IN THE CLASSROOM: “Migration, Displacement, and Education”

Course Title: “Migration, Displacement, and Education”
Taught By: Advanced Senior Lecturer and Director of the International Educational Development Program Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

Description: 
Migration has long shaped societies, economies, and education systems, influencing policies and lived experiences across the globe. This course explores the intersections of international migration, displacement, education, and policy, with a focus on how migration impacts children, youth, families, and their communities. Students examine key theories of migration and incorporation while critically analyzing issues such as border securitization, forced displacement, and the educational experiences of migrant and refugee learners.

Through an interdisciplinary lens, students develop a nuanced understanding of migration's complexities, including its connections to climate change, global governance, and shifting legal frameworks. The course emphasizes migrant agency, advocacy, and alternative migration futures, encouraging students to critically engage with equity, justice, and human rights in migration discourse. Students design their own final project related to migration and education based on their personal interests.

Says Ghaffar-Kucher:
“I teach this course because migration plays such a significant role in how the world works—it shapes policy debates, education systems, and individual lives in ways that demand careful, critical attention. It's also a deeply personal topic to me: my own experiences as an immigrant, international student, and return migrant have shown me how profoundly context matters, especially when it comes to schooling. In the classroom, I typically start each session with poetry or visual art to help students engage migration not only as a policy issue, but as a lived and felt experience; this often opens up different kinds of analysis and reflection. I want students to see migration not as a problem to be solved—as it is often framed—but as a set of complex realities requiring nuanced analysis, and for them to be able to push back on oversimplified narratives about mobility and rights.”

Students’ reactions:
“Dr. GK's ‘Migration’ class was certainly one of the most eye-opening and relevant classes I took at Penn.” said Angeline Dias, an IEDP student who is working as a data and monitoring intern in UNICEF Uganda. “Her passion and ability to pedagogically engage you with something is remarkable. It was particularly shocking to know about the numbers of internally displaced people who are often left out of conversations. What struck me most, however, was the way the course shifted the focus from statistics to the stories of our migration experiences, the experiences of migrant communities around the world, and the complex systems that inform those experiences.”

“Every Wednesday I leave this class with a new lens through which I view migration and education,” said Princess Adeyinka, a currently enrolled student from the IEDP program. “The course has pushed me to rethink the severe impacts it has on children and their education. It’s also reignited my love for poetry, reminding me that a single verse can carry and share what pages of research cannot. I also love that our final project is one of our choosing, allowing us to work on something we’re truly passionate about while still centering the experiences and stories of migrants.”