Research on the educational and occupational aspirations of U.S. youth born in Africa is not only rare, but some studies have assumed that these immigrants are a monolithic group. However, they differ in experiences according to whether they are refugees, asylum seekers, or voluntary immigrants coming from various countries in Africa. These immigrants also come from different countries with different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and races. This case study makes such a needed distinction based on a small sample of high school students from Northern Sudan who lived in a small Midwest U.S. city. Diversity in ethnicities and cultures not only affects educational and occupational aspirations but also impacts how the aspirations are formed, maintained, and achieved. The Sudanese refugee youth who participated in this study had high educational and occupational aspirations, with all of them aspiring to obtain a college degree and some intending to achieve careers in medicine, dentistry, law, and engineering. These high aspirations were backed by high academic scores. Almost all students in this study came from well-educated families despite their current low socio-economic status (SES). Their current SES and minority status (MS) did not seem to affect their aspirations and academic performance. This study showed that educational and occupational aspirations are formed when students have strong social support from parents, significant others, teachers, peers, and their community, all of whom influence and reward high educational expectations and enforce the students' cultural obligations.

This study explores the interactions of four Liberian youth with the public education system in Ontario since their arrival as refugees. Using life histories developed with each participant, I have sought to understand and engage with the ways that these students negotiate their social and personal identities within the context of the majority discourses and practices of education in Ontario. By foregrounding the experiences and voices of the participants, it becomes possible to critically analyze the power relations that exist both to limit and empower these youth as they navigate their social and educational contexts. It becomes clear in the life histories that society’s dominant discourses of normalcy work to ignore or make irrelevant the complex identities that these youth inhabit and exhibit in their daily lives. However, they creatively exercise their individual agency to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities they feel are available to them in Canada.

This study explores the interactions of four Liberian youth with the public education system in Ontario since their arrival as refugees. Using life histories developed with each participant, I have sought to understand and engage with the ways that these students negotiate their social and personal identities within the context of the majority discourses and practices of education in Ontario. By foregrounding the experiences and voices of the participants, it becomes possible to critically analyze the power relations that exist both to limit and empower these youth as they navigate their social and educational contexts. It becomes clear in the life histories that society’s dominant discourses of normalcy work to ignore or make irrelevant the complex identities that these youth inhabit and exhibit in their daily lives. However, they creatively exercise their individual agency to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities they feel are available to them in Canada.

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Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilket stöd ensamkommande ungdomar upplever sig få från socialtjänsten och hur de anser att de inkluderas i arbetet som rör dem när de ankommer till Sverige. Sex stycken ungdomar intervjuades i vår studie, samtliga kom hit som ensamkommande ungdomar för minst tre år sedan. Intervjuerna utgick ifrån ungdomarnas egna upplevelser av socialtjänsten. Det inhämtade materialet kodades och delades in i fyra kategorier. Dessa var: Äntligen framme, Förtroendet för socialtjänsten, Lyssna och förklara samt Tack Sverige. Resultatet analyserades i sin tur utifrån Eides fasmodell. Resultatet och analysen visar att stödet upplevs olika beroende på relationen ungdomen har gentemot sin socialsekreterare. Det visar att ungdomarnas förtroende för socialsekreteraren är av vikt för att de ska ta tillsig stödet som erbjuds. Således visar resultatet att majoriteten av ungdomarna upplever att socialsekreterarna lyssnar på dem, men inte inkluderar dem i själva beslutsprocessen. Slutsatsen av studien är att den enskilde socialsekreteraren har en viktig roll då ungdomarna som haft en bra kontakt med sin socialsekreterare upplever stödet positivare än de som inte haft lika god kontakt. / The purpose of this paper is to examine what support unaccompanied young refugees feel they receive from the social services, and how they believe they are included in the work regarding them as they arrive in Sweden. Six youth were interviewed in our study, all came here unaccompanied at least three years ago. The interviews were based on their own experiences of the social services. The collected material was coded and divided into four categories. These were: Finally arrived, Trust in the social services, Listen and explain as well as Thank you Sweden. The results were analyzed according to Eides phase model. The results and analysis show that the support is experienced differently depending on the relationship the young person has with his or her social secretary. They show that the youths trusting in the social secretary are important for them to be able to accept the support offered. Therefore the results show that the majority of the youth feel that social workers listen to them, but do not include them in the decision process itself. The conclusion of the studies is that the individual social secretary plays an important part as the youth that has had a good connection with them experience the support more positive as opposed to those who hasn’t had an as good of a connection.

This three-paper dissertation tests whether General Strain Theory (GST) can be helpful in explaining the relationship between strains experienced by refugee youth and youth’s anti-social behaviors such as delinquency and radicalization to violence and what factors mediate the relationship between strain and crime. Additionally, it uses mixed methods combining community meaning-making with quantitative research methods to provide multiple lenses to the issue of youth and negative outcomes. The first chapter presents the context in which Somali refugee youth experiences should be examined as well as relevant literature. The second chapter examines if GST can help us understand the experiences of Somali youth and delinquencies. It examines if three strains (procedural injustice, teacher punishment, and family conflict) are significantly related to crimes against people among this population and if this relationship is mediated by mental health symptoms and marginalization. The results show that both procedural justice and teacher punishment were able to predict crimes against people but the relationship between procedural injustice and crimes against people was fully mediated by mental health symptoms and by marginalization while the relationship between teacher mistreatment and crime remained significant even when mental health symptoms and marginalization were added to the equation. Surprisingly, while the family conflict was highly correlated with both marginalization and mental health symptoms, it was not significantly related to crimes against people. The third chapter applies GST to radicalization to violence among Somali youth. It examines whether three strains (procedural injustice, teacher punishment, and family conflict) predict youth radicalization to violence and whether this relationship is mediated by individual-level factors such as mental health, marginalization and gang attitudes. The analysis shows that only procedural injustice is significantly related to radicalization to violence and that both marginalization and gang attitudes fully mediated the relationship while mental health partially mediated it. The final chapter uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine community meaning making around youth radicalization. Qualitative interview results show that community members were able to identify important structural, cultural and individual level factors that led to youth radicalization and that many of the factors that they identified such as police and teacher mistreatment and gang presence where similar to the findings in the quantitative research.

<p>This paper’s chief focus lays in essence, in the examination of what the eventual relevance of the internet has for refugee youth in Sweden, regarding the realisation of a sense of community and participation therein. Rather than acquiring grounds with which to make generalisations feasible, it is an approach towards attaining a better comprehension in understanding the significance of a youth’s views and perceptions, through which ultimately also their internalisation, of the internet as a medium towards eventual capitalisation of the cybersocial potential. However, by ‘sense of community’, this primarily refers to interactional and relational aspects, rather than on premises of eventual membership within forums that may in turn prove to be ’dormant’.</p>

<p>Årligen kommer ett stort antal barn och ungdomar utan medföljande förälder eller annan legal vårdnadshavare till Sverige för att söka asyl, så kallade ensamkommande flyktingbarn och ungdomar. De ensamkommande barnen har rätt till skydd, skolgång, sjukvård och en meningsfull vardag där de kan knyta sociala kontakter. De här barnen behöver få trygghet och normalitet i sin tillvaro för att kunna utvecklas, känna sig säkra och få en chans till ett bra liv. Ansvaret för ungdomarnas boende och omvårdnad ligger på kommunnivå och kräver att det finns kompetent och kunnig personal som möter dessa ungdomar. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur personalen arbetar på ett boende för ensamkommande flyktingungdomar för att utveckla mening, identitet och trygghet över kulturella gränser. Metoden som användes var fyra intervjuer med narrativ teori som inspiration för att få fram personalens berättelser istället för enbart svar på ställda frågor och få en djupare förståelse för personalens påverkan på verksamheten och de ensamkommande flyktingungdomarna. Resultatet visade att personalen arbetar utifrån samtal för att skapa en ömsesidig trygghet och tillit inom boendet och genom det sker en samhällsintroduktion och integration för de ensamkommande flyktingungdomarna med en samtidig respekt och förståelse för deras egen kultur. Utifrån detta arbete skapas en värdegrund hos ungdomarna i svensk demokrati och en utveckling av deras identitet. Analysen av berättelserna visar att de fem ord som är målsättningsord för organisationen, samhörighet, egenvärde, samhällsintroduktion, ansvar och möjligheter kan sammanfattas till den demokratiska värdegrunden som arbetet sker utifrån.</p> / <p>Every year a great number of children and youth come to Sweden without any parent or legal guardian, seeking asylum, they are called unaccompanied refugee youth. These unaccompanied minors are entitled to protection, school, healthcare and a meaningful everyday life, where they can make social contacts. These minors need stability and normality in their life to be able to develop, feel secure and have a chance to a good life. The municipality has the responsibility for the minors living conditions and care and this demands competent and knowledgeable personnel to work with these minors. The purpose of the study was to examine how personnel in housing for unaccompanied refugee youth work with meaning, identity and security across cultural borders. The method was four interviews with narrative theory as inspiration to get stories more than just answers to questions and a deeper knowledge for the personnel’s influence on the organization and the unaccompanied refugee youth. The result showed that the personnel worked from conversation to create a mutual security and trust within the housing and through that a community introduction and integration takes place with a simultaneous respect and understanding for the youths own culture. From this basic values are created for Swedish democracy and development of the youth’s identity is created. The analysis of the stories shows that the five words that is the aim for the organization, solidarity, self-worth, community introduction, responsibility and possibilities can be concluded as the democratic basic values that the personnel work is conducted from.</p>

This paper’s chief focus lays in essence, in the examination of what the eventual relevance of the internet has for refugee youth in Sweden, regarding the realisation of a sense of community and participation therein. Rather than acquiring grounds with which to make generalisations feasible, it is an approach towards attaining a better comprehension in understanding the significance of a youth’s views and perceptions, through which ultimately also their internalisation, of the internet as a medium towards eventual capitalisation of the cybersocial potential. However, by ‘sense of community’, this primarily refers to interactional and relational aspects, rather than on premises of eventual membership within forums that may in turn prove to be ’dormant’.