“I don’t feel like a refugee. I’m here as a student”: Exploring Syrian Displaced-Background Students' Transitional Process in Private Mexican Higher Education

Abstract: Humanitarian crises caused by natural disasters or human reasons have hampered the access of generations of young adults to higher education. The aftermath of the Syrian conflict in 2011 led to the emergence of various initiatives, mostly set in neighboring countries and the global north, for refugees and displaced populations to pursue higher education studies. Policymakers and academics have focused their efforts to identify the obstacles to access higher education in emergencies contexts. Nevertheless, there is little attention concerning the students that have taken part in such initiatives. In 2015, the Mexican non-governmental organization the "Miga Project" offered scholarships to displaced and Syrian refugees to study at private universities. This thesis seeks to understand the Syrian students' challenges with the organization and their transitional process through private tertiary education. The research is conducted through semi-structured interviews of seven Syrian students, participant observations, and photographs collected during fieldwork between June and December 2019 in Macondo City, Mexico. The analysis is based on Pierre Bourdieu's analytical tools on habitus, capitals, and field, Anthony Giddens' conceptualization on agency, and theoretical lenses on transitional processes. Hence, this study concluded there are primary dynamics derived from the Syrian students' habitus in connection to the language training program, the students' capitals and socio-economic inequalities faced in the private educational system, and the exercise of agency in their transitional process into tertiary education.