Paper short abstract:

This paper is focused both on adaptation of refugee children from the Middle East at ethnically mixed classrooms, and on challenging issues, which the female researcher encounters during her fieldwork in a camp. The refugees I worked with came to Bulgaria mainly after 2013.

Paper long abstract:

This paper deals with my experience as ethnographer at the refugee camp in Kharmanli, a small town in South Bulgaria, where I did a fieldwork in 2018 among refugee parents and children from the Middle East. I will analyse the process of adaptation of children during two school years - 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. Then, for the first time, a large group of refugees were enrolled in municipal schools and this provoked a public discussion on acceptance and discrimination. By taking into account the cultural and social elements of their adaptation, I will present the most challenging issues, which the female researcher encounters during her fieldwork.

Specifically, this paper is focused on adaptation of refugee children at ethnically mixed classrooms, and is interested in social relations between Afghani pupils, Bulgarian Gypsies (Roma), ethnic Bulgarian, Turks, and other refugee children from the Middle East (Syria, Iraq), and relations of parents and children with the school-related staff. Also, it is interested in parents and children’ attitudes to 'Afghani' school, which they self-created within the camp in 2016. Broadly put, the refugee pupils are considered as ‘vulnerable’ students, supposing to have specific educational needs, and are approached as ‘different’ along with the Bulgarian Roma students, assuming that both do not have a good command of Bulgarian and are at risk of social exclusion. Cases of discriminate attitudes are also common towards refugee and Bulgarian Roma kids. Here, often the reference by school staff is made to the tension between ‘school culture’ and ‘family culture’.