From the standpoint of an Afghan refugee teacher-scholar and parent resettled in England, this alternative format thesis investigates how Afghan refugee children and their caregivers narrate early transition into mainstream schooling in England, and how safety, belonging and educational success are understood, pursued and constrained during early resettlement. It introduces an integrated conceptual model for refugee education and, through families’ narratives of early school transition, develops the concepts of relational readiness and layered success to explain how safety, belonging and educational success are shaped across school routines, relationships and resettlement conditions. The thesis includes three core papers and one supplementary position paper.Paper 1 (Miri, 2024), published in the British Educational Research Journal, develops an integrated conceptual model for refugee education through a social justice lens. Drawing on Fraser’s (2008) redistribution, recognition and representation, Lynch’s (2012) affective equality, Kohli’s (2011) resumption of ordinary life, and Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological systems theory, it frames safety, belonging and success as interconnected experiences shaped across micro, meso and macroconditions. Papers 2 and 3 report a qualitative, family-based, child-led study with six Afghan families resettled under the ARAP and the ACRS resettlement schemes, involving eight children aged 5-13 and six caregivers. Data were generated using aflexible narrative toolbox including family and child interviews and child-produced artefacts such as drawings and timelines. Analysis used reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), with Miri’s (2024) integrated model as an interpretive lens.Paper 2 analyses how children and caregivers described safety and belonging in everyday school life. Accounts show that these were shaped through routines and relationships, alongside resettlement conditions such as housing instability, transport, placement decisions, communication and experiences of exclusion. The paper develops the concept of relational readiness to describe school capacity to providereliable care through coordinated roles, routines and resources. Paper 3 examines how educational success was understood and talked about in children’s and caregivers’ accounts. In their narratives, doing well was often wider than attainmentalone and was linked to stability, trust, participation, and reliable adult response. The paper develops layered success to describe how families narrated doing well as unfolding over time, with safe access and predictable routines enabling participation and making academic progress appear more within reach. Chapter 6 reproduces a supplementary position paper on transpathy (Miri, 2023), which uses the levels of concern lens and emotioncy to propose guiding principles for refugee education. The epilogue closes with the poem ‘Why I speak of hope’ (Miri, 2025).
Education for Afghan Refugees in England: Narratives from a Social Justice Perspective
Miri, M. A. (Author). 20 Apr 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › PhD