Organisational support for refugee students in German higher education: a systems theoretical analysis of the formalisation and development of support structures for refugee students and underlying discourses at German higher education organisations

Medientyp: E-Book; Hochschulschrift

Titel: Organisational support for refugee students in German higher education : a systems theoretical analysis of the formalisation and development of support structures for refugee students and underlying discourses at German higher education organisations

Beteiligte: Berg, Jana [Verfasser:in]; Jungbauer-Gans, Monika [Akademische:r Betreuer:in]; Schammann, Hannes [Akademische:r Betreuer:in]

Körperschaft: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover

Erschienen: Hannover: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität, 2022

Umfang: 1 Online-Ressource (xii, 181 Seiten, 1,123 Mb)

Sprache: Englisch

DOI: 10.15488/11988

Identifikator:

Schlagwörter: Flüchtling > Studium

Entstehung:

Hochschulschrift: Dissertation, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2021 (Kumulative Dissertation)

Anmerkungen: Literaturverzeichnis

Beschreibung: Since the refugee influx in 2015 and 2016, many German higher education organisations (HEOs) have implemented support programmes for refugee students in order to enable them to pursue their academic goals. Public funding schemes were established quickly to facilitate those efforts. Based on those funding opportunities, decentral support offers and activities of volunteers were formalised into coordinated support structures for refugee students. Based on a systems theoretical framework, I have analysed expert-interviews with first contacts for refugee students and heads of international offices that were conducted between 2017 and 2020. Throughout six papers, I investigate the initiation, formalisation and adaptation of support structures for refugee students at German HEOs. The quick, but also temporary, establishment of support projects can be seen as an example of organisational responsiveness and responsibility in view of recent events. All sampled HEOs created a first contact position to counsel refugee students and coordinate the various additional support measures. They can be seen as boundary-positions, mediating between organisations’ communicative expectations and refugee students’ expectations, needs and situations. Further, they are a key point of the communicative network regarding refugee students, maintaining internal and external cooperations and collecting relevant information on refugee students’ situations, aspirations, as well as social, legal and organisational contexts. Additional offers address formal access criteria, as well as academic and social inclusion of refugee students. The specific offers at each sampled HEOs were generally path-dependently based on existing offers. Further, the systemic boundaries defined the range of programmes: Refugees were addressed in established ways of student support, with a main focus on enabling them to meet formal criteria for enrolment. Other aspects of their situation, such as housing or finances, were perceived as outside HEOs responsibilities, regardless of their potential influence on student success. It should also be noted that offers were usually based on ascribed needs and partly had to be adjusted based on experiences with and feedback from refugee students. Along with specific support structures for refugees, a formal differentiation between international students with and without the experience of forced migration was established. Addressing refugee students as a new target group lead to a specific, often deficit-oriented, organisational discourse on refugee students. Because little academic or practical knowledge on higher education for refugees was available, support structures for refugee students were initially often based on ascribed needs and presumed benefits. They were mostly differentiated from other international students based on the specific needs arising from their circumstances of migration. In addition to identifying needs and potential ways to support refugee students, another function of this discourse was to justify the support for a comparatively small group of students. This was done by connecting them to existing mission statements in the context of higher education organisations’ internationalisation, diversification and social responsibility and describing refugee students as a highly motivated new group of students. The connection of refugee students to existing mission statements shows the importance of such documents: by providing a framework of generalised objectives, they allow flexible support for new target groups. Recently, funding conditions for the continuation of support after 2020 have changed. In addition to study preparation courses, student support and programmes to support labour market transitions were to be established. Those new offers are supposed to be open for all (international) students. Along with this development, the interview analysis shows a gradual attenuation of the differentiation between international and refugee students. A chronological shift from refugee applicants to international students and graduates seems to replace the focus on students’ legal status during previous project phases. The structural adaptations and changes do not seem to foster organisational change, but rather reinforce the key functions and structures of higher education organisations and their sub-units. At the sampled HEOs, all activities concerning refugee students depend on funding and it has yet to be determined whether the experience with refugee students will inspire lasting adaptations of organisational structures. Overall, the analysis shows the close connection between function, organisational discourse and structural development. Further research should look into further development of offers for refugee students in the context of changing social and funding conditions and investigate, whether and how experiences with refugee students are recorded and potentially used beyond the current situation and this specific target group. Also, further research should analyse to what extent existing offers are meeting the actual needs of refugee students and whether and how they enable and influence refugees’ student success.

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