This thesis examines the impact migration has on Filipinas living in the Western Suburbs of Sydney and the strategies employed by them to enable their adaptation to the Australian way of life. The migration experiences of ten Filipinas will be documented, recounting the process of social learning and the changes in themselves. The issue of unexpected learning which occurs as a part of this process and which is rarely documented will also be examined. The study draws on some of the issues raised by Filipinas arising from a series of in-depth interviews. These issues include the lack of knowledge of the Australian culture and the need to change customary ways in order to adapt. Motivation and skills need to adjust to a new culture, and how they are utilised to enable social learning also form part of this study. / Master of Arts (Hons)

As one of the largest non-English speaking groups in Australia, Chinese immigrants, refugees and sojourners are becoming more visible and have begun to exert more influence on Australian society. These groups can be better understood by reading and analysing Chinese literature in Australia because these contemporary Chinese literary works discuss a numbers of issues, such as how migrants and refugees adapted to the host culture while preserving their traditional culture; how they became involved into the new society and became a part of it; and what anxieties and difficulties they encountered in the process of displacement and transition. The current study uses the theories of both cultural studies and inter-cultural communication theorists to examine literary works written in Chinese by Chinese immigrants to Australia. Literary theory is also used as a methodological tool to analyse the writings. The study compares the works of writers from mainland China with the writings of Chinese from other country ('Chinese outsiders'). Although the two groups write on similar themes, the research shows that the characteristics, and the general perspectives they present are quite different from one another.

No description available.

We examine the effects of changed eligibility rules to disability pension by the 1979 Swedish pension reform on immigrant retirement behavior. The reform made disability pension in the form of basic pension available to a wider group of immigrants. By using the LINDA database in a “difference-in-difference” model we estimate the effects of the reform on the probability of retirement in the age group 40-64. We find a positive impact of the reform on immigrant retirement behavior among women. Our results also indicate that naturalization may have been a way to get access to disability pension for those who, before the reform, had no legal right to basic pension.

No description available.

This study explored the responsiveness of two Ontario Colleges (called Eastern and Western for the purposes of this study) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to internationally trained immigrant (ITI) students accessing college education for retraining purposes. Many highly educated immigrants are unable to have their credentials recognized because professional regulatory bodies and employers are reluctant to accept their previous education and work experience. Therefore, many ITIs access Ontario college education in the hope that, upon graduation, they will find skill-related employment that will contribute to their settlement in Canada. The purpose of this research was to examine how the two participating colleges address the ITI students’ occupation-specific needs in their current institutional policies and practices. Qualitative research methods, interviews and document analysis, were utilized to examine the admission and program delivery practices at each of the study colleges. Interviews were conducted with 13 ITI student participants and 14 college personnel to provide an opportunity for them to voice their opinions about their college experiences. To provide direction for interpreting and analyzing the research findings, the single- and double-loop organizational learning framework developed by Argyris and Schon (1974, 1978) was used. The findings suggest that Eastern and Western Colleges have different approaches in valuing and placing importance in responding to ITI students’ retraining needs. The data indicated that ITI students at Eastern College were not perceived by college personnel as a unique group of students having specific retraining needs; rather, they were seen as part of the larger student constituency. On the other hand, Western College recognized the ITI students’ distinctive occupation-specific needs and made commitments towards improving its policies and practices to increase the College’s effectiveness in meeting the ITIs needs. Although limited to only two Ontario colleges, the study findings have some important implications for theory and practice. The findings have contributed to increased awareness and a better understanding of challenges ITI students face in accessing Ontario college education, and it has offered recommendations for college efforts to respond to ITI students’ educational needs.

Ce mémoire utilise les trois panels de l'Enquête sur la dynamique de travail et du revenu (EDTR) pour évaluer la façon dont s'intègrent les immigrants dans le marché du travail canadien. L'analyse se penche sur deux méthodes économétriques différentes soit l'analyse utilisant des coupes transversales qui a été utilisée dans plusieurs recherches antérieures et l'analyse utilisant des données longitudinales, ce qui permet de voir l'évolution dans le temps des différents travailleurs de l'échantillon. Nous cherchons à mesurer le rendement des différents facteurs que nous retrouvons dans la théorie du capital humain, les effets existant selon la province de résidence du travailleur et la différence selon le sexe des travailleurs par rapport au salaire horaire réel de travail, au heures de travail annuelles rémunérées et au revenu de travail réel annuel. Nous comparons les résultats obtenus pour les immigrants et les travailleurs d'origine canadienne. Les résultats démontrent qu'il y a des provinces où l'intégration des immigrants est plus efficace que dans d'autres. Dans l'ensemble, les critères utilisés par le gouvernement canadien pour accueillir les nouveaux immigrants sont efficaces. Toutefois, nous notons des différences, parfois importantes, avec les travailleurs d'origine canadienne.

In Norway, first generation immigrant adolescents are overrepresented in out-of-home care by Child Welfare Services (CWS). More than Norwegians, immigrant adolescents themselves take the initiative to contact CWS. In this, immigrant girls seek more CWS help than boys. In this paper, a light is shone upon the lives of immigrants who were once in out-of-home care. The studies presented point to a large impact of migration and family breakdown. Many depict a chaotic family situation with a single mother, large household responsibilities and family relations filled with generational conflicts and violence. The immigrants describe an overall positive out-of-home care experience yet are hesitant to recommend others to take the same step. The possible influence of the child-centric focus of Norwegian CWS workers is discussed. As well as the need for prevention measures such as building a support network for immigrant mothers and organizing school support for immigrant adolescents. This paper concentrates on the need to put the overrepresentation of first generation immigrant adolescents on the policy agenda. More studies are to be carried out to point out the most appropriate and least harmful care for immigrant adolescents.

Sweden is one of the European countries that became a main destination for the immigrants and refugees from different countries and from different cultural backgrounds especially from the developing world.        While there seems to be a consensus in the literature that cultural adjustment is needed to integrate immigrants in the host culture, so far, it is not clear how the immigrants in Sweden perceive that need, and how willing and how welcomed they are to adjust to the Swedish culture. Therefore, it becomes necessary to shed light on the debate of the need of cultural adjustment and the major theories in this debate like the assimilation theory and Harrison’s theory, which arguing that immigrants need to culturally adjust to be able to fit in and to integrate in the host culture.        In this sense, the study aims to shed a different light on this debate through the immigrant’s perspective and how they perceive the need for cultural adjustment to integrate in the Swedish culture, and how willing as well as how welcomed they are to adjust to the host culture. A qualitative study was carried out using 18 semi-structured interviews as the primary source of data in the study, while the scope of this study was limited only to Växjö city which makes it difficult to generalize the results of this study.        The findings have revealed that the sample of immigrants in this study have perceived the need for a socio-economic adjustment rather than a cultural one and they feel willing and welcomed by the Swedish culture to make such adjustment as it is crucial and necessary for them to improve the quality of life as well as for social inclusion to be integrated and not excluded or marginalized.        The author suggests further research in this topic by conducting similar research but on a wider scope and with deeper interviews that include a larger number of immigrants to further explore how they perceive the need to adjust to the Swedish society.     Key words: culture, adjustment, integration, assimilation, immigrants.

Abstract Population movement is one of the very natures of economic geography in the era of globalisation. The paper aims to map out the new geographical contours of Taiwan from which the Southeast Asian population immigrates particularly after 1990s, with perspectives of the foreign labours, spouse moves and the Diaspora. Thus this thesis is structured by the conceptual framework of globalization, geographical imagery and identity. This study has then successfully conducted in-depth interviews to 36 samples of foreign laborers and spouse movers and 6 samples of policy makers in Taiwan. The results show firstly that the movement is mostly concerned with economical and environmental dynamics. The economical factor includes the worse working terrains and shortage of employment, and the latter embraces, due to the political conflicts in their native home, the seekings of better quality of life and better job imagination. Cultural identity is then the second motivation: Taiwan here is without conversely the homeland for overseas Chinese, the diaspora, to returning back to. Next, gaps between the imaginary and real economic geography are discussed due to the differentiation of working situations, multiculturalisms and inequalities. Thirdly, mediated by the mass media and previous immigrants, the condition of agencies for the concrete actor network of the immigrants is unraveled. Fourthly, the population trafficking and crackdown are found via the process of immigrant spouses. Finally, the domino effect on subsequently ¡¥spinning immigration¡¦ is recently significant and then scrutinized. After drawn out the lucid curves of immigration issues, policies of implementation are suggested to the agent and the policymakers of government interview mechanism, and immigrant policy.