves as a catalyst for a critical analysis of its implementation principles which may guide the construction or renewal of vocational educational initiatives aiming to improve work-oriented outcomes for young people from refugee backgrounds. In this paper, we aim to identify key principles across the program ecology that stakeholders perceive as critical to fostering engagement and positive outcomes for these young people.

Research participants and procedures

Interviews and focus groups with selected key stakeholders were the primary source of data for this open inquiry investigation. A ‘vertical slice’ involving stakeholders from all layers of participation in the program provided insights from those closest to and furthest from its delivery. The stakeholders are therefore located at different levels or systems in the program ecology. A total of 58 participants were involved in the study representing three clusters of stakeholders: schools, industry and civics partners, and program organisers (see Table 1). Three secondary schools (two metropolitan and one regional) that each had extensive involvement with the program were selected as research sites for the school-based component of the study. 38 school students across three schools contributed to the study. Students were either currently participating at the time of the focus groups, or had participated in the vocational educational program. In each school, adult participants included the program coordinator and, where possible, one or two other teachers with intimate knowledge of the program. Overall, six school based teachers contributed to the study.

Table 1. Number of participants per stakeholder group.

Participant group	Number of participants
Current students	32
Alumni students	6
School staff	6
External provider staff	5
Industry and civic partners	3
Steering Group members	6
Total	58

Six focus groups of around 40 minutes were held with participating students (current and alumni) across the three schools. Three focus groups were held with groups of adults from the external provider, the program Steering Group and school teachers. Teachers included career advisor teachers, ESL (English as a Second Language) specialist teachers and teachers who had partial release to organise the program inside their school or region. Six individual interviews of around 45 minutes were held with three adult stakeholders from industry and civic partners, the CEO of the external provider, one teacher and a Steering Group member who was unavailable on the day of the focus group. These enabled the researchers to enquire into the participants’ impressions of the program, the benefits and challenges, and any subsequent reflections on the program. Ethical approval was received from the university and state education authority, and all participants gave informed active consent for their involvement in the study, including from parents if they were under 18 years of age.²

Three representatives from different industry and civic partner organisations contributed to the study by speaking to their organisation’s involvement in and perspective on the program. Each of these partners is involved in activities away from schools that are a crucial component of the program. The third stakeholder group comprised people involved in designing, delivering, managing and advocating for the program. This group included eleven participants altogether from the external provider and the Steering Group.

Data analysis

Focus group and interview transcriptions were analysed for meanings that contributed to the findings of the study in response to the central research questions. The research questions and literature on school-to-work transitions generated provisional codes which were then compared with the actual data and refined (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2013). Transcripts were coded for significant themes, drawn from a priori or pre-set ‘top-down’ coding from concepts in the literature, and emergent ‘bottom-up’ codes. The open coding (Strauss and Corbin 1998; Urquhart, Lehmann, and Myers 2010) process was entered into NVivo qualitative data analysis software which enabled clustering of themes and subthemes across and between cohorts of participants. Selective analytical coding (Strauss and Corbin 1998) then took place as the codes were adjusted and refined through the process of analysis, which led to precise sub-themes being identified. Each of these was coded and tracked through the individual interviews with sub themes identified and annotations made to identify ambiguities, interesting comments and exemplary quotes.

Results

The implementation principles that various stakeholders believe are fundamental to the success of targeted vocational learning program for young people from refugee backgrounds are interpreted through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. The main themes derived from the qualitative analysis are presented below, and located across the program ecology to situate origins of responsibility and influence.

The specificity of the student group – the individual

The adult stakeholders signalled that a vocational learning program was needed for all disadvantaged students, not just those from refugee backgrounds. Notwithstanding, it was recognised that one of the features that seeds success was this program’s specific focus on students with refugee backgrounds. Students identified this as an important enabling feature, stating that being with students with similar backgrounds provided ‘commons’ and made them feel ‘more comfortable’. One alumni expressed ‘If they put the whole Year 11 we might not feel comfortable to say things and comment on things and say our opinion’. A current student explained ‘You're a lot more open … . Don’t hold back … we understand each other more because we are all from different cultures. The other thing was like the language. If you actually like mistaken a word, no one would actually laugh at you. We're all the same’.

Experiential pedagogy and curriculum that fosters skill acquisition, fun and comprehension of key work-related concepts – microsystem

The microsystem in the ecological model references patterns and practices in material face to face settings. The most common enabling feature of the program was pedagogy and curriculum that resulted in student engagement, skill acquisition and comprehension. Firstly, the pedagogy was considered to be hands-on, student centred, fun and engaging. Current students felt that tasks were experiential, practical, and group based. As a result their learning and engagement were enhanced and several students labelled the program as ‘fun’. Notable quotes include:

• We didn’t actually get to write about them instead we actually experienced them.

• They did cover a lot of stuff, like because we already covered it at school, but we covered them like physically this time which is like – was more better.

• We have fun and we learn at the same time. I mean, who wants more than that?

Similarly, school based teachers commented on the uniqueness of the pedagogy compared to the classroom: ‘The program is really student centred. The focus is on the students and how they learn and how they develop their skills, whereas in the classroom, as everyone has mentioned, you've just got the teacher delivering the content’.

Secondly, the curriculum was highly valued and regarded as skills based. Most students felt that they had learnt new skills including: ‘how to write a resume, cover letter, how to do an interview – good and bad interviews’ (alumni) and acquired new information about which jobs require university or TAFE [Technical and Further Education] vocational qualifications. Importantly, alumni students had already applied these new skills: ‘I helped my sister put her resume together’ and ‘In class when we work as a team and how to communicate with the team. In careers class – in an assessment we had to make a resume’.

Teachers appreciated that the program enabled students to build vital skills, as demonstrated in the following quote:

building confidence in terms of being able to approach employers, in terms of being able to get up and speak publicly. So part of the RAW program is about building those skills. It's not just about giving the information. So the activities within the program get them up presenting to whole groups, get them speaking in front of other people. They do mock interviews and so on. So they actually have to be developing orally, I suppose, and building those skills.

Thirdly, the program was reported to provide access to the complex and local Australian-centric language used for work. One teacher explained that work-related language is ‘lexically dense and sometimes will go over the heads of students, whereas the program has been written specifically for refugee students with the idea of … building that vocabulary’. One current student commented that ‘there was a lot of new words and vocabulary we learned … It was good because only us as an ESL group went and did it which is like we don't cover this in our countries’.

Explicit teaching, modelling and provision of extra time for comprehension – microsystem

The microsystem of in-school delivery, explicit teaching, modelling, and the provision of additional comprehension time were deemed as essential for students who have English as an additional language. One teacher explained that concrete examples, explicit instruction and models overcame the problem that teachers often ‘have preconceptions; we think that they should as well’. Similarly, another teacher appreciated that the pedagogy was able to meet the specific language learning needs of students: ‘it's that uptake that takes them longer. They need to hear and see and use things in many different ways. You need a multimodal approach for students to be able to retain that information and to be then able to use it. I think the RAW program makes that happen as well’.

A few students felt that not enough time or support was provided to produce a cover letter and resume, tasks that they obviously valued. One student felt that more scaffolding was required to learn these skills, as they wanted to go through resumes and cover letters ‘step-by-step’, stating ‘I think it would be a good idea if she actually went through it and we did one together’. One teacher supported this view, suggesting that more direct modelling would be useful: ‘before they did the resumes, just a five-minute, hey, this is what it looks like on the screen, projecting it, showing them, so when they have to do it, they know what they're aiming for’.

Program delivery residing external to the local school – mesosystem

A central principle of the program is delivery by an external provider. This is one of the mesosystem elements of the ecological model where relations are established between multiple settings. Although a Steering Committee member noted that the goal at program inception a decade earlier was for schools to eventually deliver the program themselves, other participants reported that the distinctiveness of the program as external to the local school had benefits for many stakeholders. This structure yielded a complementary relationship with the school curriculum. One school-based teacher reported that careers classes at school and the program ‘work hand in hand’ and together ‘fill in some gaps’ as ‘there were some things that they weren't able to do in their careers lessons which they were able to access through the program, and vice versa’. Additionally, some teachers reported that students benefited from having an external organisation deliver the program as they felt this facilitated students asking more questions and getting insights ‘into the real world’. Similarly, engagement seemed to be elevated through activity days away from school as: ‘going to a different venue and having external presenters who are professionals in this gives it a little bit more weight and generates a little bit more buy-in from the students than a normal class lesson’.

Whilst being external to the school was valued, one teacher stressed that the program’s strong relationship with the state education authority was critical to instil confidence: ‘I don't have to worry about it, it's a department program and it is something which is in line with our curriculum and it is for our students’ benefit and we need that’.

Facilitate a local teacher’s involvement in the program – mesosytem

Interestingly, whilst advocating that the program should be run by professionals outside of the local school, stakeholders also campaigned for a local teacher to be involved in the program beyond the school in order to increase impact and strengthen relationships between settings. A participant from the external provider expressed that ‘active involvement of the schools’ is essential for program success.

The most pressing rationale for involving a local teacher in all components of the program was the benefit to participating students. Student engagement is enhanced ‘when they see you [a teacher] being involved or they see you take an interest, they want to be more involved’. Additionally, having a school based teacher attend and actively participate would benefit students as they already have a relationship with and know the students, and most importantly, can maximise the impact of the program. A careers advisor noted that after the program: ‘they'll be in and out of my office all the time now. But that's good – I may not have come across them as easily as a lot of other students’. The external provider identified the careers advisor as the most appropriate teacher to attend the program and advocated that they should make their ‘presence felt across the room’.

Representatives from civic organisations felt that involvement of teachers in the components of the program that are held away from schools translates into benefits for the school. For example, one participant explained ‘when they go back to their schools they've had these amazing experiences and these transformations and … some schools then take on that learning and then they share it within the rest of the school community’. Another felt that teachers’ knowledge was enhanced through their attendance: ‘when I present information through the program to those students – I'm actually trying to talk to the teachers from the school as well’.

Together, these themes suggest that the level and type of involvement of the local school must be meticulously planned: delivered by external people to provide additional resources to the school, complement the curriculum and motivate the students, yet involve familiar people with existing relationships with students who can continue the work once the program is over. Having said this, a significant gap appeared at the mesosystem level of the program ecology, with minimal involvement of parents and carers.

Facilitate parents’ and carers’ involvement in the program – mesosystem

Currently parents’ and carers’ participation is limited to attendance at presentations of certificates, and providing permission to participate. The school based teachers, the Steering Committee and the external provider agreed that the positive impact of the program would be strengthened if the program could successfully involve parents. This may include the production of targeted materials or events and strategies for the ongoing engagement of parents and carers.

The external provider reported that students are encouraged to talk with their parents and take home work to discuss, however there is no guarantee of this. Students may be conduits of information between home and school, but decisions about futures are made collaboratively within the family. A representative from the Steering Committee signalled that parent involvement was valued but not enacted, explaining: ‘We’ve often said that it would be really good to somehow work out a way to engage parents, carers into the program somehow … if we were looking at something extra to add, that that would be an important thing that we could look at’. Likewise, one teacher felt that ‘trying to get [parents] involved, and maybe even different levels of the program – would be worthwhile’. Although parent involvement was widely supported, participants acknowledged the challenge of achieving this goal. An external provider explained that:

Just inviting parents along doesn't necessarily mean that they'll come, so we often need [school personnel] to ring parents and invite them individually. It needs a lot of repetition from schools in terms of, have you told your parents about it? Are they coming? Follow-up, in order to get parents there.

Arguably, the ways that parental involvement was represented by different stakeholders places the onus always on another group to invite parents in – the school who should push parents, the students who should tell their parents, or the parents who should show more initiative in coming to school.

Facilitate cultural shifts in vocational expectations – exosystem

The exosystem of the ecological model encompasses settings that may impact on the developing person, although they are not active participants in those settings. The goal of expanding expectations around vocational pathways corresponds to this level. This significant principle was mentioned by all adult participants, and occasionally by students.

With limited economies in their countries of origin, or periods of time spent by their families in refugee camps, students tend to fix their sights on a narrow range of high status occupations with demanding academic prerequisites. This conundrum has been documented in research from the UK (Morrice et al. 2019) who discuss the chasm between the aspirations of refugee youth and the reality of systems and policies that are available to support them. In an Australian context, rather than being a matter of misplaced aspirations, this results from lack of knowledge of the diversity of occupational opportunities. A participant from the external provider explains: ‘We talk to a lot of RAW students, [we] say, what do you want to do? They say, I want to be a lawyer or doctor. Because those are the only occupations they know’. Students risk being locked in to linear and narrow pathways which may set them up for failure or may not be a good match for their interests, skills and dispositions.

Sustained attention over time is important to change deep seated ideas about desirable vocational pathways. An external provider notes that ‘otherwise then we’re just talking to these students, getting their hopes up, to have that barrier and that blockage with their parents or their community’. As the pinnacles of professional aspiration, doctors and lawyers appeared repeatedly through our research. These pertained to teachers’ discussions of students’ aspirations and also to teachers’ perceptions of the views of students’ families.

Their parents have very high expectations that they're just automatically going to be able to go to university and become doctors or lawyers, and having those conversations, both with students and, if possible, with parents around what work looks like in Australia and the opportunities that are available.

However it is more complex than merely having high expectations. One teacher explained that parents tend to have a binary view of careers shaped by their experiences in their countries of origin, that is, they see just two routes to the future: ‘You got into uni or you didn't get into uni, there was no in between. The whole notion of a pathway to university for their parents makes no sense’. Another teacher suggested that life in Australia was seen to entail the promise of a prestigious occupation: ‘Because you're in the lucky country now, you can be a doctor, why can't you be a doctor?’. This was perceived by career advisors to be unrealistic and unsuitable for many students, not only those from refugee backgrounds.

Workplace providers also mentioned that parents did not recognise that part time work could support students while they are studying, and that apprenticeships and traineeships can lead to successful transitions into the workforce. Both part-time work and supported vocational experience pathways appear to be under-valued by the families of young people from refugee backgrounds. However one of the students elaborated on their changing awareness about educational opportunities through the program:

In my family, in my country it was like, you have to go to uni … But I actually learned something else. It’s not just everything about uni … So, I had another idea of when I finish school I don’t have to go to university. It’s like not my only opportunity. I can go to TAFE too.

As parents and carers were not part of the program ecology, they were not identified as key stakeholders and we did not interview them. However, all program stakeholders shared understandings and perceptions about parental understanding (and often limitations) with regard to their children’s vocational pathways.

Partnerships with industry and civic organisations to connect with workplace and community – exosystem

A distinctive feature of the program is its partnership with industry and civic organisations, which codesign experiences that take students outside classrooms and are very different from the school-based career education. These organisations can be located in the exosystem of the ecological model. The external provider, Steering Committee and school based teachers highlighted the importance of partnering with civic organisations to optimise outcomes for students. Over the decade of the program these civic partners have ranged from museums, galleries, zoo and many other arts and cultural organisations through to various government departments and state parliament.

This highly valued component of the program provided students with, at times, their first opportunity to connect with Australian workplaces and broaden their experience and understanding of workplaces. A teacher noted that: ‘going out to different places and seeing that there are job opportunities available and the different types of roles and positions that exist … that's a really worthwhile part of the program as well’. Another teacher described the impact on a student who wanted to be a chef of an industry visit where a chef spoke to the students. After hearing the student’s interest, the chef provided additional contacts to help the student secure a part time job. The teacher reported that ‘that opportunity for that student would not happen without that facilitation, without something like this. Because it's not like he's going to walk down to the local club and say, hi, can I speak to the chef?’

Partnerships with civic organisations were not only valued for their workplace focus but also for connections to community and broader Australian culture and institutions. A Steering Committee member describes that ‘It always did have a community connection component, and I think that’s broadened. I think that’s one of the really valuable things … it’s not just about vocational learning’. Students have gained greater awareness of support services outside school, and recreational cultural experiences. Pre-conceived ideas have been overturned such as being fearful of authority figures such as police or politicians, or thinking that only particular genders could work in some occupations. A Steering Committee member noted that this ‘takes them beyond the school into the community … . and gives them a bigger picture of life … in Australia’.

Offer the program free to schools and students – macrosystem

The macrosystem references ideologies, belief systems and values, manifest in education through policy decisions and priorities. Long term investment in the program by the department suggests that they value educational equity and job readiness for students from refugee backgrounds. This has a direct effect on schools’ capacities to adopt the program. No costs are incurred by either the school or the student. The participants felt that having an external organisation running the program meant ‘the costs are kept lower because you don’t have to staff it with your own people’. Funding support also came to the school to support teacher coordination of the program within the school. Importantly, the fact the service was free to students appeared to be unique:

I greatly appreciate the fact that this costs my students nothing, that they'll pay for the bus to get them where they've got to go, that RAW can run it and my students don't have to pay for it. It's brilliant, the way that we don't have to fund it and that they can run it for us.

Provide ongoing rather than annual funding to facilitate school uptake – macrosystem

Although investment has been available and there has been steady expansion to more schools and regions, funding is negotiated annually. The program provider found this problematic as they ‘don't know from year to year whether the program will continue’. This lack of certainty of ongoing funding served as an impediment to school involvement as it resulted in inconsistency in the program coordinator roles and communication with schools. As noted by an external provider: ‘If we had that consistent funding, that consistent person, schools would then know that this is something they can consistently access and then potentially lock in and go right, yes, I'm going to have that program often’.

The imagined future self and education’s evolving remit- chronosystem

The fundamental premise of the vocational education program for students from refugee backgrounds is entangled in the concept of time as espoused by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system – namely, how both persons and environments change over time (1995). The featured vocational program, and others like it, are inherently concerned with enabling young people to imagine future selves and build capabilities to realise futures that are markedly different to those experienced by their immediate lineages. Similarly, it is the very nature of those past experiences that define their eligibility for the program.

Likewise, the existence of such a distinct vocational education program for students from refugee backgrounds signals the changing remit of education over time and the nature of its response. Despite worldwide calls for inclusive education to support all learners as the profile of learners shifts in schools, aspects of the entire ecological system of education may limit this responsive over time (e.g. Geldenhuys and Wevers 2013) and lead to the development of specialist programs when the entire system can’t adapt in a timely manner.

Conclusion

We have analysed insights from our ‘vertical slice’ through stakeholders involved in the RAW program through Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological ‘nested’ systems approach. This enabled us to identify key principles across the program ecology that stakeholders perceive as critical to fostering engagement and positive outcomes for young people from refugee backgrounds. Although presented as sitting within one system, each principle residing with the systems of the ecology of inclusive education is influenced by other principles within the same and other systems (Anderson, Boyle, and Deppeler 2014). The system is dynamic and intertwined where relations and processes of interaction between the person and context are more critical than the person or context factors viewed separately (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 2006). The interaction between stakeholders is significant. In particular, the teachers, industry and civics partners, and program organisers have enormous potential to help create successful transitions from school to workplace and post-schooling options for students from refugee backgrounds. The interaction between those agents facilitated by this program strengthens the likelihood of students’ success in the ecology.

We have identified key principles that are important to this program and may be useful to others developing vocational education for students from refugee backgrounds. Morrice and colleagues (2019) established the futility of humanitarian programs that are concurrently transformative, but not supported by programs and resources needed to overcome the unique challenges facing refugee youth in resettlement contexts. Shakya et al. (2010) also highlight the need for humanitarian programs to be socially just, equitable, and empowering. RAW works towards these aims. However, we have also identified a crucial gap in the program ecology. At the mesosystem, encompassing relations between two or more settings, knowledge and attitudes from home influence knowledge, attitudes and experiences in school and vice versa. Currently, students are positioned as brokers of information about the program and their learning about Australian workplaces and cultures to their families but the relationship has tended to be unidirectional. Strategies to achieve program co-design and participation of parents and carers have been both nominal and fraught in an otherwise well-developed program, but this may be a perennial problem for the relationship between learning programs, institutions in their interactions with parents and carers- magnified with parents from refugee backgrounds. As students from refugee backgrounds have faced disconnection and uncertainty in their lives, the inclusion of the family and community in discussions about their educational needs is crucial.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department of Education NSW: [Grant Number NULL].

Notes on contributors

Susanne Gannon

Susanne Gannon is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Western Sydney University. Her research interests include educational equity, secondary schooling, curriculum and pedagogy.

Rachael Jacobs

Rachael Jacobs is Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University whose areas of research include creativity and assessment, creative justice through the arts and embodied pedagogies. Rachael has facilitated arts projects in community settings all over Australia, including in refugee communities, in prisons and in women's refuges.

Danielle Tracey

Danielle Tracey is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Western Sydney University. Her research interests include educational and developmental psychology, disability studies, and evaluation.

Notes

1 RAW is funded by NSW Department of Education. We thank the Department of Education for their support throughout this study, in particular Brendan Gembitsky, Manager Work Placement Coordination Program, Pathways and Transitions. We would also like to acknowledge the research assistance provided by Cymbeline Buhler through the study.

2 Western Sydney University HREC Approval H13121, NSW Department of Education Approval (SERAP) 2019062