For immigrant and refugee youth, the experience of migration presents significant life changes in their environments, communities, and interpersonal affiliations (Kilbride, Anisef, Baichman-Anisef & Khattar, 2001). Before immigrating to Canada, some refugee youth experienced horrific events that can be traumatic to the fragile identities and sense of belonging of developing children and adolescents. Once in Canada, loneliness, isolation, language deficits, different cultural practices, and in some cases different skin colors may isolate refugee youth and thus jeopardise their sense of belonging in their new country. This study investigated a sense of belonging of war affected refugee youth during their pre-migration and post-migration periods, as well as the factors that may enhance or hinder their sense of belonging. Fifteen participants were interviewed and their responses clearly indicated their desire and need to belong in their new country, to be liked, loved, respected, included, and be part of their new society. Recommendations on how educators can support their quest for belonging and inclusion are discussed.

Somalia has undergone a prolonged period of civil war, lawlessness and turmoil, which has resulted in many people becoming displaced, and a number of those displaced people have migrated to New Zealand as refugees. This thesis is a study of communication and collaboration between Somali refugee families and their children’s schools in Christchurch, New Zealand in the light of their experiences pre and post-resettlement in New Zealand. This was to take into account recommendations of the UNHCR Handbook for best practice. Informed by interviews with 40 Somali parents, 15 Somali secondary students, two school principals, and 15 teachers, the thesis examines collaboration with schools in the context of the families’ experiences in their home country, the flight process, the refugee camps and the migration and resettlement in New Zealand. Data were gathered using questionnaires, individual interviews, focus groups, observation, and document analysis, and subjected to a qualitative analysis. The study revealed a remarkable degree of heterogeneity among Somali refugee families who have been settling in Christchurch over fourteen years. Many diverse factors were identified such as gender, previous socio-economic status, urban versus rural origins, level of English language, poverty, employable work skills, and refugee experiences such as the level of trauma, all of which have impacted on the capacity of individuals and families to adjust during their resettlement. Many refugees were identified as having undergone major trauma during the civil war and refugee flight process. These experiences have affected the integration of many into their new society, but this study found that those with the greatest apparent level of recognised need and vulnerability were those with the poorest communication skill. This resulted in their having a poor relationship with schools and left them quite alienated. For many such families the only interface with their local school was being summoned to discuss the infractions of their children and any subsequent disciplinary measures. Therefore, one of the greatest needs to improve communication and collaboration was identified as the ability to learn the English language. Other barriers to successful communication and collaboration included issues associated with racism, cultural awareness, teacher workload, lack of acknowledgement of refugees’ special needs in school policies, teachers’ low expectations of refugee parents, intimidating school environments, ambiguous information, the Somali oral culture, parents’ financial hardship, parents’ lack of transport, parents’ workload, inadequate housing and the families’ high mobility. There are currently neither national policies nor adequate resources to facilitate refugees improving their English language skills, nor to support schools in other aspects of their communication and collaboration with refugee families, and this study suggests that the absence of guidelines and resourcing is another key factor behind the poor engagement between the families and schools. Schools and their teachers also need good professional development that takes account of the diverse needs of these families in order to help build and strengthen better working relationships with refugee families. The thesis goes on to discuss the current models of parent-school collaboration, and it concludes by presenting a proposed new empowerment model of parent-school collaboration which is tailored to help support refugee families. Key tenets of the proposed new model are that there must be principals who provide committed leadership and support, by meeting and welcoming parents when children are enrolled, providing follow-up meetings after enrolment, and developing structures, policies and guidelines to promote parent-school collaboration. They need to provide adequate resources to educate school personnel and mainstream parents about the refugees’ culture and experiences, and a designate a co-ordinator with responsibility for creating an inclusive environment with positive ethnic relations, while conducting monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of these measures on communication and collaboration. The model also suggests that there should be greater inter-agency co-ordination and co-operation between the schools and organisations such as health services, social services, WINZ, NZIS and the Police. Implementing the proposed model would build on existing social capital to result in adults and children who are more actively involved not only in education, but also in health care and social and recreational activities where the school is the hub for empowering those families which are most at risk.

For immigrant and refugee youth, the experience of migration presents significant life changes in their environments, communities, and interpersonal affiliations (Kilbride, Anisef, Baichman-Anisef & Khattar, 2001). Before immigrating to Canada, some refugee youth experienced horrific events that can be traumatic to the fragile identities and sense of belonging of developing children and adolescents. Once in Canada, loneliness, isolation, language deficits, different cultural practices, and in some cases different skin colors may isolate refugee youth and thus jeopardise their sense of belonging in their new country. This study investigated a sense of belonging of war affected refugee youth during their pre-migration and post-migration periods, as well as the factors that may enhance or hinder their sense of belonging. Fifteen participants were interviewed and their responses clearly indicated their desire and need to belong in their new country, to be liked, loved, respected, included, and be part of their new society. Recommendations on how educators can support their quest for belonging and inclusion are discussed.

No description available.

Refugee youth are identified as a high risk group due to the likelihood of exposure to trauma (UNICEF, 1996) and frequent reports of anxiety, depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)(Ellis, MacDonald, Lincoln, & Cabral, 2008). However they tend to underutilize mental health services(Fenta, Hyman, & Noh, 2006). This study explored the ways in which educational cultural brokers support the psychological well-being of refugee youth. Using a qualitative case study (Merriam, 2009), four cultural brokers and three mental health practitioners were interviewed and data was analyzed thematically. Two broad themes were identified encompassing informal supports and formal supports. Sub-themes that represented informal supports were: (1) Facilitating cultural integration and sense of belonging, (2) Bridging to settlement services, and (3) Providing supportive counselling. Sub-themes describing formal supports were: (1) Facilitating referrals, (2) Educating, (3) Providing contextual information, and (4) Providing cultural interpretation. The practice implications of this research are discussed. / Counselling Psychology

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-188) and index.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Social Work. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/13/07). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis explores the relationship between refugee protest and the politics of asylum governance through the case of a 2005 protest in Egypt. It challenges prevalent views of refugees as victims, of the bodies that host and assist as benevolent, and of the relationships between them as apolitical. In a 2005 sit-in in Cairo, Sudanese demonstrators took collective political action as refugees – but found their action countered and undone by host states and humanitarian institutions. Drawing from this case, the thesis develops existing understandings of the politics of asylum governance, and political activism concerned with it, along three lines. First, it takes an inductive approach to understanding the politics at play, developing concepts that allow for comparison across contexts. Second, it integrates analysis of both protester and institutional accounts of a refugee protest. Third, it explores three hitherto understudied aspects of the politics of asylum governance: the political activity of asylees regarding the rules of asylum within host countries; the effects of political struggles within asylum governance on refugee political participation; and the interactions between refugees and asylum governance in an urban, southern context. This thesis argues that refugee protest and the politics of asylum governance are related in causal, discursive, and epistemological ways: that the politics of asylum governance play a causal role in refugee protest; that protest and governance concerned with asylum share a discursive repertoire, which may be mobilised agonistically; and that the study of refugee protest is a compelling approach through which to gain insight into the politics of asylum governance. Through this study, the thesis opens new dimensions within existing scholarship on the depoliticisation of refugees, and of humanitarianism as a dominating force.

This study explores the disconnection that exists between refugee policy developers and those whom they intend to benefit by bringing the voices of refugees and their supporters into community discussions on policies and practices that directly affect the refugee resettlement experience. The purpose of their involvement was to help ensure that resettlement activities were relevant to their needs. In an effort to make the findings as generalizable as possible, the researcher applied techniques of Participatory Action Research (Carr & Kemmis, 1986) within a Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) methodological framework. Community consultations involving a total of 86 refugees, refugee claimants and their supporters in three cities were conducted during the period that Canada was responding to post-9/11 concerns for national security with its first implementation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Findings from those consultations were triangulated with data from interviews with 29 service providers, government officials and individual refugees, as well as documentary evidence from scholarly research, government publications and mass media sources. Implications for further policy development were then developed from that process. Findings from the research suggest that the potential for unexpected policy outcomes can be reduced if culturally sensitive community consultations, in the preferred language of the community, are incorporated in policy development and implementation processes. These findings can contribute to building local community capacities to increase the effectiveness of resettlement activities and improving their sustainability by inviting those who have the most to benefit take ownership of them. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Rwanda and Burundi are two countries that, in the beginning of 1990s, attracted attention of the whole international community. The genocide in Rwanda, the civil war in Burundi, and the following spill-over of conflict to neighbouring countries caused hundreds upon thousands of deaths and hundreds upon thousands of refugees. This work compares the internal development of these countries and their influence on other countries in Great Lake Region.