Day 95, Year of #Mygration: Educational aspiration formation among young asylum seekers in South Africa

The OU will welcome Dr. Faith Mkwananzi from the University of the Free State, South Africa a week today (Tuesday, 22 May). Drawing on a project on marginalised migrant youth in South Africa, her presentation will be based on conversations with youth about their higher educational aspirations. The aim of this seminar is to highlight the complexity of aspirations formation among marginalised young people, and specifically asylum seeking youth. To do this, the migration context in South Africa will be provided, as well as the challenge of categorising refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants.

This will be followed by a four-fold conceptualization of higher educational aspirations formulation influenced by agency and conversion factors, and different refugee stories will be used as illustrations. A further focus on this intersection is aimed at highlighting how aspirations formation is context specific, yet the complex and the fluid nature of aspirations formation may be applicable to other vulnerable young people, beyond marginalised migrant youth. It is the overall aim of the presentation to stimulate an engaging discussion about aspirations and marginalised migrant youth.

The event will be held on the OU's Milton Keynes Campus, between 14:00 - 15:30 in Stuart Hall, Level 2, Room 3. For more information, contact Gina Sharp.

This Open University seminar has been organised by the OU's Research Group on International Development in Teacher Education across Societies and Cultures (RITES), led by Dr Alison Buckler, Research Fellow in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies.

Dr Mkwananzi's PhD thesis is available to read online