Education scholars have long marveled at the persistence of what they call the “grammar” of the American high school. Practices like grouping students in grades by age, dividing the day into hourlong classes and even arranging desks in rows have endured for at least three-quarters of a century. The grammar of American adolescence sometimes seems similarly immutable. Teenagers are forever in revolt, trying to navigate the tricky transition from childhood dependence to autonomous adulthood. At the same time, they yearn for a new sense of belonging, a way of fitting in with peers.

In Boise, Idaho, about 1,300 of the city’s 26,000 students last year were refugees, roughly a third of them in high school. The United States expects to resettle 85,000 refugees in 190 cities and towns nationwide this year. Like their American counterparts, Boise’s student refugees long to fit in, but they face enormous challenges. They arrive in the United States, along with immediate family members, after fleeing persecution in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda or other homelands that have been wracked by war, sectarian violence or ethnic cleansing. In most cases, these students have spent years, sometimes a decade or longer, in refugee camps or on the move in countries adjacent to their homelands, waiting for a chance at permanent resettlement through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency forwards suitable applications to potential host countries, which have the final say about who will be granted residency, an opportunity less than 1 percent of refugees worldwide receive. The security-clearance process in the United States usually takes 18 to 24 months.