Whose Voices Are Heard in the Scholarship on Activism Related to School-Aged Youth With Migrant Backgrounds? A Systematic Review

This review outlines the scholarship landscape and uncovers the nature and key characteristics of activism related to migrant school-aged youth. Employing PICOT and PRISMA protocols, 126 relevant articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2023 were identified. We employed a three-layered, mixed-methods analytical framework to map the scholarship and to decipher the nature of agency and the voice of activism. The review revealed that migrant youth engage in diverse forms of activism, primarily driven by their anchoring to society and a desire to secure their rights. Furthermore, we found activism concerning school-aged migrants is often initiated and led by their allies (e.g., NGOs, schools) and consequently studied from the latter’s perspectives. Our findings highlight an overrepresentation of investigations focusing on issues surrounding activism rather than migrants’ lived experiences of activism. This analysis lays the groundwork for a further conceptualization of the field of migrant school-aged youth.