Framework: Capability for Integration

Abstract

Education and employment are widely recognized as central domains of refugee integration and are frequently used as key indicators of settlement success in resettlement countries such as Australia. Yet dominant integration frameworks often equate participation in these domains with successful integration, offering limited insight into how refugees are actually able to benefit from educational and employment opportunities. Against this backdrop and drawing on the human capability approach, the chapter proposes a conceptual framework that directs attention to the substantiveness of integration opportunities. By conceptualizing substantiveness through the interrelated dimensions of sufficiency, relevance, and convertibility, the chapter offers a nuanced lens for evaluating whether integration opportunities genuinely expand refugees’ real freedoms. As the conceptual foundation of the book, the chapter reframes refugee integration as a dynamic, justice-oriented process and provides an analytical framework for examining how education and employment systems shape refugees’ participation, agency, and long-term well-being.