Search results

Canada's population is becoming increasingly diverse and the recent recognition of the need for inclusivity and diversity has led to conversations in undergraduate and graduate medical programs across the country. The intended outcomes of these conversations around representation are actions that better prepare medical graduates to meet the needs related to caring for a diverse Canadian population. It is paramount that learners see this progress toward equity, inclusivity, and diversity reflected in the leadership of their medical training programs. Actions toward this goal may be more impactful from a new understanding of leadership. This chapter focuses on a postcolonial reimagining of leadership that expands qualities that are valued, resulting in a natural diversification and increased inclusion among medical leaders. The authors write from their personal viewpoints and provide suggestions on revisioning leadership and curriculum, throughout. It is hoped that a paradigm shift in the way leaders are identified, recognized, and supported will address current challenges in medical culture and subsequent socialization of learners that influence their professional identities and ideas about who and what makes good leaders.

Purpose – The purpose of the research reported in this article is to understand how refugees learn to engage with a complex, multimodal information landscape and how their information literacy practice may be constructed to enable them to connect and be included in their new information landscape. Design/methodology/approach – The study is framed through practice and socio‐cultural theories. A qualitative research design is employed including semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews and focus groups which are thematically analysed through an information practice lens. Findings – Refugees encounter complex and challenging information landscapes that present barriers to their full participation in their new communities. Social inclusion becomes possible where information is provided via sharing through trusted mediators who assist with navigating the information landscape and information mapping, and through visual and social sources. Research limitations/implications – The study is local and situated and therefore not empirically generalizable. It does however provide rich, deep description and explanation that is instructive beyond the specific research site and contributes to theory building. Practical implications – The study highlights the role, and importance, of social and visual information sources and the key role of service providers as mediators and navigators. Governments, funders and service providers can use these findings to inform their service provision. Originality/value – This is an original research paper in which the results provide practical advice for those working with refugees and which also extends theories of information literacy practice as an information practice.

Soon after the first refugees started coming to India from Tibet, the Department of Home was established to coordinate the immediate relief assistance for them and to find a long-term solution for the resettlement of refugees. The resettlement of refugees, however, also involves providing basic amenities and adequate source of livelihood. As a result, towards the end, the Department of Home had established 58 Tibetan settlements in India, Nepal and Bhutan, and the welfare and interests of these settlements are looked after by their respective representative or welfare officers. These settlements are primarily assisted by the Government of India and other voluntary aid organizations. There are a total of 58 settlements, out of which there are 39 major and minor settlements in India, 12 in Nepal and 7 in Bhutan based either on agriculture or agro-industries or handicrafts. Of these, 39 major and minor settlements spread across the length and breadth of the country; 11 settlements are found in the north-eastern part of the country, most of which is concentrated in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim and West Bengal. The present study discusses the socio-economic status of the Choephelling Tibetan settlement in Miao, Arunachal Pradesh, established in 1975. As per the 2008–2009 annual report, the current population is 2,816. The major source of livelihood for the settlers is farming. Alternatively, some of the settlers have also started carpet weaving as an alternate source of income. However, one of the greatest problems in the settlements is that the population is rapidly growing, due to the number of births in the community and the steady streams of new refugees, which has increased since 1980 when travel restrictions from Tibet became more relaxed. This has put a strain on the already fragile economy and infrastructure of the settlements, and the housing, sanitation, health clinics, schools and other facilities are no longer equipped to deal with the number of people in the settlements. This study attempts to address and discuss some of the major socio-economic issues faced by the settlers.

How does one learn of atrocities that have been committed, and are being committed, in remote corners of our planet? The standard answer to this question would likely be, “Consult the indexes to the leading components of the American establishment press, such as, for instance, The New York Times Index.” But, by so doing, one would be deeply disappointed, as I was. If one wanted to learn the horrifying particulars of the genocide the government of Bangladesh has been waging for at least 20 years against the tribal peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, an exhaustive search of the American establishment press would yield, at best, only a most shadowy, tenuous, and distorted picture. One's only certainty would be that there has been unrest in the Hill Tracts and that a long‐suffering Bangladeshi government has had a trying time suppressing it. Indeed, one's dominant impression would likely be of a beleaguered government of a newly independent, “democratic” state struggling against its own unruly dissidents. The truth, of course, is quite other‐wise: The government of a dubiously democratic, newly independent state, in a relentless and openly avowed land‐grab, is waging genocidal warfare against the non‐Muslim tribal minorities who occupy lands along one of its borders with India. A Bangladeshi army commander operating in the Tracts once avowed the government's aim: “We Want the Soil but not the People of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.” A genocidal intention could not easily be more explicitly expressed.

The lives of refugee and immigrant populations have become central to often intense debates about cultural differences and their implications for multicultural societies. The cultural practices assumed to be characteristic of such populations are the object of media comment and policy initiatives, and preoccupy social service practitioners daily. Drawing on an ethnographic examination of the everyday experiences of Iraqi refugees in a small regional town in Victoria, Australia, this article explores how social service practitioners address cultural difference as they seek to assist and support integration. The wider implications of emphasising cultural difference as a defining feature in determining and evaluating refugee integration are also explored. We argue that this emphasis fails to address structural inequalities that contribute to common forms of exclusion and marginalisation experienced by refugees and immigrants in Australia. This emphasis also risks contributing to what, in recent times, has become a dangerous stereotyping of refugees.

Refugee students’¹ education is disrupted by multiple spatial and temporal transitions – no matter where they come from, where they go, and what cause their forced migration. The first major disruption occurs with their flight from origin countries due to security or other reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic led to another dramatic disruption with a heightened risk of weakening hard-earned progress. This chapter examines an example of post-migration education opportunities for urban refugee students across two monolingual contexts at two critical junctures from their arrival in the destination countries to the COVID-19 outbreak. It discusses the readiness and responsiveness of Turkish and German education systems by examining the instances and consequences of disruption in refugee students’ education in İstanbul and Hamburg. A multiple case study design with critical policy analysis (CPA) was used. In addition to the available national statistics, empirical data drew on semi-structured in-depth interviews with refugee students and teachers. The background section maps out the trajectory of refugee education with a synthesis of the formal educational policies in Turkey and Germany toward the inclusion of refugee students into public schools. The findings first elaborate on the readiness of the Turkish and German contexts and a scoping review of the literature on the major issues in both settings. The second part explores the responsiveness of both education systems to refugee children’s education during the COVID-19 pandemic in both cases, namely, in İstanbul and Hamburg.

This paper presents the research findings of the “Syrian New Scots’ Information Literacy Way-finding practices” research project, funded by the Information Literacy Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. The purpose of this paper is to explore the information needs of “Syrian New Scots” (the preferred name for refugees in Scotland), their habitual and adaptive information literacy practices and the barriers and enablers they encounter within their new socio-cultural setting via their interactions with people, tools and processes.

Primary data were collected via interviews with three Local Authority Leads for Syrian Resettlement and focus groups with Syrian New Scots in three geographical locations in Scotland: two rural areas and one urban. Syrian research subjects were also involved in a drawing exercise that helped to contextualise the findings.

The main information needs expressed by participants revolved around the learning of English language which was linked to addressing health-related information needs, well-being and community engagement. All participants also highlighted the issue of socio-cultural differences in fulfilling everyday life information needs (such as health and housing). Information provision to Syrian New Scots requires a more structured process that acknowledges personalised information needs and it is tailored to the different stages of the adaptation process. The findings suggest that the “ways of knowing” that Syrian refugees bring with them are converging information experiences of past and new knowledge structures gained via different socio-cultural and migration experiences.

The research findings of this project will be of interest to local and regional support organisations and community volunteer groups who contribute to the social well-being and social integration of Syrian refugees. In addition, they may be of interest to public libraries due to their role as centres for educational and cultural orientation sessions, and as places of support for newly settled Syrian refugees and the communities that embrace them.

It is well recognized that students from refugee backgrounds are typically predisposed to social, economic, and educational disadvantage. These layers of disadvantage can negatively impact upon higher education participation, not only in undergraduate, but also postgraduate education. This is even more pronounced in high stakes courses (e.g., medicine), where competition for entry is fierce. Pursuing medicine is arguably a pipedream for most immigrants from refugee backgrounds.

We incorporate a retrospective narrative based on the first author’s experience of a major policy change. Using historical correspondence records, the authors present the story of an unsuccessful applicant with a refugee background, who questioned why she was denied entrance into medicine. Her appeal triggered the establishment of a refugee subquota into graduate entry medicine. This chapter describes the antecedents, development, and subsequent successful implementation of this policy initiative. The broader implications for the healthcare system, patient care, and medical education are discussed. This chapter concludes by urging higher education institutions to review their policies so that students with a refugee background are fairly represented across all courses and careers, providing them with the opportunity to convert their pipedreams into possibilities.