How do non-citizen children claim space? A comparative place-based methodological exploration
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), of the 117.3  million displaced people worldwide,  47 million are children and youth, many of whom live in urban areas. Understanding the lived experiences and barriers to education for displaced children, most of whom will be living outside their country of birth for protracted periods, has never been more pressing. While scholars and policy-makers attempt to understand best practices and their influence on children’s well-being, educational trajectories and social integration, the differences between contexts make it difficult to compare the experiences across different case studies. This has often led comparative scholars to focus either on the implementation of a specific policy or legacy of a specific tradition (e.g., colonialist, feminist) or to choose several particular variables, which inevitably means that complexities are lost and critical issues may be overlooked (Brown and Schwisfurth 2024). Spatial analysis allows us to look at the social production of space at local scales (Vavrus 2015, 138) and consider context through space. Employing Massey’s framework of looking at how trajectories interact in space allows us to look at “power geometries, " investigate school-community interactions, and open up the context complexities (Dunne et al. 2021). Based on three case studies in urban centers in Kampala, Uganda, Tel Aviv, Israel and Philadelphia, United States, this paper argues that this framework allows us to focus on locally relevant ‘burning’ educational questions for displaced children while allowing for comparative analysis. Through the integration of school ethnography, in-depth neighborhood analysis, and GIS mapping techniques, the research examines how refugee and migrant children experience integration within the intersecting local histories, geographies of migration, and educational landscapes of their specific localities. The study explores the diverse perceptions of migration, belonging, and locality that shape children’s experiences in school and neighborhood spaces, highlighting the role of historical and contemporary migration contexts in shaping educational access, social mobility, and well-being. By linking these lived experiences to broader “everyday geographies” (Mankiw, 2015), the paper offers a nuanced understanding of how place, identity, and education intersect while expanding the analytical lens beyond legal migration frameworks and school boundaries. The transnational comparison reveals critical insights into how educational and social integration processes vary across national and historical contexts, offering a new perspective on comparative children’s geographies and migration studies.

Collective Responsibility: Cultivating Inclusive Classrooms for Refugee Children through Ubuntu-inspired educational practices
This article presents findings from an ethnographic study focusing on the inclusion of refugee children in three refugee-hosting primary schools in Kampala, Uganda. I draw on classroom participatory observations and fieldnotes from several months of ethnographic work to help unravel the intricate interplay of local integration policy, pedagogy, and societal perceptions of migration and childhood in shaping the lived experiences of refugee children. The analysis delves into the impact of convergent pedagogical practices and cultural values on refugee children's sense of belonging and well-being in the classroom. While acknowledging the broader influence of increasingly nationalistic and anti-migratory global discourse on refugee children's school experiences (McIntyre & Abrams, 2021), this article contends that local definitions of belonging, membership, and well-being also wield significant influence. Specifically, the study explores how Ugandan teachers employ a blend of convergent Western and traditional Ubuntu-inspired, whole-class pedagogy to create an instructional environment that diminishes differences between children but also underscores mutual support, solidarity, and responsibility. This research exemplifies alternative conceptualizations of refugee inclusion originating from the Global South, emphasizing a paradigm centered on collective responsibility, diverging from approaches that frame refugees as individuals undertaking (or resisting) integration efforts.

Leveraging Vulnerability? Refugee Status and Advocating for Belonging in Kampala Public Schools
Uganda's government maintains an open-door policy for refugees but promotes self-reliance once they arrive, creating ambiguities and contradictions in refugee-related discourse. Without government aid, organizations, communities, and individuals bear the social and economic pressures of hosting refugees. In Kampala, where a growing number of self-settled refugees intensifies existing community challenges, debates arise over prioritizing the needs of refugees versus those of the wider population. Within host communities, institutions, NGOs, and among refugees themselves, two contrasting images emerge: refugees as vulnerable versus self-reliant. Some institutions advocate for refugees by emphasizing their vulnerability and need for special assistance, while others espouse imaginaries of refugee resourcefulness and privilege, thereby rejecting the need for aid. These discourses are closely tied to broader questions of deservingness and the city's ongoing social and economic challenges. This article focuses on schools in Kampala that host refugee children, exploring how school administrators, teachers, refugee parents, and children themselves invoke these narratives of vulnerability or self-reliance, and how these perceptions shape refugees' self-identity., The examination of these discourses provides rare insights into how institutions, communities and refugees themselves experience and interpret the economic and social outcomes of government policies based on both open-door and self-reliance.