Hope collection

How can we use children’s own stories—alongside published picture books about refugee experiences—to teach effectively, avoid stereotypes, as well as recognise and celebrate students’ voices?

Practical Advice/Tips for Practitioners

• Use varied texts today.
  Use a set of texts, pairing commercial picture books with child-authored stories, so students hear multiple voices and experiences, not a single refugee narrative today.
• Add context, avoid “single stories.”
  Discuss why families flee and what happens after resettlement. Add brief historical and political context so students avoid simple ‘danger home/safe West’ stories in class.
• Centre respectful child voices.
  Invite refugee-background children’s voices respectfully. Use published child-authored books or safe classroom publishing to validate knowledge, agency, skills and feelings, without forcing disclosure from any student.
• Teach critical reading.
  Ask who is telling the story, whose voice is missing, and how images shape meaning, so students develop critical thinking and reading skills.
• Plan for wellbeing.
  Use trauma-informed practices, offer opt-out choices, and signpost support services when working with sensitive content, particularly with students who have lived experience.

Abstract

Stories are one way that experiences, ideas and culture are shared with children in educational settings. Commercially published books are the standard means in schools for sharing stories. Qualitative content analysis was carried out on 30 personal narrative-based children’s picture books. While the range of stories told in books is vast, our research focuses on refugee stories for children in light of the contemporary political and public focus on refugees and the forced movement of people around the world. Scholars have identified that books about refugees for children can be useful to explore the topic of refugees, but also caution that they can perpetuate simplistic and stereotypical understandings about forced movement in the world. In our research we examine personal narratives and propose that educators should use stories and books written and illustrated by children as a means to bring refugee children’s voices into formal educational spaces. We argue that this is a respectful approach that counters a deficit model of refugee children; it highlights refugee children’s authentic voices and stories told on their own terms. Additionally, it offers a counter-narrative to dominant refugee stories in the public sphere and presents understandings of forced migration and its legacies from children’s perspectives. We suggest that to effectively examine refugee experiences through literature, educators should use a number of texts to begin conversations in classrooms, and stories by children who have experienced forced migration should be featured.

Full paper access

Tomsic, Mary and Zbaracki, Matthew D. (2022). It’s all about the story : Personal narratives in children’s literature about refugees. British Educational Research Journal. 48(5), pp. 859-877. 

Contact the researcher

Dr Mary Tomsic
mary.tomsic@acu.edu.au

Learn more about Dr Mary Tomsic’s research