Social Cultural Factors Influencing Refugee Girls In Accessing Education In Public Primary Schools In Eastleigh Sub-County, Nairobi County, Kenya.

Abstract

Refugees have been a part of human history as long as war, persecution, and natural disasters have existed. For centuries, people who were forced to flee their homes sought informal asylum granted by neighboring communities, rulers, religious institutions, or individuals. Communities of pre-modern times tended to view these newcomers as assets, as they would bolster the strength and production of its population. There was no formal conception of refugee until well after the formation of nation/states, and it was only in the very recent past that the international community officially recognized this group and developed formal regulations and practices relating to the rights and protection of refugees (Bixler, 2005). The individual, social, and community functioning of refugee girls are impacted by a wide variety of risk and protective factors. These risk and protective factors include characteristics of the individual, social and community environments prior to a refugee’s war and displacement experiences, factors during persecution and flight, as well as aspects of the resettlement environment. Risk and protective factors help to 2 explain individual differences in functioning in response to traumatic experiences and displacement (Vander veer, 1998).