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This paper contributes to the literature on complementary schools as sites of learning and social and cultural identification. We draw on a small-scale multi-method qualitative study conducted in Albanian and Bulgarian community schools in London to explore the agendas of ‘new’ Eastern European complementary schools with respect to learning and heritage and their impact on migrant students’ identities and experiences with education in the UK. Findings demonstrate that different models of complementary schooling and students’ experiences of mainstream education affected students’ views in different ways. The paper explores how the ‘hard’ and ‘boring’ culture of Bulgarian complementary school resulted in students’ expressions of greater liking for learning in mainstream school and valuing of its multiethnic context. It further examines how practices in another complementary school and students’ wider social experiences resulted in a stronger sense of Albanian heritage identity in students, but in more problematic views of UK cultural diversity. In elaborating these themes we seek to draw some implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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In many respects, recent East European migrants in the UK look like past migrants to the UK: they left poorer parts of the world in search of work and the better life in the UK. But in other respects, they look different: they are white. Their putative whiteness, however, has not exempted them from the effects of racism. But while there is growing evidence of how they have been targets of racism, less attention has been focused on how they are also perpetrators of racism. The purpose of this paper is to compare the ways Hungarians and Romanians wield ‘race’ to assert and defend the relatively privileged position their putative whiteness affords them in the UK's segmented labour market. I argue that these migrants mark, evaluate and rank difference in racialized ways to secure both social-psychological and material benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The share of Old and New Commonwealth migrants in Britain greatly diminished between 1971 and 2002. The decline of former colonial Commonwealth migrants occurred alongside the rise of Central, Eastern European and Middle Eastern migrants. This paper focuses on the chances of social mobility of the previously little-studied new migrant groups and outlines the differences in employment patterns between them and UK-born Whites and old migrants. It establishes that huge differentials exist between new immigrant groups in their labour-market participation, employment rates and occupational attainment. The disadvantage of EU10, Eastern European, Turkish and Middle Eastern migrants in terms of their probabilities of being active, employed and accessing intermediate positions cannot be explained by a lack of human capital, and their situation is not likely to improve with time. For migrant women, inactivity rather than unemployment seems the greatest concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Around 2 million people have migrated from Central and Eastern Europe to the UK since 2004. The UK Central and Eastern European Community (UK‐CEE) are disproportionately exposed to the social determinants of poor physical and mental health. Their health and healthcare beliefs remain under‐researched, particularly regarding primary care. Objective: This review explores UK‐CEE community members' use and perceptions of UK general practice. Methods: A systematic search of nine bibliographic databases identified 2094 publications that fulfilled the search criteria. Grey literature searches identified 16 additional relevant publications. Screening by title and abstract identified 201 publications of relevance, decreasing to 65 after full‐text screening. Publications were critically appraised, with data extracted and coded. Thematic analysis using constant comparison allowed generation of higher‐order thematic constructs. Results: Full UK‐CEE national representation was achieved. Comparatively low levels of GP registration were described, with ability, desire and need to engage with GP services shaped by the interconnected nature of individual community members' cultural and sociodemographic factors. Difficulties overcoming access and in‐consultation barriers are common, with health expectations frequently unmet. Distrust and dissatisfaction with general practice often persist, promoting alternative health‐seeking approaches including transnational healthcare. Marginalized UK‐CEE community subgroups including Roma, trafficked and homeless individuals have particularly poor GP engagement and outcomes. Limited data on the impact of Brexit and COVID‐19 could be identified. Conclusions: Review findings demonstrate the need for codesigned approaches to remove barriers to engagement, culturally adapt and develop trust in GP care for UK‐CEE individuals. Community Involvement: Community members and stakeholders shaped the conceptualisation of the review question and validation of emergent themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on research conducted with men arriving from eastern Europe in London after the expansion of the EU in 2004, this article examines how migrants’ narratives of the city construct a counter-discourse to a ‘global’ London. It is argued that the use of ‘visual narratives’– a combination of participant-directed photography and semi-structured interviews as a methodology—allows for the exploration of embodied and material aspects of everyday lives in the city, which destabilise traditional urban pictorial approaches to the city. Such narratives of participants’ embodied movements through London relocate the observer as the everyday mobile-subject; they highlight the connections between urban and transnational mobilities; and they present participants’ constructions of different kinds of affective spaces in the city where they begin to negotiate home, belonging and return. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: The UK has experienced significant immigration from Eastern Europe following European Union (EU) expansion in 2004, which raises the importance of equity and equality for the recent immigrants. Previous research on ethnic health inequalities focused on established minority ethnic groups, whereas Eastern European migrants are a growing, but relatively under-researched group. We aimed to conduct a systematic scoping review of published literature on Eastern European migrants' use and experiences of UK health services.Methods: An initial search of nine databases produced 5997 relevant publications. Removing duplicates reduced the figure to 2198. Title and abstract screening left 73 publications. Full-text screening narrowed this down further to 10 articles, with three more from these publications to leave 13 included publications. We assessed publications for quality, extracted data and undertook a narrative synthesis.Results: The included publications most commonly studied sexual health and family planning services. For Eastern European migrants in the UK, the most commonly cited barriers to accessing and using healthcare were limited understanding of how the system worked and language difficulties. It was also common for migrants to return to their home country to a healthcare system they were familiar with, free from language barriers. Familial and social networks were valuable for patients with a limited command of English in the absence of suitable and available interpreting and translating services.Conclusions: To address limited understanding of the healthcare system and the English language, the NHS could produce information in all the Eastern European languages about how it operates. Adding nationality to the Electronic Patient Report Form (EPRF) may reveal the demand for interpretation and translation services. Eastern European migrants need to be encouraged to register with GPs to reduce A&E attendance for primary care conditions. Many of the issues raised will be relevant to other European countries since the long-term outcomes from Brexit are likely to influence the level of Eastern European and non-Eastern European migration across the continent, not just the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Europeans are integrating into life in the UK. This entails learning to get along with their new neighbours, but it also involves not getting along with certain neighbours. Integration is not confined to benevolent forms of everyday cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and conviviality; it can also include more pathological forms, like racism. Whilst integration is generally seen as desirable, the learning that it entails necessarily includes less desirable practices and norms. The aim of this article is to show how East Europeans in the UK have been acquiring specifically British competencies of racism. This doesn't mean all East Europeans are racist or they always use racism; it does mean, however, that racism is a part of the integration equation. We focus on the racist and racializing practices of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians in Bristol in the UK. These East Europeans are using racism to insert themselves more favourably into Britain's racialized status hierarchies. This is a kind of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies demonstrating the vulnerability of labour migrants following the recession have focused on unemployment. This article examines how the labour market performance of East-European workers in the U.K. has been affected by the recession by focussing on four possible employment outcomes: unemployment, self-employment, over-qualification and part-time jobs. By showing the relatively low rates of unemployment amongst East-European migrants, which have become even lower following the recession, it argues that the vulnerability of immigrants in periods of economic downturn cannot always be solely measured in higher rates of immigrant unemployment. Labour migrants may be prompted to take jobs (any jobs) below their skills and qualifications, thus suggesting a ‘trade-off’ between unemployment and over-qualification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is mounting evidence to suggest that East European migrants in the UK have been victims of discrimination. Reports of pay gaps point to the possibility of structural discrimination, restrictions on employment operate as a kind of legal discrimination, and politicians and the media have constructed East European migrants as different and at times threatening. The Hungarians and Romanians we spoke with in Bristol also reported some discrimination, albeit in ways that deflected its racialised connotations. But they also denied that they were victims of discrimination. Why would the supposed victims of discrimination deny discrimination? We argue they did this to attenuate, and potentially reverse, the status degradations they suffered as disadvantaged and at times racialised labour migrants in Britain. We examine two discursive strategies they employed to negotiate this higher status. First, they claimed a higher social class status by embracing the meritocratic values of the dominant class. Second, they claimed a higher racial status by emphasising their whiteness and Europeanness. These were discursive attempts to reposition themselves more favourably in Britain's racialised status hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the exploration of Polish and Lithuanian migrants' work experiences in the United Kingdom. It argues that it is hard to categorize these individuals as highly skilled or low-skilled because, in spite of their relatively high qualifications, they often occupy low-skilled positions in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the article suggests that these migrants are 'middling transnationals' (). Although they are classified as economic migrants, many of them have migrated to the United Kingdom not only in order to earn money but also to try life abroad, see the world, or learn English. Following Bourdieu's terminology, the article suggests ways in which migrants use different cultural capital (skills, qualifications, social environment) to enhance their economic capital in the United Kingdom, but also ways in which these different forms of migrants' capital are interrelated. The findings suggest that Eastern Europeans are highly mobile in the British labour market. Provided they possess necessary linguistic skills, migrants progress from 'any job' to a 'better job' in search of a 'dream job'. The article emphasises that this transition in the British labour market became easier after Poles and Lithuanians became EU citizens, whereby they were granted the right to work and improved access to education services in the United Kingdom. The article also argues that viewing migrants' work experiences in the context of their future plans helps to understand better why working below qualifications is acceptable to many East Europeans in the United Kingdom. This is either because it helps them maximise their income and return to their home country as soon as possible, or because a low-skilled position helps them to improve other skills (e.g., English) and serves as a stepping stone to better career opportunities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration plays an important role in shaping contemporary society in the European Union (EU), with constituent countries being affected differently. As a result of the most recent expansion of the EU in 2004, the United Kingdom (UK) has experienced an influx of economic migrants from former 'Eastern Bloc' countries, including many young people from Poland. In this study, we explore the experiences of a group of nine young Polish adults living, studying and working in the UK. Three of the nine participants were co-researchers in this participatory action research, equipping them with the tools to undertake a narrative enquiry. The resultant narratives outline emergent themes and subthemes: including reasons for coming to and staying in the UK; first impressions of and changing opinions about life in the UK; the impact of visits to Poland; and plans for the future. The data add to the literature by providing a unique developmental perspective of the changing experiences of living in the UK; and give some insight into the life impacts of migration in contemporary Europe, amongst young people in their twenties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects and the influences of the ministry of Reverend Simon Fyne in Swansea, Great Britain. Historical studies of British Jews have flourished and concentrated recently to the other large cities in the country. Through Reverend Fyne, they were able to learn some key points about Jewish, first, they were able to understand the role of a Jewish minister in a provincial town at the beginning of the century and have come to appreciate the impact of mass immigration by eastern European Jews on an already set up Jewish community in Britain. Since Fyne was a loyal Zionist, he demonstrated the views of an early activist. Fyne was a certified teacher of Jew's College in London and had accepted the position as a minister to the Swansea Hebrew Congregation.

The article discusses the homecoming of many Jewish immigrants from Great Britain to their homeland in Eastern Europe which was started by the London Jewish Board of Guardians. Historians had estimated that around fifty thousand Jews were sent back by the agency and which had influenced other Jewish charities to do the same. Such move was supported by the Cohen family, custodians of the Board as well as the Anglo-Jewry. Other Western Jewish communities repatriated Eastern European Jews during the westward mass migration but nothing is more consistent than the Anglo-Jewry. In Britain, they feared that the influx of Jews would consume the resources of Jewish charities and prevent the process of anglicizing and might become a political issue in the country.