Abstract:

We have interviewed eight migrant students about their educational history, and have encouraged them to tell us their stories. They told stories of young people who had to break up from their lives at different ages and move across both national borders and linguistic barriers; all the time trying to start again and to make use of both the knowledge and the languages they have acquired along the way. Where young people in a stable society can look upon their educational career as something that to a certain extent is planned and predictable, many migrating students faces obstacles and changes that produces both educational and linguistic setbacks, as well as difficult emotional challenges growing up in conflict areas and moving to other parts of the world. We are using our experiences as educators to facilitate the student's` process of reflecting while looking back at their lives. It is our belief that such stories are opening doors to processes that can empower students and help teachers to better facilitate for adapted teaching in the multicultural classroom.

Through these stories we will learn how some migration students at a university college have experienced their process of education. They have qualified for higher education in Norway, and it is important to look at the factors that have contributed to this kind of success as well as challenges and obstacles. We focus on the environment into which they have been socialized and descriptions of how life has developed during their time in the school system, and on the choices they have done, and see if we can find any patterns in their stories. How have they adjusted to the serious changes in their lives over time? What do they think about the Norwegian school system now, having ended up in higher education? By telling these stories we also think that the students themselves will learn something about their choices and ways through the educational system.

In this study we have eight participants, 2 male and 6 female. The age at arrival in Norway varied from 5 to 28 year, and they came from Albania, Kurdistan (3), Afghanistan (2), Ukraine and Greece. One had all his schooling in Norway while some met the Norwegian system in late primary or secondary school. Two of the participants had university studies in their homeland before entering our university college. The sample of students were based on knowledge of possible candidates, as well as contact with program coordinators. The criteria for selection were migration to Norway at some time during their lives, and that they had qualified for higher education.

Researchers in such narrative projects can be able to process information in the direction of a coherent story. Several such stories can be compared, and it may be possible to look for patterns and perspectives that can provide new insights into the factors that affect people's lives and development. (Cresswell, 2009, p. 13) states that “narrative research is a strategy of inquiry in which the researcher studies the lives of individuals and asks one or more individuals to provide stories about their lives”. Through this processing of the students' stories, we make them available for systematic analysis and can thus retrieve both the unique experiences, and possible patterns in relation to the overall challenges in the field of education.

Keywords:

Migrant students, metacognition, educational experiences, second Language learning.