Exploring teachers' understanding of and responses to the school belonging experiences of students from refugee backgrounds

Despite schools being exposed to students from refugee backgrounds for decades, many schools still struggle to provide adequate academic and social support for them. As a result, this study sought to better understand the educational experiences of these students by examining their belonging experiences. The belonging experiences were captured in order to examine and interrogate teacher practice. More specifically, this paper examines how five students' belonging experiences are understood and interpreted by four classroom teachers. The broader study employed an arts-based approach in which data were collected from students' drawings and semi-structured interviews. These drawings were then used as a prompt to examine teachers' responses to the students' belonging experiences as presented in this paper. The findings revealed that the participating teachers acknowledged the importance of knowing their students from refugee backgrounds and allowing them opportunities to get to know their peers. They also recognised the role of home languages and how peers and Multicultural Educational Aides (MEAs) mediate students' visibility and audibility in the classroom. While the teachers identified strategies to foster belonging in the classroom, the findings also exposed the pervading deficit perspectives that continue to plague Australian schools and precariously position students from refugee backgrounds.