How do refugee children experience their new situation in England and Denmark? Implications for educational policy and practice

Abstract

As the number of individuals who have been forced to flee their homes and country of origin has increased rapidly in recent years, the need to understand how best to support such individuals, especially the youngest of them, becomes pressing. This study presents findings from interviews with adults who had arrived as asylum-seekers in one of two countries, Denmark or England, when they were children. Qualitative findings based on Interpretative Phenomenological Analyses demonstrate the participants' focus on Language-based challenges that extend to further difficulties, Choosing to succeed, Gaining strength through social support, encouragement and guidance, Integrating two separate worlds into one and Seeing, hearing and understanding children's needs. The participants have had time to reflect on their early experiences of integration, and their voices can inform researchers, educators and other practitioners currently working with refugee children and families. Highlights o There is an urgent need to facilitate the integration of refugee children in Western asylum-countries o Extracts based on qualitative interviews present suggestions for prevention and intervention o Findings illustrate ways in which schools and communities can support refugee children o Findings also highlight the importance of providing appropriate training for teachers when dealing with refugee children

Psychological distress, resettlement stress, and lower school engagement among Arabic-speaking refugee parents in Sydney, Australia: A cross-sectional cohort study

“…In high-income countries of resettlement, school attendance is mandatory. This provides an opportunity to engage with parents from refugee backgrounds, in order to promote the well-being and community integration of refugee families as a whole [2][3][4]. In that regard, refugee parents' relationship with the school may be a critical factor in the successful adaptation of refugee students [5,6].…”

Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors’ understandings of integration. An interpretative phenomenological analysis

“…Increased knowledge about UMs' perspectives links integration policies with the daily experience of UMs (Kyeremeh et al, 2019) and thereby strengthens possibilities to provide adequate interventions. Therefore, there is a need for increased knowledge about how UMs perceive integration and how integration among UMs might be enhanced (Thommessen & Todd, 2018).…”

“…By specifically exploring the experiences of UMs from Afghanistan and their understandings of integration, we hope to present knowledge about what facilitates or complicates integration. To achieve this, UMs' experiences and agency and the complexity of their lives and experiences need to be recognized (Lalander & Herz, 2018;Thommessen & Todd, 2018).…”

How Children in Germany Experience Refugees: A Contribution From Childhood Studies

“…The special focus on the immediate settings of the children can be linked to what Bronfenbrenner called 'microsystems' in his ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1989) and, thus, falls into line with a theoretical lense widely used in the field of research on children's well-being when it comes to the question how to distinguish contextual, extra-personal factors and influences from individual ones (cf. Newland et al, 2015;Thommessen & Todd, 2018;UNICEF, 2020). Combined with the focus on experiences and reactions of non-refugee children this leads to an approach which also allows to identify in how far the conditions on the level of the 'macrosystem' (e.g.…”