Understanding school disengagement among refugee-background African students
Institutional accounts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21522501 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tebeje Molla (0000-0002-6848-3091, Deakin University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 4127-4147 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Australian Educational Researcher (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0311-6999 • E-ISSN: 2210-5328 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s13384-025-00891-9 |
| OpenAlex | W4413404320 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 37 |
School disengagement remains a significant challenge in many OECD countries, requiring a thorough understanding of its root causes. Using a socio-ecological systems framework, this paper explores factors contributing to school disengagement among African-heritage students with refugee backgrounds. Through in-depth interviews with school leaders, teachers, career advisors, student services staff, wellbeing officers, and community liaison personnel in three Australian states, the study identifies four key drivers of disengagement: learning gaps, competing demands, parental role uncertainty, and negative racial stereotypes and biases. The findings underscore the complex interaction of individual, familial, institutional, and systemic factors in shaping school engagement. Based on these insights, the paper calls for expanding the evaluative space of school disengagement and discusses implications for policy and practice
Disengagement theory · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Gerontology
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| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |