A.N. Other, B.N. Other (eds.), Title of Book, 00–00. © 2005 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. WAYNE VECK, LOUISE PAGDEN AND JULIE WHARTON 1. CHILDREN SEEKING REFUGE, ASSIMILATION AND INCLUSION: INSIGHTS FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM INTRODUCTION This chapter aims to elucidate the social and educational significance of distinguishing assimilation from inclusion for children who, having been uprooted from their homes, continue to confront an unnecessarily cruel world. ‘Arguably, the response to asylum-seeking and refugee youth,’ Pinson and Arnot (2010, p. 248) contend, ‘provides one of the greatest tests of social justice for any educational system’. In this chapter we address the complexities of this test by way of examining the pressures on schooling to assimilate children seeking refuge into existing school structures without pausing to consider the ways these children might be included. We are concerned here with two forms of assimilation. In pursuing this analysis we take our lead from the work of Zygmunt Bauman. In his writings, Bauman points to a significant distinction between processes of assimilation determined by the goals of modernity and processes formed within what he (2005a; 2013) names ‘liquid modernity’. The first is an active process that can see children new to the UK and seeking refuge within it forced, both to fit into fixed structures and practices, and to confirm to established values and social norms. The second process is characterised, not by what happens to people, but precisely by the absence of activity on, attention to and concern with them. This form of assimilation occurs, for example, when children seeking refuge find themselves left alone, abandoned, and thus with little choice but to adjust themselves to fit into a society of indifferent individuals. We name the former, assimilation into the given, and the latter, assimilation into indifference. Due, Riggs and Augoustinos (2016, p. 1287) usefully note that it ‘is important to consider the broader social context of schools in addition to the learning experiences of students with migrant or refugee backgrounds’. It is wit hin this broader context that we witness the ways the term refugee or asylum seeker can conjure up the image of the ‘stranger’ – someone unfamiliar to us in appearance or way of life. Bauman’s (2016) book, Strangers at our door, examines what has been described as the ‘migration crisis’ (p1), and emphasises the complex attitudes that this ‘crisis’ has given rise to. Despite the moral panic and feelings of fear that has spread across Western societies in recent years in relation to mass, forced migration, Bauman (2016, p. 2) suggests these same societies may be reaching a point of ‘refugee tragedy fatigue’. This chapter explores these shifting attitudes to immigrants in the UK, incorporating nationalism and xenophobia, and their consequences for children seeking refuge in the UK. We go on to address the role of schools that have been awarded the status of ‘Schools of Sanctuary’ in countering assimilation and promoting the inclusion of these children. LEARNING FROM SCHOOLS OF SANCTUARY