Creating Spaces of Wellbeing and Belonging for Refugee and Asylum-Seeker Students: Skills and Strategies for Classroom Teachers

Creating Spaces of Wellbeing and Belonging for Refugee and Asylum-Seeker Students: Skills and Strategies for Classroom Teachers outlines the ways educators can support positive educational and social outcomes for the most vulnerable children in their communities.

Each chapter briefly outlines the relevant theory, expanding on this through vignettes from research and analytical reflection, helping the reader identify and apply the differentiated pedagogical understandings in their own classrooms. Providing insights from educators who are doing this work successfully across the globe, the book highlights the challenges and considerations that teachers face in multilingual, multicultural classroom environments where students’ common experience is trauma and loss and guides them towards effective practice.

This book is intended for use in schools by school leaders and classroom teachers and by educational professionals engaged in supporting schools with students with refugee backgrounds.

Maura Sellars PhD has three decades of experiences as a teacher and member of school executive teams, and almost two decades as an academic, specializing in differentiation strategies. As an inclusivist, her current research, books and articles focus on authentic school inclusion for students with refugee and asylum seeker experiences.

Scott Imig PhD is a former primary and middle school teacher. He has spent much of his university career studying the qualities of effective and engaging classrooms. His current research focuses on understanding and helping school communities support the integration of families with refugee and asylum-seeker backgrounds.

Professor John Fischetti started his career in refugee education working with Haitian and Cambodian refugee children in the US. His current work focuses on school and leadership transformation; advocating for changing the role of the learner, the role of the teacher and assessment simultaneously to promote learning equity.