abstract: Most studies on refugee populations tend to focus on mental health issues and communicable diseases. Yet, reproductive health remains a major aspect of refugee women's health needs. African refugee women in the United States continue to experience some difficulties in accessing reproductive health services despite having health insurance coverage. The purpose of this study was to understand the reproductive health journey of African refugee women resettled in Phoenix, Arizona. This study also explored how African refugee women's pre-migration and post-migration experiences affect their relationships with health care providers. The study was qualitative consisting of field observations at the Refugee Women's Health Clinic (RWHC) in Phoenix, verbally administered demographic questionnaires, and semi-structured one-on-one interviews with twenty African refugee women (between the ages of 18 and 55) and ten health care providers. The findings were divided into three major categories: pre-migration and post migration experiences, reproductive health experiences, and perspectives of health care providers. The themes that emerged from these categories include social isolation, living between two cultures, racial and religious discrimination, language/interpretation issues and lack of continuity of care. Postcolonial feminism, intersectionality, and human rights provided the theoretical frameworks that helped me to analyze the data that emerged from the interviews, questionnaire and fieldnotes. The findings revealed some contrasts from the refugee women's accounts and the accounts of health care providers. While refugee women spoke from their own specific social location leading to more nuanced perspectives, health care providers were more uniform in their responses leading to a rethink of the concept of cultural competency. As I argue in the dissertation and contrary to conventional wisdom, culture per se does not necessarily translate to resistance to the American health care system for many African refugee women. Rather, their utilization (or lack thereof) of health services are better conceived within a broader and complex context that recognizes intersectional factors such as gender, racialization, language, displacement, and class which have a huge impact on the reproductive health seeking patterns of refugee women. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Gender Studies 2011

Background: A war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 and lasted until 1995. The war had devastating consequences for people's mental health as they were exposed to several traumatic experiences during the war. Studies show that mental illness is prevalent in war refugees several years after they have experienced war and resettled in a new country. Previous traumatic experiences and the socio-economic conditions that arise after migrating to a foreign country are two factors that increase the risk of mental illness among war refugees. Aim: The aim in this study is to understand war refugees' experiences of social support in Sweden. Method: This is a qualitative interview study with eight war refugees from Bosnia- Herzegovina who fled to Sweden during or after the war in the 90’s. Results/conclusion: The social support mentioned in these eight statements has been categorized in different systems. Additionally, risk- and protective factors have been identified and placed in the systems. The following six systems were identified: family, immediate vicinity, employment, government agency/organization/agencies, professionals and other. Having a supportive and present family was found to increase resistance to various types of risk factors when migrating to a foreign country. Additionally, it was found that socializing with people of the same ethnic background could be both a risk- and a protective factor. Even employment served as a protective factor as the refugees' focus was on work and not their trauma. It was also found that some agencies acted as protective factors and some as risk factors, depending on which refugee was asked. All refugees mentioned specific professionals who helped with interpretation, among other things, these persons acted as protective factors. It was also found that old age, limited language skills and discrimination based on prejudices about Bosnian refugees acted as risk factors. These risk- and protective factors affected the war refugees' mental health and their integration and adaptation to Sweden as a new home country. All in all, we see that Sweden has been a haven for refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and enabled a second chance for refugees from Bosnia- Herzegovina.

The on-going conflicts and hardships in various parts of the world, especially in theMiddle East and regions like Syria and Somalia, have triggered a significant wave ofmigration towards Europe. A considerable fraction of these migrants comprisesunaccompanied minors. This research study aims to explore how pre-migration,migration, and post-migration factors influence the mental health and well-being ofSyrian and Somali unaccompanied minors in Sweden during the asylum-seekingprocess. The study is qualitative in nature, employing six in-depth semi-structuredinterviews as its primary data collection method. Using the frameworks of the Senseof Coherence theory and coping theory, the research delves into the challengesunaccompanied minors encounter during the asylum process and the subsequentimpacts on their mental health. The findings suggest that the asylum-seeking processsignificantly impacts the mental health of unaccompanied minors, eliciting mentalhealth issues such as depression, anxiety, and feelings of uncertainty and insecurity.These influences are not confined to mental well-being alone but also permeate otheraspects of their lives. This study therefore highlights the necessity of acknowledgingand addressing the complex link between the asylum-seeking process and mentalhealth among unaccompanied minors.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-103).

abstract: The immigration process changes personal narratives and professional trajectories and challenges identities and individual beliefs. Yet there is currently limited research on European women immigrants' transitions in the United States. This study examines personal and professional trajectories, in the United States, of Eastern European immigrant (EEI) women with prior educational attainment in their country of origin. This study examines the following issues: personal/social learning, developmental and professional experiences prior to and post migration, and social lives after the women's arrival in the United States. The study discusses the results of in-depth interviews with eight EEI women living in Arizona and California and recounts these women's life stories, gathered through open-ended questions that focused on areas of their personal and professional lives, such as childhood, marriage, immigration, education, family relations, socio-economic status, employment, child- rearing, and other significant life events. These areas impacted the women's creation of personal beliefs and their ability to develop new identities in the United States. The study examines EEI women's identity constructions within their life trajectory narratives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Psychology 2014

This thesis explores how newly arrived students experience conditions for learning and inclusion in their lived transitions within the Swedish school system. The thesis deploys an ethnographic approach combining interviews with participant observation. The data comprise interviews with 22 students at three points in time and three cycles of participant observation over the course of 15 months (in three municipalities of different sizes). Deploying the concept of post-migration ecology, Study I maps the structural conditions that the educational landscape offers newly arrived students after migration to Sweden. The findings point to the emergence of a parallel school system through which the newly arrived students’ individual needs risk being overlooked. Study II uses a sociocultural perspective to compare the pedagogical and social resources offered in introductory and regular classes, concluding that introductory classes are characterised by weak challenges and strong support, whereas the opposite is true for regular classes. From a critical phenomenological perspective, Study III focuses on the individual students’ embodied experiences of being out of line in school (in a Swedish monolingual school setting). Paradoxically, the separate introductory class in this setting apparently offers a sense of inclusion, whereas the regular class is related to student experiences of exclusion. Study IV analyses temporal aspects of the students' lived transition to upper secondary school. Drawing on a phenomenology of blockage, it documents how extended periods in introductory programmes create a disjunction between the students' imagined and lived school careers. In brief, through analyses that encompass organisational and structural conditions, as well as lived experience, this thesis shows that the lived transitions of newly arrived students can be understood as instances of parallel school lives, a discontinued past and a postponed future. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p> / Newly arrived children and learning - a cross-disciplinary study on the learning conditions for newly arrived children in Swedish schools

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