'They Look Like Paper': Refugee Students Experiencing and Constructing 'the Social' at a Queensland High School

Educational institutions in Australia face complex challenges in providing inclusive learning experiences for a growing number of North African refugee students. This paper explores the school experiences of five North African refugee students who volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews in 2012. A qualitative intrinsic case study approach was employed to investigate participant experiences with their Australian peers. This included peer influence on defining social norms and the articulation of race, religion and social differences. Foucault's theories of discourse, the subject, disciplinary practices and normalisation, have been utilised as tools to drive the exploration of students' experiences. Participants encountered 'difference' in the Australian schooling context that affected their ability to connect to the social discourse and the disciplinary systems of school. Participants indicated that their knowledge of themselves, and others, had developed from a point of 'difference' and isolation, to ways of 'seeing' the characteristics of the 'Australian' student and the diversity within their 'white' peers and teachers. Exploring this discursive negotiation illuminates the taken-for-granted ways these students come to know the role of student, friend and school in facilitating membership and belonging.