Thesis advisor: Thomas M. Crea / In 2019, 851,508 persons were apprehended at the Southwestern US border without lawful immigration status in the US; of whom 473,682 were part of a family unit, and 76,020 were classified as unaccompanied children (UC). UC are those entering the US under the age of 18 without a parent/legal guardian available to care for them. Recent research on unaccompanied children in the US has focused on educational outcomes, trauma, family separation at the border, and resiliency. However, more research is needed around this population given their unique vulnerabilities, the current unreceptive political climate in the US, and the fact that 2019 has had the highest arrival numbers yet. This dissertation draws on administrative data to provide information that can improve the services that social service agencies are delivering, to highlight areas of future research, and to recommend specific tools for data collection. I aim to advance three areas of research related to the human rights violations and social exclusions experienced by unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in the US, as well as best practices used by service providers. The three areas are: (1) to understand the systems level facilitators and barriers to adjustment for UC, (2) to understand the challenges to formal education for UC, and the strategies that service providers are using to overcome these challenges, and (3) to examine the predictors of self-sufficiency for unaccompanied immigrants leaving foster care. The findings presented in this dissertation have multiple implications for policy, practice, research, and social work education. The qualitative studies provide a groundwork from which we can conduct more research in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the promising practices described, and advocate to increase funding and service availability. Through a greater understanding of the benefits and challenges to education for UC in foster care, we can build more inclusive and welcoming school environments, ultimately leading to higher educational attainment. Understanding the predictors of self-sufficiency can help caseworkers to better create service plans, and help agencies to advocate for funding of supplementary programming. Altogether, it is my hope that this knowledge can contribute to supports that help UC to be happier, thrive in school, and become productive members of our community. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

In the past decades, Sweden’s asylum policy known for its humanitarianism has taken a significant turn toward restrictiveness. In 2016 a temporary law was introduced in Sweden to restrict asylum seekers in reaction to the refugee crisis 2015. The group that has been hit hard by this law is the unaccompanied young refugees. In 2018 another temporary law referred to as the Upper Secondary School Act was enforced to allow certain unaccompanied young refugees to complete their upper secondary education studies. Those young refugees who received temporary resident permits may only extend his or her resident permit if he or she finds a permanent employment within six months after graduation from the second upper school. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of how the Upper Secondary School Act affects the lives of those young refugees, and how those young people orientate themselves in their everyday lives to live up to the law’s requirement. The study’s data has been gathered through a qualitative research method and six interviews are conducted with six young refugees affected by the Upper Secondary School Act. The study’s theoretical approach is based on orientation/disorientation, deserving, SOC(a sense of  Coherence) and human capital theory. The study shows that the Upper secondary school Act has led to negative consequences for those unaccompanied young refugees due to the law’s difficult requirement. It causes stress, mental problems and disorientation for the young refugees. The study also shows that the young refugees worked very hard to navigate the uncertainty in their lives, to fulfil the law’s requirement and claim for belonging in Sweden.  The study concludes that the political context shapes the lives of young refugees.

Denna studie undersöker vardagslitteracitet hos ensamkommande unga asylsökandesom studerar på allmänkurs vid en folkhögskola. Deras studier bedrivs på grundskoleochgymnasienivå. Samtliga av de unga är asylsökande med tillfälligt uppehållstillståndvillkorat av deltagande i studier på gymnasienivå.Studiens teoretiska ram tar sin utgångspunkt i en sociokulturell förståelse avlitteracitet utifrån New Literacy Studies samt hur litteracitet formas av diskurser.Dessa teorier sätts i relation till Gees och Wedins forskning kring flerspråkighet ochidentitetsförhandling. Analysen bygger på narrativ som beskriver de sju deltagarnasvardagslitteracitet utifrån insamlade foton och semistrukturerade fotoretrospektivaintervjuer.I studien delges hur deltagarnas vardagslitteracitet formas av omständigheter somkontext, språk, artefakter och arenor. De erfarenheter som framträder i narrativenskildras som fem teman: vardagsrutinernas praktiker, praktiker kringmyndighetskontakter och samhällsengagemang, mediepraktiker, praktiker kringrelationer och personlig kommunikation och lärande praktiker. Olika diskurservillkorar och möjliggör deltagarnas litteracitet. Dessa diskurser kan knytas tilldeltagarnas egen bakgrund, till kamrater, till skolans sammanhang och till detomgivande samhället.Studiens bidrag till forskningsområdet består bland annat i uppmärksammandet av deungas kompetenta förhållningssätt till sin vardagslitteracitet. Folkhögskolan som enmöjlig framgångsrik kontext för språk och litteracitetsutveckling lyfts fram iundersökningens resultat liksom att övergripande samhälleliga normer påverkar synenpå andraspråksinlärares kompetenser och erfarenheter. Av resultaten framträder enbild av den undervisning som deltagarna tar del av som normativt enspråkig, vilketosynliggör deltagarnas språkkompetens och begränsar deras möjligheter att bidra medegna och tidigare erfarenheter. I motsats till detta framstår vardagen utanför skolansom sammanhang där deras litteracitetsförvärvande möter vidare språkligautmaningar. Det är även främst utanför undervisningen, på skolan och i detomgivande samhället, som deltag arnas identitetsförhandling ar ochlitteracitetsutveckling äger rum i mötet med andra och nya diskurser. Dessa resultatuppmärksammar betydelsen av att erfarenheter utanför undervisningen värdesätts ochges utrymme i klassrummet. Resultaten bidrar med ny kunskap till forskningsfältetoch yrkesverksamma inom skolan beträffande den avgörande betydelse ettflerspråkigt perspektiv och flerspråkiga normer kan ha för deltagarnas utveckling. / This study examines everyday experiences of literacy described by unaccompaniedminors who are now following a general program of studies at a college of furthereducation (folkhögskola). Their studies are conducted at a secondary and uppersecondary school level. All of the participants are subject to the Swedish legislationapplying to residence permission and participation in upper secondary education.The underlying theories of this studie comes from literacy as embedded in socialcontexts from New Literacy Studies and as formed by discourses. These theoriesrelates to Gee’s and Wedin’s research about multilinguality and negotiation of identity.From a narrative approach the analysis presents the seven participants everydayexperiences of literacy from collected photographs and semistructured photoretrospective interviews.The studies contribution to the research area consists, among other things, in drawingattention to the young peoples competent approach to their everyday literacy.Folkhögskola as a possible successful context for language and literacy developmentis highlighted as well as how overall societal norms affect the view of secondlanguage learners skills and experiences. The results show a learning environmentnormed by the national Swedish language. These norms limits the participantsopportunities to contribute with experiences from their past. This is in sharp contrastto literacy in their everyday life outside of the classroom. Which circumstances appearmore open and demanding for language learning and acquisition of literacy andenables negotiating of identities. Literacy evolve outside the classroom in relation tovarious new discourses. This stress the importance of including experience fromoutside of the learning environment. The results also contribute with knowledge forprofessionals and to the research area concerning the crucial importance of amultilingual perspective and what significance multilingual norms can have forparticipants development.

David Werner Amram III, born in Philadelphia in 1930 is a celebrated American composer whose works have increasingly gained worldwide attention. His compositions embrace many genres including incidental music, film scores, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, instrumental trios, quartets, cantatas and operas as well as songs. One of Amram's earliest published songs, Pull My Daisy, is from his musical score for the experimental film of the same name. The song, text by Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, is set in a jazz style. Twelve of his songs, published in three collections are drawn either from his incidental music for Shakespeare plays or from his chamber opera, Twelfth Night. Another group written for baritone voice, wind and string quintets is entitled Three Songs for America. Trail of Beauty for mezzosoprano, oboe and orchestra contains four settings of Native American texts. The first chapter of this paper provides a biography of the composer. Succeeding chapters give some analysis of representative songs from each published group, background to their composition, texts, information from reviews where available, and the composers own comments from telephone interviews with the writer. An appendix contains brief illustrations of music from representative songs. It is observed that Amram's multifaceted musical interests have led him to write appealing and interesting music, both instrumental and vocal.

This study has been conducted in southwestern Sweden regarding asylum-seeking unaccompanied refugee children’s health. The aim is to investigate and understand unaccompanied refugee children’s health during their asylum-process based on care homes personnel’s experiences. The focus is on what factors that impact these children’s health the most and the data has been collected through interviews with personnel at care homes. The result showed that asylum-process, health care, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, traumatic events, and PTSD are factors that have a negative impact on these children’s health, and thatsecurity and integration have a positive impact on their health.

This study examines unaccompanied and newly arrived refugee girls’ possibilities to join collective activities. A lot of organizations in Sweden struggle to include unaccompanied and newly arrived refugee girls in activities such as sports and culture. Some of the causes to this problem derive from excluding mechanisms within the organizations, but also from the girls’ families or relatives who have certain rules regarding participation in activities. To increase the number of female participants, a number of organizations working with the target group are now developing projects using separatism as a method for inclusion. Separatism increases participation amongst girls, but it can be used as an alibi to compensate for inequalities within organizations. In order to receive good results from separatist work, the ideas from which separatism has evolved, such as feminism and equality, must be implemented throughout the entire work of the organizations using separatism as a method.

The ability of media to create powerful images, which shape how readers understand certain issues, is very important, especially when linked to questions regarding the attitude towards the Other. This study focuses on a problem which has not been sufficiently addressed by researchers so far – how unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan are constructed in Swedish media. Using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis in combination with postcolonial theory, eight news pieces were selected from two of Sweden’s leading newspapers; Aftonbladet and Expressen, in order to provide a deeper understanding of the discourses underpinning these constructions. Thus, this paper finds that the media coverage of the group is often negative and conflict-centered, framing the unaccompanied minors as either suspected liars or criminals which further contributes to the polarization between “Us” and “Them” in the Swedish society. Framing unaccompanied minors in this way, Aftonbladet and Expressen can contribute to the (re)production of stereotypes, affect public opinion and influence political decision and action regarding the group.

This study scrutinises, from a critical perspective, how Swedish mainstream news media depict children and youths categorised as unaccompanied after the identified discursive shift in the late autumn of 2015, where a more hostile and negative reporting on refugees became even more prominent. In addition, it explores what different power structures that are made visible in the news reporting. This is made possible by scrutinising 40 articles from the major national newspapers in Sweden that have daily releases, the so called mainstream media. The critical discourse analysis is used as a method and theory in order to find a focus that is critical and questioning towards existing power structures. Additionally, it contains a focus on how borders and differences are created between certain groups of people by using theoretical perspectives on otherness and postcolonial theory. The study shows an ambivalent media picture and clearly makes unequal and hierarchical power structures visible through the use of different assumptions, accepted truths and journalistic techniques.

Today, the concept “unaccompanied refugee children” is common in Swedish media. The concept is both dramatic and sad. Alone - refugee - child. It is about children, who alone escape from perse- cution, war, poverty and starvation. The purpose of this study is to investigate, from a user perspec- tive and to a certain extent a goal fulfillment perspective, how some unaccompanied refugee chil- dren look at and assess how Kalmar's municipality has succeeded in taking care of and supporting the possibilities of unaccompanied refugee children to be integrated into the municipality. The result shows that the children are mostly satisfied with the municipality's efforts. The conclu- sion is furthermore that some of the goals presented in the regional program have been achieved. Some have not. Keywords: unaccompanied refugee children, integration, security, education.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka ensamkommande barns upplevelser och erfarenheterav integrationsprocessen bland ensamkommande som har erfarenhet av att bo på ett HVB-hem.Semistrukturerade intervjuer gjordes med fem unga vuxna män som kommit till Sverige somensamkommande barn från Afghanistan. Materialet utmynnade i sju teman: boende ochutslussverksamhet, relation, språk och utbildning, integration, känslan av ensamhet ochutanförskap, psykisk ohälsa under asylprocessen samt i väntan på uppehållstillstånd.Resultaten visar att respondenterna upplevde att språket var viktigt för att komma in i detsvenska samhället och att det blev lättare att få ett arbete. Andra faktorer som de upplevdeviktiga för en lyckad integration är bland annat att skaffa svenska vänner, lära sig regler, densvenska kulturen och ett bra mottagande. Resultatet visar även det att respondenterna uppleveratt det har varit svårt att få svenska vänner både i skolan och i samhället, vilket bidrar tillutanförskap och ensamhet. Vidare visar studien att respondenterna tycker att socialarbetarebehöver mer utbildning i arbetet med ensamkommande barn för att få en bättre förståelse förderas kultur och vad barnen bär med sig. Intervjupersonernas upplevelser ger en beskrivning avhur de har haft det som ensamkommande barn, men det går inte att dra generella slutsatser tillen större population av ensamkommande. Sammanfattningsvis kan denna studieförhoppningsvis bidra till att förbättra förståelsen för ensamkommande barns behov undervistelsen vid HVB-hem.