From Trauma to Resilience: Intercultural Education and Refugees

Abstract

Abstract
The refugee experience is closely interwoven with mental health, owing to exposure to traumatic events before, during, and after migration. However, the complete identification of the refugee experience with trauma carries the risk of pathologization and depoliticization. Education emerges as a critical field for the empowerment and support of children with a refugee background, provided that it is grounded in a holistic, participatory, and critical approach that recognizes their needs, capacities, and resilience. Through a critical and intercultural pedagogy, education can be transformed into a tool for the empowerment of children from refugee backgrounds. The study highlights the contribution of intercultural education to the formation of hybrid identities, which function as acts of resistance against categorizing narratives, and demonstrates how the school can serve as a space of therapeutic experience, social justice, and future prospect.