„Að þreifa sig áfram í myrkrinu“: Ríkjandi stefnur og straumar um ungt flóttafólk í íslensku grunn- og framhaldsskólakerfi

Being a young refugee involves growing up in contexts of violence and uncertainty, experiencing the trauma of loss, and attempting to create a future in an uncertain world. (Correa-Velez, Gifford, & Barnett, 2010, p. 1399).The world is experiencing a global refugee crisis. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there are close to 14 million refugees worldwide; the level of human displacement has increased by 50% since 2011 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR], 2016b). The Syrian refugee situation has received a great deal of attention recently; the Government of Canada (2016) has reported that a total of 26,921 refugees have arrived in Canada from Syria since November 2015. Syria is one of the top 10 countries from which refugees have fled to Canada, the other nine being China, Hungary, Pakistan, Nigeria, Colombia, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Afghanistan (Citizenship & Immigration Canada, 2016b). Together these countries accounted for almost half of the total refugee claims in Canada in 2015. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has reported that just over 32,000 refugees became permanent residents of Canada in 2015 (CIC, 2016a), contributing to a total of 149,163 refugees of all statuses living in Canada; 51% of these refugees are children and youth under the age of 25 (UNHCR, 2016a). In this paper youth typically includes ages 15 to 24 years because this age range is used for this population in most of the literature and institutional reports.Young refugees are a particularly vulnerable group. Although many figures pertaining to refugees in general are approximate because of their chaotic conditions, the reported numbers of refugee children and youth, in particular, are incomplete (Evans, Lo Forte, & McAslan Fraser, 2013). Evans et al. (2013) referred to refugee youth as an invisible population (p. 15). They noted that a third of the global population of displaced people is thought to be between the ages of 10 and 24, with almost half (47%) being under 18. In Canada in 2012, youth between the ages of 15 and 24 comprised 21% of the population of refugees admitted (Guruge & Butt, 2015). A disturbing number of these refugee youth are orphans or travelling alone, either by choice or after separation from parents or caregivers; they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation (UNHCR, 2016a).Newcomers who have been forced to flee their home countries experience a number of difficulties and barriers after arriving in their new host country. About 80% of refugee families receive some social assistance in their first year living in Canada, dropping to 50-60% in the second year (Statistics Canada, 2015b). In 2013, about half (52%) the government-assisted refugee youth (GARs) under 24 were employed; privately sponsored refugees fared bet- ter, with an employment rate of 69% (Statistics Canada, 2015a). Even with the support available from all levels of government and private sponsors, many refugee youth and their families experience challenges in language learning, housing, employment, education, social relationships, and health, including mental health.For this review paper, we focused on mental health issues and challenges that refugee youth face and on good practices that have been found to be effective with these youth. Working with young refugees presents a distinct set of circumstances for counselling psychologists and mental health therapists. Given the adversities that these young people experience premigration, during migration, and after resettlement, it is not surprising that they exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health disorders (Fazel, Wheeler, & Danesh, 2005). Yet, despite these circumstances, young refugees also demonstrate adaptability, perseverance, and resilience; they possess strengths and attributes that can help them adjust positively to a new home (Correa-Velez et al., 2010; Mawani, 2014). …

This paper explores the possibilities of graphic languages in an intercultural context while analysing the potential of creative methods when working with refugee youth. The practice-based aspect of this research is undertaken with Open Doors Hungary, a community-based design project that creates a programme for unaccompanied refugee minors. The aim of Open Doors is to help young refugees integrate into Hungarian society and develop means of communication and quality relations with the host society. Refugee youth arriving in Hungary face serious problems: the loss of home and community, the traumas suffered during the journey, the cultural differences, and the lack of a common language make their social integration extremely challenging. These challenges are exacerbated by xenophobia and stereotypical opinions about foreigners. Social inclusion requires frequent contact with the local society, and refugee youth need new tools (cultural knowledge, language skills, intercultural skills) to overcome their disadvantages. Since 2013, the author has been working with refugee youth using participatory design tools such as regular creative sessions, workshops, and eight camps based on the integrating role of creativity and art. During these sessions, young refugees and their Hungarian and European peers learned about different visual communication tools and created common messages in the form of videos, animations, photos, posters, booklets, and murals. Through these activities, refugee youth become part of the design process, and the final result is based on their choices. In the theoretical research and field experiences, this paper states that design thinking and the creative process allow interactive cultural exchange, value sharing, safe and open discussions, and community building. As a global language, visual communication can be a tool for intercultural communication, storytelling, and self-expression. The opportunity for refugee youth and their Hungarian peers to work in intercultural teams develops new competencies and creates shared ownership and community.

: IntroductionAs the global resettlement needs are further increasing, the questions on refugee youths’ wellbeing arise. The experience of migration during childhood might interfere with the developmental trajectories in different ways. Refugee youths might be at higher risk of violence, abuse and mental health problems.ObjectivesThis study aimed to explore the prevalence of alcohol and substance use among young refugees, along with the indicators of experienced psychological difficulties.MethodsData collection was followed by numerous difficulties–C-19 pandemic, linguistic diversity and high respondents’ illiteracy rate.ResultsThe sample consisted of 184 participants aged 11–18 years. More than a half of them displayed symptoms of PTSD - more frequently females, those who resided in a greater number of refugee centers and those who were exposed to abuse and domestic violence. Half of the respondents consumed energy drinks, slightly less than a third of them used tobacco, 13% consumed alcohol, 4.6% marijuana, whereby the frequency of other substance use was significantly lower. The significant indicators of individual propensity to use alcohol and substances were shown to be older age (14-18 years), male gender, lower education, being unaccompanied child and exposure to emotional abuse.ConclusionsOur research confirmed that young refugees, especially unaccompanied, might be at higher risk for mental health difficulties. Research on this topic should aim to link scientific data to sustainable practices, applicable in everyday life.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Learning for a Bright Future: Schooling, Armed Conflict, and Children’s Well‐Being

Although the urban fabric is often associated with relevant infrastructures that foster young refugees’ experiences of settlement and future imagining, a critical notion of place remains largely absent from the literature. This paper investigates refugee youths’ urban arrival and settlement processes by examining the role of public space, place and identity in their imagination of possible future selves. We use place identity as a dynamic, translocal and contested concept to explore how future selves are emplaced in multiple and contradictory ways. The paper reports on an eight-month ethnographic study in an underprivileged neighborhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that is characterized by functionalism, social housing and a high concentration of refugee arrivals. We find that personal referents of public neighborhood places are important for nurturing young refugees’ specific hardships and traumas that threaten future self-imagination. We further demonstrate how momentary belongings due to diverse yet intertwined neighborhood identities foster the emergence of multiple possible future selves. Lastly, we show how local racialized discourses of place endanger and “trap” possible future self-concepts. We conclude that urban refugee youths’ future self-imaginations develop alongside multiple contested places and temporalities, and contribute to a relational understanding of urban processes and experiences of forced mobility and displacement.

This article introduces a mobile Global Positioning System app created by refugee girls in the United States as a social justice- and community-oriented media art project that provides visual and oral countermapping stories that reflect an anticolonial orientation in their presentation of the city of Buffalo, New York. Through collaborative work with refugee girls in a community media art educational setting in Buffalo, I centered our projects on challenging settler colonial geographies by presencing subaltern stories of place. I use a land-based, critical race educational approach to guide my understanding of the youths’ subaltern stories of place in relation to settler colonialism. This anticolonial mobile cartographic story app highlights land pedagogy; the young refugees’ palimpsest-like, subaltern stories of urban spaces, which serve as testimonies to their lived experiences; and countermapping, which challenges and rewrites the imperatives of settler cartographies.

Guest Editor's Introduction

BackgroundConflict in Iraq has displaced millions of refugee youth. Warzone exposure and forced migration have unique acute and chronic impacts on youth, yet effects of exposure may not be universal across diverse refugee groups. Understanding how youth from various refugee groups are differentially affected by stress and trauma is critical to allocate resources and implement screening measures with the goal of providing early intervention.MethodTo identify the effects of warzone exposure and forced migration, a convenience sample of 48 Iraqi refugee youth ages 6–17 was assessed within the first month of arrival to the United States. Youth provided self-reported severity of posttraumatic stress and anxiety symptoms; symptom severity was then compared with an existing sample of 135 Syrian refugee youth to explore whether refugee youth of different nationalities experience the same effects of warzone exposure and forced migration. These data are the baseline for a longitudinal developmental study of refugee health, which also includes parental data.ResultsSeverity of separation anxiety and negative alterations in cognition and mood were the greatest symptomatic concerns in Iraqi refugee youth. Thirty-eight percent of responding Iraqi youth showed possible indication of an anxiety disorder. Severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms was lower in Iraqi youth compared to Syrian youth. For both Iraqi and Syrian refugee youth, separation anxiety was the most significant concern, with more than 80% of both samples showing a possible indication of clinically significant separation anxiety.ConclusionThe present observational study indicated that Iraqi refugee youth experience a range of anxiety and posttraumatic stress symptoms following warzone exposure and forced migration; posttraumatic stress symptoms were less severe in Iraqi versus Syrian youth. Comparing refugee youth of different nationalities is of particular importance, as our results demonstrate that findings from one refugee population cannot easily be generalized to another. Clinical and research efforts should prioritize interventions to address separation anxiety in refugee youth, which was of concern in both samples.

Our understanding of how state fragility leads to forced displacement remains empirically and theoretically fractured, even as wider research on development and migration has expanded. Forced displacement and mixed migration will increasingly be central to global debates in the coming decades, particularly in fragile and weak states; thus the goal of this Discussion Paper is to provide a theoretical structure for future research on forced displacement and state fragility. To do this, we have developed a theoretical conceptualisation of how state fragility can lead to forced displacement, drawing on a multi-dimensional method for understanding state fragility. When a state is fragile, lacking in administrative, social and security capacity, the population is more likely to be forced to seek safety and economic opportunity elsewhere. One of the main challenges is bringing different fields into a cohesive conversation; issues that will be addressed include what different disciplines aim to measure, potential epistemological problems with assuming a linear relationship between development policy and forced displacement, and normative differences between fields. The outcome is an integrated theoretical analysis of the economic, political, and social drivers of forced displacement in fragile states, focusing on the theoretical causal channels wherein state fragility leads to forced displacement. This can inform new empirical approaches for measuring and analysing the relationship between state fragility and forced displacement, while speaking to practical issues faced by regional and international organisations working in fragile states on forced displacement and migration issues.

Urban villages in China refer to the former rural villages that are deprived of arable lands and absorbed by the expanding urban area. In recent years they grew in size and were considered by governments to stand in the way of the Chinese urban development. Since the early 2000s, the authorities have embarked on a programme of large-scaled redevelopment in the name of promoting social inclusion. This research interrogates the policies on urban village redevelopment in Xi’an from a perspective of social exclusion and inclusion. It focuses on two points: how do policy makers and urban villagers understand social inclusion differently, and what makes a difference in increasing social inclusion. Following the citizenship-based approach in the studies of social exclusion and inclusion, firstly an examination of citizenship conceptions, as reflected in the Chinese traditional discourses through the redevelopment of urban villages, provides the basis for questioning the political rhetoric of social inclusion in China. Secondly, a comparison between policy makers’ and villagers’ interpretations on urban citizenship helps explore the different understandings of inclusion between them. Finally, by studying six redeveloped urban villages in the city of Xi’an, this thesis identifies what villagers strive for, and discusses how their strivings make a difference in achieving social inclusion during urban village redevelopment. The research mainly develops three arguments. First, the redevelopment policy of urban villages in Xi’an implies a trade-off between social benefits and property, which deprives villagers of their property rights and defines their struggles in a new urban context. Second, due to the trade-off policy, villagers do not consider the redevelopment strategies that carried out by government as a process of inclusion. What villagers struggle for, as being urban citizens, is a decent livelihood in renewed centrality, the right to property, and the active participation in urban village redevelopment. Third, through villagers’ active participation, social inclusion is possible to be achieved based on the cooperation among different stakeholders during redevelopment.

Even though Iceland is yet to host as many refugees as other European countries, the number of young refugees seeking resettlement is growing rapidly. Little Icelandic research has been devoted to refugee youth and their social or educational inclusion to date. This study focuses on how young refugees are represented in the Icelandic context in relation to often-conflicting ideological perspectives of advanced neo-liberal discourses and ‘liberal’ multicultural approaches of inclusion. We analyse policy documents which address refugee integration, alongside teachers’ perspectives on current challenges facing refugee youth to account for these conflicts. We are interested in how these documents and perspectives respond to Hannah Arendt's concern over statelessness – the condition of not being recognised as a citizen within a host state. Findings indicate that outside of policy directly aimed at refugees there is general legislative and regulatory silence on refugee youth. Within the two documents analysed, we argue that normative multicultural frameworks are being drawn upon as an ‘integration practice’ which emphasise sameness and equality in contrast to diversity and equity. Such practices reinforce normative understandings of citizenship and national metaphors of inclusion whilst simultaneously undermining what Arendt refers to as the ‘promise of politics’ in education policy and practice.

As widely recognized, Turkey is hosting the world's highest number of registered refugees since 2011. Notably, 20% of this refugee population comprises young individuals aged 18-29, highlighting significant youth. Gaziantep, second to Istanbul in refugee concentration, accommodates over 440,000 refugees. This study delves into the necessity of forging a new symbiotic relationship between residents and migrants. Such a partnership can positively affect industry, productivity and human resource diversity. Notably, research indicates that a majority (80%) of refugees do not foresee a return to Syria, underscoring the significance of maximizing the productivity and efficiency of these individuals in their adopted regions. Consequently, the study investigates the interplay between young migrants and the city's entrepreneurship ecosystem, drawing upon data from 14 collaborative projects, focusing on enhancing local and refugee youth's capacity and entrepreneurial skills, between Gaziantep University and NGOs. The findings underscore the outcomes stemming from the alliance between young refugees and their local counterparts, which fosters innovation and productivity through collaboration. This study illuminates the potential for new ecosystems to drive entrepreneurial effectiveness and efficiency, culminating in innovation-driven accomplishments facilitated by the collaboration between refugee and local youth.

Nurses are in the front line in caring for refugee youth in relation to their sexual and reproductive health. Culturally competent nursing care requires an understanding of different health values, beliefs, and practices and to be aware of the perceptions refugee youth have regarding sexual health. Therefor the aim of this meta-ethnography was to synthesize knowledge of refugee youth, and their perceptions related to sexual and reproductive health, before and after resettlement to a new country. Nine qualitative studies were included, describing the experiences of 297 refugee youth, originating from 13 countries, resettled in respectively Australia, USA and in temporary resettlements in Lebanon. Secret voices are breaking the silence was established as an overarching metaphor in a lines-of-argument synthesis. This metaphor was accompanied by three main themes: (1) The sounds of silence; (2) We have no words for it; and (3) Longing to learn. Findings indicate that cultural values and beliefs represent a barrier for refugee youth in accessing sexual and reproductive health information, services, and care. In a resettlement context language is a barrier to access sexual health information, and fear of judgment from family, friends, and community holds young refugees back from seeking services and care. Young refugees are longing for more knowledge, for themselves and their parents. This meta-ethnography can contribute to a heightened awareness amongst nurses in providing sensitive and culturally competent care for a diverse population of refugee youth.

South Africa's Higher Education System in Crisis … in a State in Crisis Ahmed C. Bawa (bio) on december 16, 2017, the then-president of south africa, jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, gave his last address as president of the African National Congress (ANC) at the party's 2017 elective conference. The three-day event captured the attention of millions of South Africans, partly as engaging reality TV, but mainly because of its potential impact on the future of this adolescent democracy. At the end of the meeting there would be one of two outcomes: a consolidation of the rent-seeking, corrupt, and corruptive state that had pervaded every level of government in the previous 10 years, or the chance of another start to the South African dream of producing a caring, nurturing, innovative society, bringing to reality the dreams of millions. The unexpected, even shocking centerpiece of Zuma's address at the conference was the announcement of a new system of funding for "students from poor and working-class families" to access higher education (HE) in response to the #FeesMustFall campaign waged by students since August 2015 (Zuma 2017). Universities are social institutions of a special kind. In South Africa, as in other parts of the world, while they protect and reproduce power and privilege, they are also fiercely independent and often the loudest voices of political and social dissent. They are simultaneously global and intensely local; places of construction and deconstruction of national imaginations; powerful engines for social mobility and the construction of a more equitable society; and central to the creation [End Page 253] of South Africa's democracy. They are both witness to and participants in the emergence of a human-centered society carrying the hopes of most of its citizens after hundreds of years of devastating oppression. The recent crisis that overtook the HE system between 2015 and 2017 is an interesting prism through which to understand some of the dynamics of the last 24 years of South Africa's faltering adventure into democracy. Between 1994 and 2016, the number of students in the HE system grew from fewer than 500,000 to more than a million, the largest part of the growth being driven by the broadening and deepening participation of black South Africans. By 2016, some 74 percent of students in the 26 public universities were black, and the shift in enrollments over the past 24 years has had an enormous influence on the universities (CHE 2018). Their role in social mobility may be garnered from the fact that 20–30 percent of students receive financial aid, which means they are from families with a gross annual income of less than R122,000 (about $8,500; NSFAS 2018). Issues of food insecurity, deep inequality, and social justice are firmly on the agendas of all South Africa's universities and are major causes of high incompletion rates (Letseka and Breier 2008). The HE crisis has unique aspects, but it is also fully connected to the general crisis in national development. Interestingly, this is happening at a time when the performance of the universities has, over the last 5–10 years, improved significantly in terms of the usual metrics by which HE is measured. While the student upheavals were initially directed at the objective of establishing a free-HE-for-all system, this was supplemented very significantly by the additional demand for "decolonized, quality education"—a much more qualitative demand that focused on the perceived orientation of the knowledge project of the university system. There is significant conceptual and practical overlap between the student activism and contemporary community struggles that occur daily. [End Page 254] SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION POST-1994 Following the transition in 1994, President Nelson Mandela signed into existence the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) with very broad social representation, including leaders of universities, the business/industry sector, the trade union structures, and civil society organizations. The idea was to produce a new framework for HE consonant with the vision of the new democratic state, to provide it with a policy infrastructure that would help it to reshape its purposes in a transforming society. These were captured in the Education White Paper 3...

Resettlement of young refugees occurs while they transition into adulthood biographically and socially. Youth life opportunity structures and support mechanisms in late modern Western countries have become weaker, generally making youth transitions less linear, predictable and secure. However, young refugees’ transition conditions are radically precarious, conditioned by frequently changing, increasingly restrictive immigration policies that aim for repatriation and create temporariness and deportability. To sensitise our understanding of these transition conditions of possibility, drawing on ‘hauntology’ to analyse the transition challenges of young refugees, I propose new metaphorical concepts of ‘cancelled transitions’ and ‘haunted futures’. With the concept of ‘navigational agency’, I discuss the potential for young refugees to take some control of their lives and futures. New concepts may enable attention to the social justice dimensions of transitional opportunities that otherwise appear academically invisible and politically denied.