RE-TEACH · Reclaiming professional identity: refugees’ challenges and supports with re-entering the teaching profession in Norway

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Project objective

Despite Norway's role as a major refugee-hosting context, little is known about refugee-background teachers' experiences with professional reintegration in the country. This reflects a wider European gap in research and practice, despite EU goals of refugee inclusion. The RE-TEACH project addresses this gap by examining the challenges and supports which shape teachers' return to the classroom, with a focus on professional identity, agency and intersectionality. The project has three objectives: (1) to synthesise European knowledge on refugee teachers' reintegration through a systematic review of academic and grey literature; (2) to generate in-depth, multimodal data on refugee-background teachers' lived experiences in Norway via a participatory case study; and (3) to produce evidence-based recommendations for policymakers and practitioners at local, national and EU levels. These objectives will be pursued through interdisciplinary methods spanning sociology, education and migration studies, in close collaboration with a refugee-serving organisation.The project centres refugee-background teachers' voices through interviews, focus groups and digital diaries, applying constructivist grounded theory to analyse how reintegration pathways are shaped by both structural and personal factors. It advances theoretical work on professional agency and identity, while informing policy innovation in credential recognition, employment support and inclusive school practices. Led by a researcher with extensive expertise in refugee education, migration and inclusion, and hosted by the Centre for the Study of Professions (SPS) at OsloMet—an institution with strong competence in labour market inequalities and professional integration—RE-TEACH promotes more equitable and effective reintegration into education systems. The project also supports Europe's broader goals of fostering inclusive societies and expanding access to skill-matched employment for migrants and refugees.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• OSLOMET - STORBYUNIVERSITETET · OsloCoordinatorNorway

Links

• View on CORDIS
• DOI: 10.3030/101274557