"We're not a bank providing support": Street-level bureaucrats and Syrian refugee youth navigating tensions in higher education scholarship programs in Lebanon. (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chopra, Vidur
• Is Part Of: International journal of educational development. Volume 77(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Higher education -- Refugee youth -- Scholarships -- Street-level bureaucrats; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Education -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; Education -- Periodicals; Éducation -- Périodiques; Education; Periodicals; 370.11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102216
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0738-0593

Abstract

Highlights: Inequities emerge in the distribution of higher education scholarships for refugees. Poor targeting and mobility create challenges for refugee you Union and bi-lateral donor co th and organizations. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) struggle in managing donor, host-government, and refugee youths' needs. Severe (mis)alignments in future imaginings among SLBs and refugee youth. For refugee youth, scholarships enable transitions to, but not through, university. Abstract: Scholarships are increasingly used to expand higher education access for refugee youth in exile, but less is known about their equity implications. Drawing from scholarship on street-level bureaucrats and Nancy Fraser's theory of social justice, I identify street-level bureaucrats' (SLBs) decision-making within refugee higher education. Drawing on 62 interviews with Syrian youth and organizations in NGOs in Lebanon, and 24 organizational, scholarship-related documents, I elaborate the fundamental (mis)alignments that emerge in scholarship-granting organizations' goals, and the needs of refugee youth they seek to support. Organizations over-emphasize transitions to university, overlooking the most vulnerable youths' transitions through university. Though youth link their futures to opportunity and not geography, SLBs seek to fund youth willing to return to Syria and engage in post-conflict reconstruction.