This international volume could not be more timely, given the high numbers of displaced people worldwide and the fact that so many schools and teachers are new to the experience of teaching refugee-background students. This beautiful collection of work exemplifies how research can be done in ways that work in conjunction with the desires that many former refugees have to remake their lives in a new land, on their own terms. The chapters in this volume lead me to the following comments and questions about education for refugees and refugee-background students.

It is fascinating to read studies from so many different countries – Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and the United States – discussing refugees from a wide range of countries of origin, including but not limited to Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, Guatemala, Iraq, Somali and the Sudan. This scope of the volume also illuminates that while educators are localizing solutions to particular contexts and groups, there can also be reinventing of the wheel on a worldwide basis, which points to the need for cross-border collaboration among educators, an idea modestly suggested by Bokus for the European Union. I would ask for even broader access to curricular solutions and programmatic innovations across contexts. We need to make the education of refugee-background students a worldwide endeavor and collaboration. This collection of work makes inroads into answering a number of essential questions:

How are refugee-background students unique? It is clear that the path from danger and disaster to classrooms in a new country may share similarities with the experiences of others who cross borders under duress. But these chapters illustrate how and why it is useful and important to explore how refugee-background students may be unique, despite vast diversity between and within groups. Their perspectives may diverge from other (im)migrants who cross borders under different sociopolitical or economic circumstances. Additionally, many countries have specific laws and regulations that apply to refugees, but not to other (im)migrants.