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In this chapter, we discuss masculinity in relation to Swedish sports for children with refugee backgrounds. Specifically, we explore how the structure of sports shapes the distinct conditions for their athletic endeavours, including the traits associated with masculinity, which are perceived favourably in sports because they align with the physical and mental norms of male athletes, thereby reinforcing hegemonic masculinity. Moreover, we aim to show that perspectives valorising masculinity can frame children with refugee backgrounds as passive athletes who lack agency. Thus, we discuss two refinements of inclusivity in sports for children with refugee backgrounds in terms of (a) stereotyped notions of gender and refugees and (b) substantial links between desired masculinity and expectations of a perfect match with the Swedish sports system.

This study aims to show the complexities of engagement between students - Venezuelan and Brazilian - and their teachers. This qualitative ethnographic study documents the everyday pedagogies and practices that take place in elementary schools with high levels of refugee and immigrant children. While Brazilian law ensures the basic right to public education, forbidding discrimination based on nationality or immigration status (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação, 1996), the barriers remain. Through the frameworks of multicultural (USA) and intercultural (Brazil) education, this paper shows how Brazilian teachers and students of Venezuelan and Brazilian backgrounds engage, learn from one another and build welcoming spaces, but also how stereotypes are reinforced inside classrooms and schools.

This qualitative study uses ethnography to understand how recent Venezuelan migratory flow influences Brazilian and Venezuelan children’s educational experiences in elementary education. Participants were Venezuelan (N = 57) and Brazilian (N = 76) children in two elementary schools in the city of Boa Vista. Data sources for the study are school observations in four elementary classrooms (1st and 2nd grade) and semi-structured interviews with caregivers, teachers, administrators and other educators. This paper also collected children’s drawings and writings and documents like curricula, strategic planning, guidelines, policies, grades, reports and any other textual or photographic material made available at the city level.

In the field of education, there is a critical need for understanding children’s education experiences. This paper focuses on the experiences of teachers and students in two elementary schools in Brazil. This paper focus on two findings: first that teachers promote the learning of Portuguese to show care toward their Venezuelan students. Second, children in the classroom show solidarity with one another and resist some of the more rigid Portuguese-only practices enacted by teachers. This work uses the frameworks of intercultural (more commonly used in Brazil) and multicultural education to inform the analysis.

In this study, this paper puts these frameworks of interculturalism, multiculturalism, language use and solidarity into conversation to understand the dynamics of two elementary classrooms in the city of Boa Vista, Brazil. While this paper shows the shortcomings of a seemingly multicultural and multilanguage classroom, it also shows how children actively resist the rigidity of teaching and learning in elementary schooling.

This study is a response both to the increasing South–South migration trend in Latin America and its consequences on public education systems. Through multicultural and intercultural lenses, this research highlighted the complexity of interactions within multicultural classrooms by delving into a two-year ethnographic study conducted in Boa Vista, Brazil, focusing on Venezuelan and Brazilian children in two local elementary schools. This paper focused on two main observations this paper refers to as “Teaching Portuguese as a Way of Caring” and “Children's Solidarity Work.” Teachers primarily centered their instruction on teaching Portuguese to migrant children, believing it to lead to quicker integration in the classroom and beyond – thus as a way of caring for their migrant students.

Since March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted refugees by compounding preexisting and systemic health, social and economic inequities. In Canada, approximately 50,000 Syrian refugees arrived between 2015 and 2020 and were in the process of rebuilding their lives when the pandemic started. This study aims to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for Syrian refugees in Canada and identify supports needed.

Drawing on frameworks for refugee psychosocial adaptation and social integration and a qualitative descriptive design, the study used thematic analysis to examine semi-structured interviews with 10 Syrians.

Findings indicated four themes that provide a snapshot of impacts relatively early in the pandemic: facing ongoing development, inequity and insecurity during integration; disruption of settlement, integration and adaptation due to the pandemic; ongoing adaptation and resilience during integration in Canada; and ongoing needs and solutions for integration and adaptation.

This study builds upon growing research concerning Syrian refugees and psychosocial adaptation, particularly during the pandemic. The findings highlight the impacts of the pandemic on a population already facing inequities in a resettlement country. While the findings emphasize the resilience of the Syrian refugee community, the study also demonstrates the need for ongoing supports and justice-oriented action to fulfill resettlement commitments, especially in the face of additional stressors like the COVID-19 pandemic. Implications for policy, practice and future research are discussed.

Food insecurity is a major public health concern, especially for refugee families. Despite the growing population of refugee families in the USA and the harmful effects on youth’s health and well-being, there are limited qualitative studies exploring food insecurity among US refugee adolescents. The use of community-based participatory research and photovoice can highlight the strength of gathering and sharing underrepresented and disadvantaged group experiences. The purpose of this study was to understand adolescent refugee's food insecurity perspectives and experiences, with a nutrition and food access focus. Three main themes and nine subthemes emerged around the role that food security plays in a healthy, thriving community. The main themes included food must be more accessible in school; importance of food access in one’s community; and food access and creating a vibrant community. Implications regarding how to apply these results with community and school-based food programs are discussed.

This study followed a phenomenological research approach to understand the experiences of refugee youth and what constitutes healthy food access in a community. Data analysis was conducted using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis to ensure that data saturation was met (Guest et al., 2006).

The thematic analysis of the photovoice methodological approach revealed three main themes and nine subthemes around the role that food security plays in a healthy and thriving community. These themes are as follows: food must be more accessible in school; importance of food access in one’s community; and food access and creating a vibrant community.

Funding resources limited the duration of meeting in which we could meet and discuss the photo’s students were taking. Second, consistent with phenomenological studies, the sample size was small. However, common sample size for studies using a phenomenological approach ranged from 5 to 25 (Creswell et al., 2007), which is in alignment with this study. Next, while participants did receive training in the SHOWeD method, the photography training was limited to only one hour. Despite the limited training, participants felt they had sufficient knowledge and skills to take the necessary pictures.

This study provides important policy implications for school-based food programs, such as food pantries and free or reduced school meals, and how it plays an important role in refugee youth’s well-being and education. Based on feedback from the study participants, many school-based food programs were considered not available or easily accessible, and that youth and their families were often unaware of programs available to them. This study revealed the important role schools can play in ensuring food security among refugee youth and their families as well as for refugee youth to reach their full potential equitably.

This study used a creative research approach that integrates photovoice as a means to elevate the voices of a marginalized populations. This approach has been identified as one of the most culturally appropriate method when working with refugee children and youth (Pieloch et al., 2016). Second, the study included having multiple meetings, that recruited from previously established partnerships. This form of community building and activism elevates participants voices (Catalani and Minkler, 2009). Finally, this study used a cycle of photography and discussion and held a final public photo exhibition for both the participant’s community and its influential leaders (Catalani and Minkler, 2009; Evans-Agnew and Rosemberg, 2016). The results of this study have important policy implications for schools and communities.

The prevalence of Congolese refugee women seeking asylum in the USA has recently garnered substantial attention. Many women have fled the Democratic Republic of Congo due to trauma and loss. Likewise, the resettlement process, particularly acculturative stress, may exacerbate mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. By recognizing the centrality of family within Congolese culture, this study aims to investigate cultural beliefs about family among Congolese refugee women in the USA, using acculturative theory as an interpretative lens.

The authors’ study centered on understanding the resettlement experiences of 20 Congolese refugee women living within an urban area of Midwest America after their arrival in America since 2011. Through using convenient sampling methods, the authors chose these particular activists as they could provide insight into their stories concerning their journey from Congo to settling down as refugees within Northeast America. During interviews, semi-structured questioning was used to gather responses from participants which were later analyzed through implementing a thematic interpretation process.

Three themes emerged encapsulating cultural beliefs about family: supporting one another; the importance of togetherness; and disciplining our children. These findings provide culturally tailored resources to support Congolese refugee women and their families upon resettlement optimally.

The authors’ work provides health equity researchers with an opportunity to better understand cultural beliefs among Congolese refugee women. Findings from this study provide an increased understanding of how to provide culturally specific tools to better aid Congolese refugee women and their families upon arrival.

The authors’ research offers insights for health equity researchers seeking to understand the cultural beliefs of Congolese refugee women. The findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of how to provide culturally specific resources better to support Congolese refugee women and their families upon arrival.

The authors verify that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper was written completely independently, and neither the entire work nor any of its parts have been previously published. The authors confirm that the paper has not been submitted to peer review, nor is in the process of peer reviewing, nor has been accepted for publishing in another journal. The authors confirm that the research in their work is original.

This study aims to explore the experiences of newly resettled refugee-background high school students participating in the Teen Response program, a community-based initiative to assist refugee-background adolescents (RBAs) in navigating educational and career opportunities in the midwestern USA.

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined twenty-two RBAs through survey and focus groups.

The findings reveal significant growth and transformation in the students' self-efficacy and advocacy skills. This growth underscores the critical role of social support and community engagement in helping RBAs, empowering them to advocate for themselves and others in pursuing educational and career goals.

This study contributes new insights into the community-based support programs for RBAs, focusing on enhancing self-efficacy and advocacy. It offers valuable implications for developing effective support frameworks and recommends future research on these approaches.

This study aims to examine the contribution of informal encounters outside the school walls between local Israeli families from “Waldorf Education” and immigrant families from Africa from formal state education and explore the consequences of these encounters on the development of lifelong learning competences. Research questions are as follows: In what way do non-formal encounters lead to the development of lifelong learning ability? What are the challenges and consequences of non-formal activity for research participants, families and educators from the pedagogical, social and personal perspectives?

The research uses a qualitative-interpretive case study approach that allows for in-depth observation of the phenomenon within the context of reality to understand the case, a non-formal encounter between two groups of parents from different cultures, languages and educational attitudes. In this case study, it is possible to generalize from the local to the global and examine processes, actions and behaviors in the studied case (Creswell et al., 2018; Yin, 2009). This empirical study allows description, analysis, understanding and explanation of the challenges and actions in organizing and holding non-formal encounters from personal experiences as a first source.

The analysis of the data brought up two main categories that represent the actions and insights from the non-formal encounters for developing lifelong learning competences: create a personal dialogue to strengthen trust and confidence; foster parental involvement. Non-formal encounters between families from different cultural-social backgrounds may promote lifelong learning competences such as tolerance, inclusion and openness. However, external intervention by a social association is required to organize, support and operate them.

The research’s limitation was that it was conducted in the country’s center. Therefore, the findings must be considered in the context in which they are presented and not generalized to other regions or communities from other cultures in Israel and the world. A few limited encounters may affect the author’s interpretation of the study data. In addition, expressions of “social desire” that may be expressed in interviews must be considered.

This study emphasizes social activism. Despite all the differences and tensions, creating an equal space in the families’ encounters is essential for lifelong learning. The immigrant parents participated in decision-making, the stages of organization and the activities themselves during the encounters. This partnership strengthened their commitment and responsibility. Because they are a powerless minority group, it should not be assumed that two encounters will improve their self-confidence. The proof is that fewer participants came to the last encounter. Education experts must maintain consistency and continuity in forming partnerships with immigrant families over time and as part of lifelong learning.

The non-formal encounters between the two groups of families create an atmosphere of equality: all are parents of children seeking to inculcate humane and social values. The collaborative atmosphere contributed to the understanding that closeness overpowers distance. Everyone is troubled by similar issues of parenting, enjoyment of children, nutritious food and a shared desire to be good citizens while maintaining tolerance, reciprocity and respect.

Non-formal encounters are actively performed to create belonging when the “others and we” join together for the community and the children. This is an extensive, open and accessible platform for strengthening social consciousness and understanding the connection between teaching, culture and society to promote equality in education. This study will allow schools to expand the boundaries of communication with parents and initiate additional activities with other social groups to foster children’s integration. It will enrich the academic knowledge about connections and communication of educators, families from Israel and immigrant families in developing a partnership in the school to promote lifelong learning.

By exploiting the exogeneity of the unexpected 2015 European refugee crisis, the paper’s purpose is to analyze the causal impact of the crisis on resident immigrants’ life satisfaction. Due to the ongoing anti-immigrant sentiments, we argue that the refugee crisis and the build-up to it affect how resident immigrants are looked upon in a negative light; this in turn could consequently be reflected in their life satisfaction. We anchor the natives’ hostility toward the refugees and immigrants on the group-threat theory.

Using two waves of the European Values Study, we exploit the exogenous source of variations generated by the crisis and employ a difference-in-differences estimation framework to identify the causal impact.

Our findings indicate negative impact of the refugee crisis on resident immigrants’ life satisfaction. We find negative impact of the refugee crisis on the life satisfactions of resident immigrants with low education levels. Our results also suggest that resident immigrants in Western European countries experience lower life satisfaction after the crisis.

The literature so far mostly revolves around the impact of the crisis on natives’ objective well-being. We find it surprising that the literature has not fully utilized the rare opportunity afforded by the refugee crisis to analyze its impact on resident immigrants’ subjective well-being.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0093

Sub-Saharan forced migration in recent decades has reached alarming levels, significantly increasing the risk to develop mental health vulnerabilities due to traumatic events and postmigration stressors. Research gaps persist within this population, necessitating culturally sensitive studies within a socioecological framework. This pilot exploratory mixed-method study aims to investigate the quality of life and subjective well-being among African displaced individuals in Niger.

In total, 119 African displaced adults (M = 26; SD = ±7.8) were administered WHOQOL-BREF to assess the quality of life (objective well-being) and Perma profiler and SWLS to assess subjective well-being, and 20 (M = 30.8; SD = ±7.4) of the previously assessed participants were in-depth interviewed to record their life stories, and transcripts were analyzed throughout thematic content analysis.

Quantitative results showed that all domains of quality of life, subjective well-being and life satisfaction scored below the African normative population levels. Particularly, environment, positive emotions and accomplishments in life were consistently below the normative mean score. The most affected dimension was life satisfaction. Qualitative findings revealed three main themes: potentially stressful or traumatic events that occurred to migrants and refugees, well-being as a continuum and the multiple meanings of forced migration, explaining the multiple burdens and resources that displaced people, affecting their subjective and objective well-being.

This study contributes to addressing mental health gaps among sub-Saharan forced migrants through a unique combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, offering insights into their experiences within the context of forced migration and resettlement.

Refugee and immigrant youth (RIY) experience multifaceted challenges, but also have the potential to become resilient. Most of the existing literature focuses on the challenges these RIY face with limited attention to their agency and resilience. This study aims to assess the factors that predict RIY’s resilience among refugee and immigrant youth in Montreal, Canada.

A sample of 93 RIY in Montreal was surveyed. A questionnaire consisting of validated scales was used for data collection.

The study found a positive correlation between educational level, personal resilience and relational resilience (p < 0.001). However, ethnicity did not have a significant correlation with the participant’s general level of resilience (p > 0.001). Cultural, religious, family, community ties, age and time lived in Montréal were found to be predictors of general resilience, relational resilience and personal resilience of the RIY (p < 0.001).

The study concluded that factors such as cultural, religious and community ties are major predictors of the resilience of RIY in Montreal. Hence, the need for mental health practitioners and resettlement organizations that work with RIY to focus on reconceptualizing resilience to incorporate the cultural, religious and community ties of RIY. This will help in developing services and programs that are culturally sensitive and effective in fostering the resilience of RIY.