Educational factors that contribute to empowering Zimbabwean refugee children’s social and cognitive well-being

Abstract

A lot is written about the education and well-being of refugee children, but most articles do not pay attention to the opinion of refugee children themselves. Furthermore, literature often does not pay attention to the environment in which the refugee child lives and the people that are involved in this environment, such as refugee schools, their parents, their teachers and the principal of the school. In this article I will investigate the factors in education that contribute to empowering children of Zimbabwean refugees in their social and cognitive well-being. The research took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. Qualitative research has been conducted, consisting of content analysis of interviews. For the analysis an existing theory on social and cognitive well-being is used (Pollard & Lee, 2003). The results show that the educational factors that are contributing to empowering the Zimbabwean refugee children’s social and cognitive well-being are the teachers, learning (English language), meaningful activities during the day, getting basic necessities, being with refugees of the same cultural background and other cultural backgrounds.