Florida State University assistant professor Celia Reddick emphasized the importance of teachers in supporting refugee children and their families, according to a March 12 announcement. Reddick, who works with the Learning Systems Institute and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at FSU, focuses her research on teaching in settings affected by forced migration.
Her work is significant as it sheds light on how education can provide stability and hope for young people who have been displaced. Reddick said her research shows that teachers play a central role in helping these students adapt to new environments.
“I really believe in the central role of teachers in young people’s lives, and my research is bearing that out as well,” Reddick said. “When a teacher goes the extra mile, and tries to help a student understand, to form a friendship with another kid and to use a familiar language, that makes all the difference in the world.”
Reddick has observed classrooms in East Africa, particularly Uganda and Rwanda, where she saw both dedicated teachers and hardworking refugee families striving for educational opportunities despite challenges. “The most salient idea that I hope comes out of my work is how hard refugee young people are working in schools where they don’t have claims to citizenship,” she said. “They’re often navigating new languages, a new culture, a new environment, and yet are working hard to find educational opportunity, even in these impossible circumstances.”
Her interest in refugee education began when she was a New York City Teaching Fellow working with students from diverse backgrounds. This experience led her to Uganda as a teacher trainer developing literacy curriculum for new educators. After earning her doctorate at Harvard University focusing on forced migration and multilingualism, she joined FSU’s Learning Systems Institute in 2024.
Reddick recently collaborated with colleagues on projects supporting resettled refugees in the United States through an LSI seed grant. She also received funding from the Jacobs CIFAR Research Fellowship for comparative studies involving Colombia, Uganda, and Germany. Reflecting on her experiences at FSU she said: “Florida State has been so great and such a wonderful place to do this… I’m fortunate in that way.”
She noted that many refugee families view education as an investment for their children’s future: “What I heard over and over again in Kampala, Uganda, was families saying the education that kids were getting was their investment in the future… And I’m hearing that from kids here in the U.S.”
Reddick concluded by describing her work as collaborative: “It’s gratifying to feel that you might be making small, incremental progress… It’s not me thinking of something that’s used, it’s us creating and learning together… It’s very humbling being in classrooms where there are 10 languages represented…”
Through ongoing research at Florida State University, Reddick aims to ensure education remains a source of dignity and hope for displaced students worldwide.
