(De)Colonizing Pedagogy: Possibilities and Tensions in Undergraduate Transformative Learning Through Simulation

Learning about Displacement Through Simulation

Many of our students will go on to work in schools, government, and business, and we want to equip them for future work and citizenship through developing stronger social justice awareness and principles. Bowman (2010) has shown that undergraduate students who take several diversity courses “have greater well-being, are more comfortable with differences, have a greater appreciation of others’ similarities and differences, and are more likely to interact and intend to interact with diverse others” (p. 558). In order to work toward a more socially just classroom and college environment as well as the potential for justice-oriented shifts in students’ future lives, we felt it advantageous to engage our students in concerted learning about global displacement.

Simulation has been shown to present a useful method for increasing student interest in civic life and engagement in critical social justice issues including internal displacement (Bachen et al., 2012; Cruz & Patterson, 2005; Zappile et al., 2017). For the purpose of this project, we adopt Cruz and Patterson (2005)’s definition of simulation:

[A simulation is] an instructional technique that attempts to recreate certain aspects of reality for the purpose of gaining information, clarifying values, understanding other cultures, or developing a skill. By using kinesthetic and affective modes of learning, participants learn by doing, feeling, analyzing, and reflecting. The sequence and implementation of the experience are usually highly prescribed, although participants act and react as their individual personalities and backgrounds dictate. (Cruz & Patterson, 2005, p. 43, p. 43)

We saw simulation as an opportunity to engage students’ kinesthetic (body) and affective (heart) dimensions in order to trigger cognitive learning (mind). Through the use of the simulation, we sought to design an embodied pedagogy that would challenge student assumptions, prompt cognitive shifts in how students conceptualize the experiences of displacement, and support critical reflection with the aim of moving students toward greater interest in global citizenship (see Bachen et al., 2012; Zappile et al., 2017) and social justice (see Adelman et al., 2016).

Scholarship and practitioners point to several challenges and limitations of simulations. First, simulations may, at times, lead to unintentional trivialization of the experience of others (Lucas, 2020). Second, simulations may unveil complex layers of student emotions, such as fear, anxiety, and anger (Adelman et al., 2016), which facilitators are often ill-equipped to deal with, and which may even traumatize simulation participants. For example, there have been a range of human rights complaints about the harm caused to Black participants by slavery re-enactments (e.g., de la Torre, 2013). Clearly, there is a need for thought and care in the design and implementation of simulations with social justice goals.

Transformative Learning

Transformative learning theory asserts that critical reflection upon previously unexamined frames of reference (i.e., the assumptions, expectations, beliefs, and judgements that allow us to make meaning) can trigger profound shifts in students’ thinking and actions, and consequently, their relationship to the world. Mezirow (2012) holds that an important avenue toward making meaning occurs by “becoming critically aware of one’s own tacit assumptions and expectations and those of others and assessing their relevance for making an interpretation” (p. 74). As such, transformation requires learning to “negotiate and act on our own purposes, values, feelings, and meanings rather than those we have uncritically assimilated from others” in order to build greater awareness of our values and the origin of the knowledge systems that we embrace (Mezirow, 2012, p. 76). According to Mezirow, transformative learning occurs when the process of critical reflection results in transforming “problematic frames of reference … to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change” (Mezirow, 2003, p. 58). Brookfield (2000) further asserts that to call learning transformative, a fundamental reordering of assumptions underlying thinking and actions needs to occur, such that their “new form is qualitatively different from the old” (p. 143).

Mezirow (2012) emphasizes a conscious, rational, critically reflective learning process through language, talk, and text. Although he notes that learning relies not just upon language, but also “when we experience presence, motion, color, texture, directionality, aesthetic or kinesthetic experience, empathy, feelings, appreciation, inspiration, or transcendence” (p. 75), Mezirow has not centered such embodied and affective processes within his theoretical discussion (Finnegan, 2014). In contrast, Dirkx et al. (2006) describes the individual’s “shadowy inner world,” which is an often-subconscious realm hidden from rational critical reflection, while emphasizing the need to “incorporate a holistic sense of the person” in personal learning processes (pp. 126–130). Thus, if transformative learning requires coming to more complexly know oneself, others and the world, then it seems beneficial to approach it through multimodal and multi-affective dimensions. Here, transformative learning may be understood as bound up in the kinesthetic dimensions of the body, affective dimensions of the heart, and cognitive dimensions of the mind. We posit that a transformed perspective of self and other requires complex, learning-oriented interactions of the body, heart, and mind.

Such transformation will, ideally, result in what Freire et al. (1968/2000) terms conscientization, a process of building strengthened political analysis and deepened critical understanding of the world, such that learners might better understand the ways in which current and historicized power relations uphold hegemony while systemically marginalizing particular populations (e.g., those with limited access to power based upon their social class, gender, racial identity, sexuality, and/or other factors). Ultimately, conscientization draws attention to the marginalizing impact of systems of power alongside the hopeful potential of people for unsettling and repositioning such inequities. Scholars have pointed to the disequilibrium experienced by students as they engage in conscientization when initially learning about diversity and systems of oppression (Boler & Zembylas, 2003; Curry-Stevens, 2007), particularly when such learning challenges students’ personal value systems (Mezirow, 2012). Such disequilibrium can lead to emotions like anger and sadness, and resistance to new ideas (Bowman, 2010).

Conscientization serves as the basis for informed action, or praxis. Like Freire et al. (1968/2000), who argues that processes of deep personal and cyclical engagement in reflection and action (i.e., praxis) creates change, Mezirow (2012) describes how people can learn to critically (re)assess the world through developing revised frames of reference. They may choose to alter their thinking and behavior based upon such learning processes. For Mezirow, transformation is primarily focused at the individual level (Finnegan, 2014) and can occur with or without culminating in social action against marginalizing power relations (Brookfield, 2000; Hoggan et al., 2017). On the other hand, Freire’s concepts of conscientization and praxis inherently acknowledge and challenge the broader power structures that negatively impact various groups of people, and thus situates collective action as necessary for triggering broader social change (Cranton & Taylor, 2012; Freire, 1968/2000; Freire & Ramos, 2000; Hoggan et al., 2017).

Alongside Kincheloe and Steinberg (1998), in this project we seek to empower our students to move toward collectively unsettling oppressive social, cultural, and political norms. We do so by guiding students through a simulation of refugee experience that asks them to simultaneously engage kinesthetic, affective, and cognitive dimensions of learning that intertwine to create more expansive opportunities for conscientization. And, while we acknowledge that the simulation presents limitations in praxis, particularly due to its imposed time constraints and brevity, we have simultaneously observed that simulation can provide students with meaningful opportunity to imagine themselves and the world differently. We see conscientization as a fundamental component of our work as educators and strive to create opportunity for students to engage in praxis-oriented transformation that begins with the individual, but also ideally extends into shifting broader power relations.

Others have written about the ways in which transformative learning theory centers Whiteness and has often been shaped by the scholarship of White men (see Mackinlay & Barney, 2014). Because we are studying learning about experiences of displacement amongst a population of undergraduates, many of whom tend to experience privilege resulting from their racial and citizenship identities, we believe it is necessary to additionally draw upon theory that centers critical orientations to power, Whiteness, and coloniality from a global perspective. Thus, we embrace decolonial theory alongside transformative learning theory as a means for building stronger critical analysis of the dynamics of learning about systemic marginalization and oppression.

Decolonial Theory

Decolonial theory offers a rich framework through which to consider how to educate primarily privileged populations about global displacement, as well as the strengths and limitations of simulation as pedagogy. Decolonial theory rejects Western European supremacy by colonial/racial subjects and strives to reposition power relations toward decolonial goals and outcomes. Fanon (1963/2004) describes decolonization as a project seeking to shift social structures from the bottom up, with those who have been colonized pushing for and leading the change process. Mohanty (2003) builds on this work to argue that decolonization is “central to the practice of democracy” through allowing for the “re-envisioning of democracy outside free-market, procedural conceptions of individual agency and state governance.” Meanwhile, such processes center a “self-reflexive collective practice” that transforms the self while engaged in political mobilization to shift society and broader relations of ruling (Mohanty, 2003, p. 8). In other words, decolonization strives for deep and grassroots-driven democracy that centers the visionary and political agency of those who have been historically disenfranchised in the effort to transform personal, interpersonal and broader sociopolitical relations, and systems toward counter-hegemonic ends.

Ríos-Rojas and Stern (2018) argue that such a repositioning requires a process of dreaming and (re)imagining that must take place outside of existing ideological and policy constraints. They point out that the existing relation of power and ruling “controls and disciplines the limits of dreaming by tethering dreams to profit, legality and belonging” (p. 93). Dreaming of new and more equitable socioeconomic power relationships requires stepping outside of existing hegemonic ideological, economic and policy constraints. A creative and transformative dreaming of new ways of being requires the ability and drive to dream.

For Mohanty (2003), the physical act of border-crossing enables critical reflection on the systems of power embedded in the “first” and the “third” worlds. She writes, “The very crossing of regional, national, cultural, and geographical borders seems to enable me to reflect on questions of identity, community and politics” (p. 134). Mohanty’s embodied act of physically crossing borders enables her to build awareness and analysis. Similarly, in our own work, we strive to assist students in building knowledge of identity, community, politics, and systems of power but are limited, in part, by the walls of the university that separate our students from the broader world. Thus, we sought to recreate aspects of border-crossing within the context of the university in order to simulate an experience that might allow students to build knowledge and critical analysis of broader power relations impacting displaced persons.

Meanwhile, decolonial theory asks us to acknowledge and consider the complexity of reconciling the White and power-laden history of a predominantly White institution with a decolonial project. It points to the ways in which social justice education pedagogy can open doors, but is perhaps limited in the depth of learning that might be triggered among learners due to the long and inequitable history embedded within the broader institution. Further, there is a long history of research advancing particular conceptualizations of the self and the world that privilege established hegemonic perspectives and relations (Smith, 1999). We recognize that there are fundamental and perhaps irreconcilable tensions embedded in having White settlers (i.e., the authors and affiliate) facilitate learning and research opportunities that embrace decolonial goals, and we return to considering this particular challenge in the latter sections of this paper.

Decolonial Methodological Influences

Decolonial methods point to the historicized violence embedded in academic research and call for more complex notions of defining what knowledge is, alongside enhanced conscious awareness of who benefits from the categories and ideas generated by academic research (Smith, 1999). We sought to ask ourselves critical questions such as: “How can I best capture the complexities and contradictions of the worlds, experiences, or texts I am studying? Whose voice will/does my research represent? Whose interests will it serve?” (Strega, 2005, p. 199). Rather than striving to produce a simple answer to our research question, we are fundamentally interested in the nuances and, at times, uneasy tensions as we examine the efficacy of simulation as a pedagogical tool.

Researcher Positionality

The authors and the affiliate who facilitated the simulation are three cisgender, settler, first world, middle-class White women who grew up with English as our first and home language. Although one of us was born and raised in Canada, all are U.S. citizens by birth. Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth has worked with refugees and migrants as a volunteer with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and through teaching ESL classes. Rhiannon Maton worked with newcomers to Canada, some of whom were asylum seekers and refugees, as a public-school teacher for over 5 years. Our affiliate, Pat Carrick, is a member of Doctors Without Borders and an aid worker with medical experience.

Our personal identities provide us with significant privilege resulting from our citizenship, family colonial histories, linguistic, and racial identities. Meanwhile, we are strongly committed to an active and critical awareness of the impact of violence on the lives of our students and those who are displaced, and recognize the danger of teaching about refugee experience, especially insofar as the two researchers and the affiliate are all White women who have not personally experienced displacement or marginalization based upon geography or nationhood. We recognize the inherent risk in telling the stories of “others” and how such stories, when taken out of the hands of those to whom they belong, “can become another form of beating” (Ahmed, 2017, p. 72). We consider the implications of these serious limitations within this article.

Context

Participants in this study were eighty-nine education and economics students over the Spring 2020 semester in a mid-sized public university in the Northeastern United States, whose student body is mostly composed of middle-class White students, with a smaller group of working-class students and Latinx and/or racial minority students. Students ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-five. Four students self-identified as immigrants and no students self-identified as refugees. Education students were enrolled in two sections of a first-year course on race, class, and gender, where Rhiannon Maton strives to challenge and unsettle their assumptions about identity and who benefits and is marginalized within schools based upon systemic factors. Economics students were enrolled in two sections of a 300-level course on economic development, where Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth endeavors to engage students in critical reflection on North–South hierarchical development processes.

The Simulation

The simulation was based on an interactive exhibit, Forced From Home, conducted nationally by Doctors Without Borders from 2016 to 2018 to bring attention to the global refugee crisis (Doctors Without Borders, 2018a; 2018b). Our simulation was led by our affiliate, Pat Carrick, who had extensive experience guiding groups through the nationwide Forced From Home exhibit. All students were given the option to opt-out of the simulation. The study received IRB approval at the institutional level and student identity is confidential. The simulation was staged at the tail end of learning modules addressing refugee and immigrant issues wherein students reviewed immigration and refugee law and experiences in the United States and global contexts.

We conducted the simulation four times for groups of twenty to twenty-five students, for a total of eighty-nine students. Each instance of a simulation lasted an hour and fifteen minutes and was composed of seven stations. The first station provided an introduction to the refugee crisis, the facilitators, and the simulation. Students were given an identity card describing their country of origin and their status (refugee or internally displaced person). In the second station, students were presented with five major refugee situations that matched their identity cards. They were then told they had to leave their homes quickly and were given 30 seconds to choose five items to bring, represented by images on laminated cards. Students used these cards to pay for their passage between stations, signifying refugees’ need to access resources along their journey. The third station covered transportation methods used by refugees. Students then arrived at the fourth station, the border, which was demarcated with physical orange plastic fences and where common experiences, such as familial separation, were described and acted out. The fifth station was a market represented by tables holding bowls of foods and goods, and with buckets of water, where facilitators described refugee trade and resourcefulness in acquiring necessary resources. The sixth station was a medical station, which described the treatment of common health ailments of refugees and provided a demonstration of the mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) tape—a malnutrition measurement. The seventh station was a refugee camp composed of several tents with sleeping bags inside and tarps thrown over top, where the topics of living conditions, length of stay, legal status, and asylum were reviewed. Throughout, students were encouraged to examine photographs of global refugees and their contexts and experiences.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data sources for this project are as follows. All student participants filled out a survey before and after the class modules on refugees. Both Rhiannon Maton and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth observed some or all of the simulations, with at least one researcher present for each simulation. Each class participated in an hour and fifteen-minute long post-simulation debriefing discussion, which was recorded and transcribed. Students also filled out and submitted written reflections. Although we recognize the simulation itself occurred over a short period of time, it was contained within broader modules on refugees and immigration in both Rhiannon Maton’s and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth’s classes (as noted previously).

We followed Charmaz’s (2014) grounded theory approach to conduct our coding of the transcribed debriefing discussions and written reflections in order to build our analysis. Our sensitizing concepts (Charmaz, 2014), that is, the initial ideas that informed our research project, were connection and challenging beliefs. We were concerned about whether and how the simulation might encourage students to create connection to others they knew little about, and to what extent the simulation might cause students to challenge their beliefs. These concepts shaped our study, informed our debriefing questions, and provided a starting point for our data analysis.

The discussion debriefs and written reflections were coded in two cycles by Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth. In the first cycle, initial coding was conducted line-by-line to describe and group student responses, resulting in sixty-three codes that could be grouped into eight initial categories, such as simulation as an experience, student feelings, and student perceptions of refugees. The authors met frequently to build, review, and redefine codes using transformative learning and decolonial theoretic lenses to examine the data for conceptual patterns, themes, and categories. We found that students related to the simulation through their physical and emotional experience, impacting how students connected to and understood the experience of displaced people. We then explored how shifts in their thinking appeared to evolve. When reflecting on their physical and emotional experiences, they (re)built their conceptualizations of displaced people and reflected on their own role in the larger socio-political arena. As such, in our second focused coding cycle we formed codes around these primary findings, where we evaluated student shifts related to body (kinesthetic), heart (affective), and mind (cognitive), as well as outcomes related to notions of “helping.”

Body-Related Shifts

Simulation requires students to take on a role and act it out physically. In this simulation, the students took on the identity of a refugee or an internally displaced person and followed their path from displacement to a refugee camp. The embodiment of these roles promoted physical connection and helped students to envision what the experience might “feel” like. One student wrote:

… you saw yourself in the situation. When you just read an article, it’s information about people that are far away and have nothing to do with this. But in the simulation, you kind of feel like “this could be me,” “this has really happened to some people and this is not as far [away] as I think it would be.”

Many students initially perceived the refugee experience as far removed and unrelated to their lives, but the simulation allowed students to feel closer and relate more to the experience as they imagined it.

Students’ references to the physical aspect of the simulation often emphasized movement, walking, shoes, and feet. The students engaged in movement as they walked from station to station, and they tended to seamlessly relate their own movement to the actual refugee experience. One student said, “What stood out to me the most was just thinking about their feet, walking for miles a day.” Student attempts to embody refugee experiences were clear in their written reflections, which frequently employed such phrases as: “what it’s like to be in their shoes,” “to step into the place of a refugee,” and “made you feel like you yourself were in the same place as some of the refugees.”

Physical embodiment elicited emotions and cognitive judgments amongst simulation participants. One student, while packing and leaving home in the simulation, highlighted the feeling of confusion that emerged from not knowing the “right” decision:

I found it very significant that we had a passport and we had to actually “pack” up and leave... The items we had to take and then give up showed me how hard these kinds of decisions are; what do you bring, and what can you give up, and what are the consequences of your decisions? It felt like something was going to go wrong either way, because my privileged brain understood that these were things we needed to live, and I’d never had to live without them.

The physical action of packing prompted a question of which items to take and which to leave behind, alongside feelings of stress and anxiety around making the wrong decision. In the above case, the student realized how hard it could be to follow this path without the many comforts and necessities that are all too often taken for granted.

Carrying out physical tasks such as choosing possessions to take and lifting five-gallon water buckets led students to imagine the experiences of refugees. They expressed discomfort in standing through the simulation (there were chairs available if students were tired) and related it to the physical discomfort of travelling by foot while burdened by carrying their necessities. We found that students’ physical experiences of the simulation were connected with their emotional responses to their imagined experiences of refugees.

Heart-Related Shifts

Students expressed emotional reactions to taking on the role of refugees in the simulation. Many of the emotions were empathic. For example, one student reflected upon the simulation photographs:

The visual aspect, seeing real pictures of people brought out a deeper empathy, or a deeper emotional response for me. Because to see actual people on these rafts, in the refugee camps, real mothers and children, and people having to go through this makes it more impactful than reading words.

As this student notes, going through the simulation provided a different context for connection with the possibility of evoking a stronger emotional response than might be achieved through reading articles. Another student wrote:

I think the most significant aspect of the simulation was the point that refugees are not a distant concept from me. They are people with families that they love. They have goals and dreams just like me.

For some students, the simulation supported them in building enhanced connection with displaced people while providing a critical perspective on displacement.

Evidence from the in-class debriefs and written reflections showed that students reacted most strongly to the simulation stations dealing with medical care and border crossing. In the medical care station, the facilitator demonstrated the measurement of malnutrition by placing a MUAC tape around a slim young woman’s arm showing that she was healthy. The facilitator then indicated to students the arm diameter for a severely malnourished child, a result that often occurs during movement around one’s own country as an internally displaced person or movement between countries as a refugee. Students said they were “shocked,” “surprised,” that it was “crazy” or “scary,” and “it made me very sad” to see how small the circle was for a severely malnourished child. One student wrote, “The armband [i.e., MUAC tape] really upset me because I’ve seen it in videos online but never realized how small the red [severe malnutrition] really is.” Another student wrote, “the size of it [MUAC tape], it seems smaller than a bone in the arm.” Seeing an actual representation of malnutrition and comparing it with a healthy peer was particularly impactful for the students because it provided a visualization of the problem.

The station that described possible border situations included an explanation of the familial separation that refugees can face when they do not have the necessary documentation or when only certain groups are let through. One student wrote, “The idea of family separation is just awful.” Others called it “sad,” “surprising,” “shocking,” and “heart-breaking.”

Yet, the part that students wrote about with the greatest emotion dealt with the responsibility of the countries that the refugees were seeking to enter or had already entered. Several students expressed this eloquently:

But really these are people; these are refugees fleeing from violence in their own countries, fleeing from instability. And for us to be spewing a narrative of them [as] being these horrible people when in reality they are suffering so deeply, and for us to be, “you can’t come into our country,” it made me actually angry because I was like, how dare us?

The biggest part for me is how we do not even make them feel welcome. We are so close-minded. They have gone through all these traumas and all these experiences and then for them to come and just try and be safe and stable in this country and then to constantly have to face racism and hear our own president be like, “You are not welcome here,” is infuriating.

Students began to articulate their own country’s responsibility toward refugees. Additionally, they reflected on the individual citizen’s misgivings toward refugees entering into the United States and how these refugees are sometimes treated. They then made moral-ethical judgments based upon personal emotions of anger, frustration, and sadness.

Mind-Related Shifts

The simulation unsettled some students’ assumptions about refugees. For example, in the debrief, one student talked about how they had previously thought refugees were trying to “scam the system” by moving to the United States to improve their economic opportunities. They then noted they had changed their mind on this and said, “But for the most part that just isn’t the case.” Several students spoke about societal portrayals of refugees as needlessly using United States resources, or as potential terrorists, in effect “using [refugees] as scapegoats,” to eliminate public responsibility for providing refugees with resources. In other words, as one student put it, such blame directed toward refugees might be considered a “cover-up for [Americans] being selfish.” Another student wrote, “…as individuals we sort of use [negative stereotypes] so that we don’t feel as guilty for not contributing, the same way we might with poverty [when we say], ‘Oh they’re actually making hundreds of dollars a day begging on the street.’” The idea of refugees as scapegoats indicates students were making a link between a national or personal resistance to refugee assistance by blaming a vulnerable population for their own situation. Students articulated, “It [the simulation] challenges the idea that people choose to become refugees. Refugees are searching for survival.”

Another student wrote about how the simulation deepened their understanding of the refugee experience:

I have always known that it is difficult to leave your home and just pack what you can and leave. However, I never truly thought about the fact that along the way these people give up the things that they bring with them to carry on. Like in the simulation...we needed to give up a card of the things we decided to bring. That to me was a true eye-opener because I have heard many people that say, “I only came with my passport to the United States” ... and now I understand why; it isn’t because they are careless, it’s because they don’t have a choice [emphasis by authors].

This case represents a student, who though initially sympathetic to displaced peoples, had still seen them negatively for failing to provide for themselves. Through the simulation, this student came to recognize that their characterization of displaced people as “careless” did not account for the difficulties, power imbalances, and political barriers experienced by refugees.

In many cases, students presented their ignorance of the refugee situation, writing in their reflections, “I didn’t know,” “I had no idea,” “I was not aware,” and “I didn’t even know some of these places.” They noted that the simulation helped them to become more “aware,” “understand better,” and “become more informed.” One student wrote:

…for people that advocate for refugees not to be here, I think maybe they are ignorant of what these people go through. They don’t see that they have to cross borders... They have to give up everything that they have to come to a place they don’t want to be in... They don’t know that they struggled so much to be in a country where they’re not even accepted, and it’s the only place they can seek safety. So, I feel like that’s why people don’t want them here because they think like, “Oh they’re different. Why are they here?”

This student seems to generalize from their peer’s ignorance about displaced people to the U.S. population as a whole, and conclude that this ignorance underlies negative characterizations of refugees that lead some to deny refugees assistance.

As such, many students began to identify and challenge their own personal assumptions about refugee experiences. Yet, we think it is important to mention that students did not conceptually push back against the professors’ presentation of refugee experience during the simulation. They did not ask about, or challenge us on, our own knowledge about the topic, perhaps based upon our identities as White, settler women.

Students and the Desire to “Help”

Students responded to the simulation in a variety of ways. Many students stated they wanted to learn more about refugees. Some students aiming to become teachers wrote that they wanted to incorporate information and modules about refugees into their future classrooms and hoped to be more sensitive to their students who were not from the U.S. For example, one student wrote:

Prior to the simulation, I hadn’t seen myself becoming involved in the refugee crisis. However, now I am eager to learn more and find out ways I can help. I also plan on using this information and implementing it in my future classroom so that my students can be educated as well.

Many students desired to help refugees either through donations, their own careers, or via volunteering, and at times expressed such desires as a moral obligation to help refugees.

Some students focused on the agency of displaced people. In reflections, students noted the incredible resourcefulness, creativity, and capability displaced people exhibited in overcoming the numerous obstacles they faced. Yet, other students focused on the victimization experienced by displaced people. For example, one student commented that displaced people may be incapable of looking beyond their conditions to recognize the fullness of life: “It also made me upset to think that refugees do not and may never understand that there is more to life than just surviving [emphasis by authors].” This example shows that some students exhibited a one-dimensional understanding of displaced people, positioning them as victims without agency.