During the 2015 sudden rise in migration movements in Europe, approximately 2.4 million refugees arrived in Europe and 1.2 million asylum applications were received in the European Union countries. We were interested in finding out whether these rapid changes and the polarised attitudes represented in the media affected young people's attitudes towards people with different cultural backgrounds. This study, therefore,…

Schools are relevant settings for supporting refugee adolescents' mental health. As education and migration are important social determinants of health, we aim to integrate the qualitative findings of our mixed-methods study into a broader discussion regarding the role of schools and the potential effects on refugee adolescents' lives and mental health, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.…

In this discussion essay, characteristics of the provision of formal and non-formal education for refugee children in Greece will be explored through a comparative approach. The comparison reveals aspects of the social environments in the lives of refugee children. These will be examined through the lens of Uri Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1986) ecological systems theory as a means to understand the…

In Germany, young migrants and refugees whose German language skills are not sufficient for attending regular classes at school are assigned to so-called “preparation classes”. As the name implies, the main objective of these classes is to teach German language skills and thereby prepare students for regular classes or vocational education and training. Teachers in these classes face special challenges:…

Background: After the invasion of Ukraine, neighbouring countries were forced to find systemic solutions to provide medical care to those fleeing the war, including children, as soon as possible. In order to do this, it is necessary to know the communication problems with refugee minors and find proposals for their solutions. Methods: A systematic review of the literature from 2016…

Research often focuses on individual-level factors shaping refugee labour market participation. Less research has been conducted on the implications of the roles of employers, integration programmes, migrant support organisations and similar. This article contributes to the literature by seeking to understand highly educated refugees’ perceptions of how civic integration programmes shape opportunity structures for their labour market participation. It is…

Background: Mental health symptoms among refugees are common, often related to chronic pain disorders, and their management is usually challenging. Studies evaluating the effect of group therapies among adult refugees to improve mental health symptoms are scarce. Aims: To assess the effect of Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) on mental health and to reduce pain disorder among adult Syrian refugees. Method:…

Research Findings: This study evaluated the impacts of the Summer Preschools Program on 5-to-6-year-old Syrian refugee and local children from vulnerable communities of Turkey. Developed as a community-based contextually sensitive early intervention model, the program aimed to promote developmental well-being and school readiness of children from forced displacement and abject poverty backgrounds by supporting cognitive, language, and socioemotional development prior…

Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees (IAB-BAMF-SOEP Sample of Refugees in…

This protocol is for a feasibility study and pilot trial of a multilingual support intervention. The intervention's aim is to improve language training for refugees in Norway by introducing multilingual support assistants using the refugees’ primary languages. The research question for this pilot study is whether a full-scale randomised controlled trial of Multilingual Support is feasible, and if so, in…

Background: Coping is considered to have an important influence on well-being, especially in adolescent refugees dealing with a high amount of stress. In addition, gender differences in coping are a common topic for research and are often attributed to differences in socialization between boys and girls. Aims: The study aims at clarifying the gender differences in coping strategies used by…

Sports can help refugees mitigate traumas, connect with others, and learn positive values. In this illustrative comparative study, we compare two sport programs for the acculturation of refugees in the US and Sweden. Our aim is to describe both programs, compare them with the literature, and present suggestions for the field. Hence, we placed the program participants at the center…

Migrant students, including refugees and international students who begin or continue their education in Turkey, encounter several challenges. This study aimed to identify the challenges that migrant students face in the Turkish higher education system. The sample of the study consisted of 75 migrant students from six universities in Turkey in the 2019–2020 academic year. Demographic information of the students…

The document addresses one of the main themes of the present day, i.e., the problem of forced migration—commonly referred to as seeking refuge. The target user of this study is exiled children who, in most cases, arrive at their destination alone and with few or no primary survival conditions. UNHCR (2015) points out that more than 65 million people worldwide…

Background: European countries face the challenge of promoting refugee and immigrant children’s well-being within their host communities, invoking the necessity of adequate mental health assessment. This study aims to contribute to document the psychosocial well-being of primary school refugee and non-refugee immigrant children in Flanders, Belgium. Method: A total of 120 children (8–12 years old) with migration backgrounds participated in the…

Despite increased emphasis on the role of inclusive practices and materials in post-COVID-19 classrooms and warnings about implicit biases against disadvantaged groups, the textbook problem has rarely been approached with equity measures in mind. This multimethod study aimed to investigate to what extent L2 reading materials, locally produced and used for refugee education in Turkey and New Zealand, include all…

In this study, we draw data from a tripartite telecollaborative project that involved 112 teacher candidates (TCs) from university-based teacher education programmes in France, Turkey, and the USA. Theoretically, we rely on Pantić’s (2015. A model for study of teacher agency for social justice. Teachers and Teaching 21, no. 6: 759–778) model of teacher agency for social justice and use…

Germany, Jordan, and Lebanon’s social, political, and socio-economic structures are influenced by a long history of them receiving refugees and migrants. This was a starting point for the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg (Germany), the German Jordanian University, Yarmouk University (Jordan), and the Lebanese University to engage in an intercultural and professional exchange project on social work in the field…

This article reports the results of a systematic review on displaced and refugee-background students’ transitioning and (re-)integration into European higher education (HE). A total of 7082 studies have been assessed for eligibility in six languages. Forty-four empirical studies conducted in 14 countries of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) between 2014 and 2021 met the inclusion criteria. Evidence from these…

Although academic literature and Scotland's refugee integration strategy recommend multilingual, decolonising approaches, language classes for refugees in Scotland usually focus only on the target language (English) and are predominantly teacher-led. This paper argues that newly reunited refugee families can be better supported through an ecological, multilingual approach by presenting empirical data from a five-month teaching study using qualitative methods (semi-structured…

A combination of structural barriers, inadequate student welfare provision and the absence of psycho-social and academic support make higher education access for forcibly displaced students challenging. Many of these students will have experienced many stressful and potentially traumatic events that may have or may continue to impact their mental health and wellbeing. This article draws on reflections by educators and…

Parental involvement in education is significant for children's schooling experience and their cognitive and academic development. It also plays a role in refugee children's success and integration in the host country. However, understanding refugee parents’ educational involvement can be a complex issue because of their different cultural beliefs and unique challenges as refugees. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with Syrian…

Through a series of empirically and theoretically informed reflections, Opening Up the University offers insights into the process of setting up and running programs that cater to displaced students. Including contributions from educators, administrators, practitioners, and students, this expansive collected volume aims to inspire and question those who are considering creating their own interventions, speaking to policy makers and university…

This article is based on a research project executed by the authors in 2021. It revolves around the experiences of refugee children and parents within the Slovenian educational system. Data was acquired from twelve families. Interviewees spoke about the positive and negative aspects of educational integration. Those mainly consisted of language difficulties, learning difficulties, and discrimination. The presented research aims…

This research aims to describe primary school children’s life and education experiences who escaped from the war environment in Syria and took refuge in Turkey. The study was conducted with an ethnographic research design. The study participants comprised fourth-grade students, teachers, parents, and the close social circle of Syrian nationals who stayed in the temporary shelter in Turkey. Observation, interview,…

This paper asks how refugees' second-language learning processes are embedded in their lives in host countries. To address this question, the paper proposes the concept of second-language learning trajectories. These trajectories explain refugees' second-language learning as closely intertwined with learners' self-understanding, experiences and positioning in host countries. Using longitudinal narrative interview data from Syrian refugees in Germany, the paper identifies…

The VIDAS data set (Verbal Interaction Dataset of Acquired Spanish) presents data from 200 participants from different countries and language backgrounds (50 Philippines with L1 Tagalog; 50 Ukrainians with L1 Ukrainian; 50 Moroccans with L1Arabic; 50 Romanians with L1 Romanian). They completed an oral expression and interaction test in the context of a Spanish certification exam for adult migrants. The…

The proliferation of mobile devices in everyday life since the end of the 20th century has led to mobile applications for educational purposes and the creation of the research field of mobile learning. Despite the extended research interest on the effectiveness of this field, there is limited research on mobile learning for various social groups, such as refugees, students with…

In many European countries, refugees spend their first period after arrival in the receiving country in reception centers. Though this reception period has been heavily criticized, especially in relation to mental health, few scholars examined its impact on refugee integration. Since host country language learning is the main focus for most recent arrivals, this study re-examines the impact of the…

New adolescent migrants from Arabic-speaking countries face complex challenges when participating in regular mathematics classes in Germany: They have been educated in their family language(s) and are obliged to adapt to a new (second or target) language and to different styles of teaching. In contrast, 3rd generation multilingual students, who usually are schooled in German only, have rarely ever used…

In the last decade, thousands of forcibly-displaced people have sought refuge in the Netherlands. Many of them are highly educated, and their integration into the host society's labour market could improve their own quality of life as well as making a significant contribution to the country's economy. However, refugees face many challenges in their search for employment. This is the…

Enhancing social skills among citizens who are considered at risk is one of the ways in which a welfare state handles marginalised groups (Prieur et al, 2020). Universalised programmes represent a common way of strengthening the social capabilities of groups deemed in need of such skills (for example, Pettersvold and Østrem, 2019). In this article, we show that emotions perform…

This article explores the linguistic strategies of young refugees (ages 12-23) in the Netherlands. The study takes place within a societal context in which new migrants and refugees are increasingly pressured to learn Dutch as key to their integration, but English is becoming more and more dominant, and in which learning Dutch is not considered necessary for other newcomer groups…

In this paper, we address gender differences in the host language proficiency of humanitarian migrants. Prior research has produced inconclusive results with regard to women's host language proficiency relative to that of men: sometimes women's proficiency exceeds that of men, sometimes women lag behind men, and sometimes there are no substantial differences. Using data on recent humanitarian migrants in Germany,…

Multiculturalism and globalization are common traits of western societies, and affect the way people interact and communicate. In such a context, this study comes to investigate teachers’ perceptions, practices and needs towards global and intercultural competences. This study was designed and implemented in order to shed light on major issues which are associated with the context of global competences as…

Civil society has played an important role in meeting the challenges of refugee migration in recent years. This commentary documents the importance of civic engagement for the integration of refugees by linking individual survey data on refugees to a regional measure of civic engagement in Germany. Using the density of newly established civic associations at the county level as a…

While scholarly literature indicates that both refugee and non-refugee migrant young people display increased levels of psychosocial vulnerability, studies comparing the mental health of the two groups remain scarce. This study aims to further the existing evidence by examining refugee and non-refugee migrants’ mental health, in relation to their migration history and resettlement conditions. The mental health of 883 refugee…

The present study analyzed academic motivation and its relationship with dispositions towards critical thinking in a sample of 131 students of Spanish nationality and 131 students of foreign nationality (unaccompanied foreign minors and foreign adolescents who had previously experienced the Andalusian care system). For this, an ex-post-facto study was conducted which was descriptive, comparative, and cross-sectional in nature. The main…

This paper takes on the important concepts of inclusion and sustainability, in both their broad and discursive understandings, to map out the interrelations that teachers, who work within different areas of the Austrian school system, make between different, key aspects of their work and organization. The complex intersections of school organization, sustainability, and inclusion were analyzed following a situational analysis…

Mastering the language of the destination country is key to immigrant and refugee children's educational success. Refugee children typically face the challenge of starting or continuing their educational carrier in a completely new context and in a completely new language. In this study, we examine the role of preschool attendance and formal language instruction in supporting young refugee children to…

How are volunteers who provide assistance to refugees socialized into their organizations? Known as the process through which newcomers evolve from organizational outsiders into insiders, socialization is particularly crucial among volunteers, as they often help vulnerable groups such as refugees. To examine this issue, which is critical to both scholars and practitioners, we draw on a large-scale qualitative study conducted…

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for 1984–2018, we analyze the intergenerational education mobility of immigrants in Germany by identifying the determinants of differences in educational stocks for first- and second-generation immigrants in comparison to individuals without a migration background. Our results show that on average, first-generation immigrants have fewer years of schooling than native-born Germans and have a…

This article examines the ways in which schools in France face the challenges posed by new types of migrant and refugee pupils. It is based on comparative ethnographic fieldwork carried out in various localities of a French department and on interviews with school personnel confronted with the arrival of children from two groups who embody the perceived distinction between undesirable…

This article investigates the educational participation of refugee adolescents in Germany as a main European destination country of refugee migration. Opportunities and restrictions for school participation vary not only across countries–, but in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, also within countries. The influence of different regional educational policies on refugees' educational participation and the extent to which…

Turkey has been hosting the largest Syrian refugee migration in the world since 2011, which has necessitated a continuous change in state-level measures to cater for the deficiencies of a forced displacement ranging from economic to social and educational instruments. Despite constructive national policies and legislation of the Turkish government and financial support, refugee access and enrollment in higher education…

Germany has become the most important destination country for young refugees in Europe (Destatis, 2021). Vocational education and training can make an important contribution to overcome educational barriers and gain participation in society (Will & Hohmut, 2020). Since 2015, rural regions have faced new challenges in establishing effective support systems for young apprentices with forced migration experience (Ohliger et al.,…

This study reports data on 47 Tigrinya speaking Eritrean refugees learning French. L2 French proficiency is assessed through the placement test Ev@lang, a standardized grammar test, and fine corpus analyses. Analysis of individual factors shows that, whereas school education, number of years in Switzerland, and French classes attended play no role in proficiency, age penalizes learning and, critically, multilingualism facilitates…

Background: Although post-traumatic stress is prevalent among unaccompanied refugee minors (URM), there are few evidence-based psychological interventions for this group. Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) is a brief, manualised intervention for trauma-exposed youth, which has shown promising results in exploratory studies. The aim of the present study was to assess the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the…

Background: Migration is a complex process of high uncertainty with adjustments to new contexts and experiences influencing individuals’ health. This study aims to assess the prevalence of self-reported sexual risk-taking behaviors among migrant youth population in Sweden, fulfilling the research gap in that field. Methods: A pre-tested, web-based self-administered cross-sectional survey was used to collect data among 1563 migrant youth…

Swedish register data include a number of variables related to individuals’ educational level. In contrast to many other countries, the registers even include information on the education obtained by immigrants outside Sweden. For studies on immigrants’ labour market integration, this is an important asset. However, the quality of data in terms of the source and extent of data coverage for…