The Cultural and Social Capital of Unaccompanied Refugee Children : A Policy study of the education of unaccompanied refugee children in Sweden and Germany

Abstract: The globalized world is facing increasing refugee flows over the past years, which brings challenges for the receiving countries. One important part of this challenge is the education of refugee children. Particularly unaccompanied minor refugees are often not noticed by the society and policies. Therefore they are even more vulnerable than other refugee children. Providing a quality education as stated in the Education for All Goals and the right to education given through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enables these children to gain stability and reenter a normal life at least in one area; and of course provides them with education. This research attempts to examine the recognition of cultural and social capital of unaccompanied minor refugees in developed countries and how this capital is used in education in two illustrative countries, Sweden and Germany. The study attempts to compare the recognition and use of the capital of unaccompanied minors in policy and practice. The starting point of the paper is that the cultural and social capital of the unaccompanied minors differs from accompanied refugee children and that of the target culture and thus creates obstacles in education for those children; However, recognition of their social and cultural capital in policy could be used in order to provide a need based and equal education as implied by the Education for All Goals. The work shows that some attempts have already been made in using the existing capital from these children to give them opportunities in education, for example the mother tongue tuition in Sweden. However it shows as well that there are still  many difficulties for these children, with accessing schools in the first place and unequal treatment in schools.