Masks of Achievement: An Experiential Study of Bosnian Female Refugees in New York City Schools

Agencies and personnel working with refugees increasingly view schools as a central pillar for providing vital services that assist refugees in their survival and rehabilitation (Sinclair 2002). The schooling of refugees has often been suddenly and violently curtailed by the onset of the emergency situations from which the refugees have fled. Experiences of war and flight deeply affect the psychological well-being of refugee youths. When refugees are resettled away from the refugee camps in neighboring countries, they are often expected, even legally obliged in many countries, to enroll in schools in which they may find themselves at an academic, social, and emotional disadvantage. The school systems in their new host country may not be able to accommodate their often extensive needs. However, schools may, at the same time, be uniquely situated to offer key services for refugees. This article explores the gap between what schools can do and what refugees may need from schools by examining the experiences of a group of Bosnian young women refugees in New York City schools. The analysis explores how the refugees constructed their identities and social relations in an attempt to have schooling meet their psychological needs. Depending on how school personnel, other students, and others in the school community relate to refugee youths, schooling can provide vital opportunities to begin healing in three crucial ways. First, schooling may provide a reassuring constancy in lives that have been marked by instability. Second, returning to the identity of “student” may allow the individual to retreat from the stigmatized identity of refugee and may furnish a space in which the youths can connect with those in her new surroundings. Third, and perhaps most crucially, education may restore in refugee youths a sense of hope for the future that had been ripped away from them. Refugee flows have dramatically increased over the past few decades. The vast majority of the 19.2 million people who are currently displaced from their homes because of flight remain in countries neighboring their homelands (UNHCR 2005). While refugees who are resettled in the industrialized countries are a significant minority in the vast refugee population, they also