In this article, the author probes a question at the core of comparative education – how to realize the right to education for all and ensure opportunities to use that education for future participation in society. She does so thorough examination of refugee education from World War II to the present, including analysis of an original dataset of documents (n=214) and semi-structured interviews (n=208). The data illuminate how refugee children are caught between the global promise of universal human rights, the definition of citizenship rights within nation-states, and the realization of these sets of rights in everyday practices.