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People seeking asylum in Australia face complex and significant barriers accessing higher education. Due to the temporary nature of their visa, their only pathway to university is being granted admission as an international student, which is financially prohibitive. This paper focuses on the lived experience of people seeking asylum with regard to accessing higher education, and identifies six major themes: the importance of accessing studies; the stress of struggling to meet living expenses while studying; mental health issues; support for people with disabilities, health challenges, and family responsibilities; the importance of language support and navigational brokers; and the role of higher education in the settlement of people seeking asylum. The research indicates that more university and community support is needed to foster access and participation, but the priority should be on addressing the Australian Federal Government policies that underpin the most significant barriers facing people seeking asylum in accessing higher education. This recommendation is most pressing in light of the re-election of the Coalition Government in May 2019, which has committed to continue these restrictive policies.

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian universities to identify discursive representations of equity practices and connections, with our analytic gaze focused through the lens of people seeking asylum. Using a three-part analytic heuristic examining 'statements', 'practices' and 'connections', we offer a critical discourse analysis of how each public university expresses its commitment to the equity agenda in powerful stakeholder-facing documents--such as annual reports, strategic plans and media releases--and we compare this analysis against institutional stated practices with regard to people seeking asylum. In identifying misalignments between equity statements and stated practices, we suggest that institutional equity narratives articulate 'imagined worlds', in which all marginalised groups can access higher education. We argue that now is the time to move beyond these 'imagined worlds', to enact stated commitments to universal education, by instituting real and effective practices to facilitate equitable access to Australian higher education for people seeking asylum.

This paper evaluates a short school-based intervention run by Australian Red Cross, designed to reduce children's prejudice towards asylum seekers. A total of 121 children aged between 10 to 12 in four schools in Perth, Western Australia, completed questionnaires at Time 1 (pre-intervention), Time 2 (immediately after the intervention), and Time 3 (8-9 months after the intervention). The intervention used a mixture of approaches: providing information, encouraging empathy, making positive social norms more explicit, and fostering imagined contact with asylum seekers. The intervention content was also reinforced by teachers throughout the school year. The study found that the intervention was effective in increasing the children's positivity towards asylum seekers, reducing prejudiced attitudes, and increasing intentions to interact with asylum seekers. It also found that the intervention increased the children's accuracy in defining 'asylum seeker' and 'refugee'. These results occurred both in the short-and long-term, although there was some regression over time.

Refugee children are at risk of developing psychosocial problems. Occupational therapy practitioners can address some of these problems. Focus groups were held with 17 occupational therapy participants to identify interventions promoting refugee children's psychosocial wellbeing in middle childhood in high income countries. Four themes emerged: (1) Making the most with what you have, (2) The child in their various environments, (3) Occupational Therapy lens helping to build a bridge between old and new lives, and (4) Sensitivity matters/ considerations. Findings indicate research is needed to identify intervention effectiveness and increase use of macro-level interventions. interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a community‐based participatory research (CPBR) project, which used photovoice to explore 43 refugee women's perspectives of settlement in Perth, Western Australia. The research was conducted between a university and a multicultural women's health service from 2016 to 17. The women were given cameras and chose topics to photograph, which represented their settlement experiences and, using reflective group dialogue, reflected on their settlement successes and challenges and provided policy recommendations for improving the settlement process. Eleven women were interviewed for further in‐depth reflections, and 22 women selected photographs and wrote accompanying narratives for a travelling photography exhibition. Key themes of the importance of English language learning and family support during the settlement process are explored. Drawing on intersectionality and postcolonial feminist theories, this article discusses how government provisions for English education are incongruent with the settlement needs of women and access to family reunion is largely unattainable, which has negative implications for women's health and well‐being. This article demonstrates how government policy marginalises women and reinforces an existing gendered, racial hierarchy. An intersectional approach to settlement policymaking and programmes is recommended for women's successful settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a reflexive account of the messiness experienced by a Persian-Australian doctoral researcher interviewing social work and human service practitioners and people seeking asylum in Germany. This data collection was part of a cross-national comparative study of the impacts of policy on the experiences and perceptions of people seeking asylum and social work and human service practitioners in Bavaria and Western Australia. Through interview stories and the work of others, this article offers a first person account of the complexities, ambiguities and dilemmas that can occur before, during and after data collection, how these were navigated through the use of Finlay's (2012) five lenses for the reflexive interviewer, and some of the lessons learnt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of the Australia Foreign Policy, human rights in China and the spiral model of Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink is presented. For China to progress to phase four of the spiral model continued domestic and international pressure would be needed which the Australia-China Technical Cooperation Program may provide.

This article explores the findings of a qualitative study comparing social work and human service practice with people who have sought asylum in Germany and Australia. Globally social workers are concerned with the record high of people forcibly displaced worldwide and the Global North host-nations' increasingly hostile, discriminatory and restrictive policies towards people seeking asylum. This policy context is antithetical to the professional values of social workers and human services practitioners. The findings of this study reveal how the policy directly impacts social work and human service practice, creates unique ethical challenges and dilemmas and, subsequently, diverse practice responses. The paper also suggests that the country of practice influences how practitioners perceive and respond to ethical challenges and dilemmas. Through doing so, the findings challenge traditional understandings of critical practice theories that suggest that practice focused solely on the individual level is inadequate for work with people seeking asylum. Due to the diversity of contexts and their influences, we encourage social work and human services to view practice on a personal-political continuum when working with people seeking asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for the urgent release of people seeking asylum, refugees and other non-citizens held in immigration detention centres began as soon as the magnitude and reach of the global health crisis associated with COVID-19 became clear. References 1 Academics for Refugees (2020) Open Letter to the Australian Government: Controlling COVID-19 in Immigration Detention and the Community. The impossibility of social distancing in immigration detention About 1400 people are currently in immigration detention in Australia ([9]). Their preliminary submissions argued that the government has a duty of care to refugees, which cannot be met in immigration detention due to crowded conditions and the absence of public health protections. [Extracted from the article]

With a record number of people reported to be forcibly displaced worldwide and an increasingly anti-asylum policy environment in Global North host nations, it is critical to examine social work and human services with people seeking asylum and people with refugee status. This scoping review sought to identify and review the existing qualitative research on such practice from the perspectives of social work and human service practitioners, people seeking asylum and people with refugee status and clients in Global North host nations. The review presents the key findings and trends emerging from twenty publications and identifies areas for future research to further develop knowledge of this field of practice as there is a dearth of research on this topic. Through thematic analysis of very different publications, it was found that Global North host nations have varying forms of restrictive policy and dominant anti-asylum discourses. This and other factors result in many potential areas for improvement of social work and human services. The findings include recommendations for more inclusive and compassionate policy, person-centred and strength-based practice approaches, and further qualitative research with people seeking asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Australian policies that impose punitive barriers to resettlement on many people seeking asylum, a range of civil society groups have initiated acts of welcome and inclusion, including some within universities. Denied permanent protection even when found to be a refugee, people who arrived from 13 August 2012 are forced to remain in limbo and many are effectively excluded from accessing higher education. A collective of people seeking asylum, academics, students and community members in Perth, Western Australia, has responded by working together on higher education projects that seek to open up the university to people seeking asylum. In this article, members of the collective critically reflect on these projects and their involvement. Its key aim is to demonstrate the importance of lived experience and collaboration in developing and enabling higher education possibilities for refugees and asylum seekers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the engagement in physical activity as a potential coping strategy for asylum seekers living in the Australian community without the right to work and with prolonged uncertainty, and benefits or barriers to undertaking such activity. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were held with 29 asylum seekers who had arrived to Australia by boat and were living in the community in the cities of Perth, Sydney or Melbourne in July-October 2013 after their release from immigration detention. The ratio of the numbers of men and women interviewed (23 men and 6 women) was comparable to the ratio of men and women who came by boat to Australia seeking asylum in 2012-2013. Nine participants reported that they participated in physical activity as a coping strategy. Seven other participants were so worried about their future and their families that they did not have the mental or physical energy to engage in physical activity. A further six wanted to participate in physical activity but faced a number of barriers to doing so. The seven remaining participants were either not asked about their physical activity engagement because they focused their discussion on other challenges or did not elaborate on why they were not engaging in physical activity. The findings suggest that physical activity, coupled with other coping strategies, are important for some asylum seekers in trying to manage the distress of being denied the right to work and living with prolonged uncertainty. In addition, these findings highlight the critical barrier that government policy plays in disabling engagement in physical activity, which further compounds social exclusion. This includes the lack of welfare support provided, which hinders people's financial ability to access activities and support in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of Australia's border protection policies have focused on attempts to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. These include government 'messaging' in the hope this will influence the decision-making of would-be boat arrivals. This article outlines the findings of an exploratory study on the sources of information accessed by asylum seekers, prior to and during their boat journeys to Australia, about their destination country. The findings suggest that government media and Internet strategies focused on deterring asylum seekers are adopted without full regard to how information is sourced before and during these boat journeys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses the treatment of refugees from Australia and Indonesia, and asylum seeks on life of safety and resettlement.

This article explores Amnesty International's consistent focus on civil and political rights in its campaigning on China. Such a focus has been evident from the beginning of Amnesty International's attention to human rights in China in the late 1970s to the present, despite the decision in 2001 that the organisation would work to promote all categories of human rights. This suggests that the early framing of human rights as particular civil and political rights by the organisation continues to be a somewhat settled frame of meaning in the case of China. The implications of this framing include that while it elevates certain abuses within China, abuses that local activists face considerable domestic constraints to highlight, it inevitably marginalises other abuses and obscures more complex understandings of human rights in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through adopting the bilateral human rights dialogue process in 1997, Australia changed its human rights policy regarding China from public support for resolutions on China at the UN Commission on Human Rights to private annual meetings on human rights issues and a technical cooperation programme (TCP). With its aim of bringing about practical improvements in human rights through training activities for Chinese officials, the TCP has become the centrepiece of Australia's human rights policy on China. According to the spiral model of Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink, support for the growth of Chinese human rights NGOs is considered necessary to encourage the Chinese government to bring about further human rights improvements. Cross-cultural dialogue is one method that may contribute to this. While TCP training activities have largely been cross-cultural exercises, these activities have mostly engaged with Chinese government officials and not Chinese human rights NGOs, limiting their support for these groups. However, the TCP's engagement with middle-level and some senior Chinese officials gives it some potential to support reformist elements within the Chinese government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the usefulness of Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink's spiral model as an explanation of the changes in the Chinese government's human rights practices from the time of the ‘anti-rightist’ campaign in 1957–1958 to the end of 2003. It is concluded that the spiral model has provided a valid explanation for many of the changes in the Chinese government's human rights practices, and its responses to its internal and external critics, over this time period. Many of the responses of the transnational human rights network and the Chinese government by the end of this period indicate that the latter had progressed to phase three of the model. It is also concluded that the spiral model only conceptualises part of the constitutive relationship between the target state and international human rights norms—the influence of these norms on the identities, interests and behaviours of a target state. It does not conceptualise the influence of a target state on international human rights norms or the transnational human rights network. Therefore, the spiral model cannot explain why the Chinese government has had such a significant influence over the enforcement mechanisms of these norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]