Search

In this paper, we examine relational interactions between refugee children and social institutions, building the case for the recognition of the co-occurrence and intertwining of vulnerability and agency in children's experiences in diverse refugee situations. This developmental relational approach offers refinement of a general relational worldview by specifying how vulnerable and agentic experiences are co-constructed by children and adult individuals and institutions. We analyze the conceptual roots of vulnerable and agentic experiences, and use the concept of co-construction to specify the processes and outcomes of interactive relational experiences. Evidence from example studies of the intertwining of vulnerability and agency in specific refugee situations demonstrates how refugee children contribute to power-oriented experiences. Due recognition of the relational co-construction of intertwining vulnerable and agentic experiences provides a basis for refining generalized relational observations, and a fine-grained basis for developing policies and procedures to dispel ambivalence to refugee children and to change inequitable policies and practices.

Refugee children's experiences are situated in specific places where they interact with significant people. They are not usually asked about their perspectives although they are social agents with distinctive perspectives and feelings about relationships and events. We investigated the perspectives of refugee children on their experiences of places and relations as they resettled in Australia after their families fled from violence in Syria and Iraq and transitioned through Middle Eastern countries. One hundred-and-nine children chose to work with a computer program in either English or Arabic. They sorted feelings associated with home, school, and where they lived before and rated being nurtured at home. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed five subgroups of children with distinctive patterns in their sorting of eight feelings for three places. Three subgroups had patterns of positive feelings about home and school. Two smaller subgroups had mixed, ambivalent feelings about either school or home. One subgroup was strongly positive, and two others were negative about before settlement. Subgroups identified on their sortings of feelings differed in their experiences of being nurtured, with positive feelings of places related to higher ratings of being nurtured at home. The study points to the importance of children's perspectives and feelings in how they interpret experiences with people and places and argues against assuming that refugee children are homogeneous in their experiences or perspectives.

In this paper we analyze the contemporary ambivalence to child migration identified by Jacqueline Bhabha and propose a developmental relational approach that repositions child refugees as active participants and rights-bearers in society. Ambivalence involves tensions between protection of refugee children and protection of national borders, public services and entrenched images. Unresolved ambivalence supports failures to honor the rights of refugee children according to international law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There is failure to protect and include them in national public services and in international coordination of public health and wellbeing. We identify misrepresentations of childhood and refugeeness that lie behind ambivalence and the equitable organization and delivery of public services for health and wellbeing. With illustrative studies, we propose a developmental relational framework for understanding refugee children's contributions in the sociocultural environment. Contrary to the image of passive victims, refugee children interact with other people and institutions in the co-construction of situated encounters. A developmental relational understanding of children's 'co-actions' in the social environment provides a foundation for addressing misrepresentations of childhood and refugeeness that deny refugee children protection and inclusion as rights-bearers. We point to directions in research and practice to recognize their rights to thrive and contribute to society.

Digital media are beneficial for research of complex refugee issues, as they allow refugees to express their personal experiences of complex issues in ways that are not restricted by language barriers or limited in authenticity, while also offering researchers a way to systematically compare refugees' varied experiences. We used a computerised concept mapping task to ask 74 young refugees (teenagers and young adults), from three separately recruited samples, to think about their experiences with various challenges they might face during settlement, distinguishing between their challenges in terms of size. Our analyses focused on one major challenge in Australia, learning the English language, and how it related to ten other challenges of resettlement. The three samples differed in educational setting, cultural background, age, and time in Australia. These refugees faced multiple challenges in their lives. Regardless of differences between the groups, the 74 shared a single pattern of experiences in which English language was substantially bigger, and more frequently endorsed, than other challenges. The three samples differed in how they described their experiences with their English language challenges. Our findings suggest a need for more support learning the English language, even for those who might be assumed to have good levels of conversational or academic English. This support needs to extend beyond the 510 hours of support received upon arrival in the country. Findings also suggest that such support could help young refugees overcome other challenges as they settle in Australia, especially in their academic, social, and employment experiences.

We report the relationship between the cultural and educational challenges of immigrant adult students. Thirty-five recently arrived adults in a bridging course completed a self-administered, online computer interview to rate their exploration and commitment to their heritage and Australian cultures, and express their experiences with their own challenges (size and effect of challenges, people who helped them deal with their challenges). Students' biggest challenges differed in relation to their bicultural identities (their cultural identities for both heritage and Australian cultures): money and school tasks for the more bi-culturally committed; English and personal skills for the less. Students who were more bi-culturally committed appeared to experience some advantages in their experiences with their challenges. How newly arrived immigrants develop their bicultural identities can have implications for how they address their challenges, and find a place for themselves within the new culture and their heritage culture. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

We examined self-descriptions of children of Somali refugee families in Australian primary schools, focusing on how children's school-related skills and needs relate to the interpretive frames of mainstream and ethnic cultures. Three groups of Grade 5 and 6 children (Somali, Disadvantaged, Advantaged) made choices among school-related skills, and rated feelings and needs for the transition to high school. Findings indicate a general goodness of fit between emphases of the mainstream culture and Somali children's choices (sport, maths), while reflecting some values of their ethnic interpretive frames (rejecting art, music). Gender stereotypic differences did not interact with culture. Children's computer-based choices provide a basis for bringing together studies of development and acculturation, and for differentiating between refugee status and socio-economic disadvantage. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)

This article reports analyses of the perspectives on their wellbeing expressed by four unaccompanied minor refugees resettling in Australia. We used a computer-assisted interview (CAI) to set up a research environment to facilitate young people's expressions and to treat them and their expressed perspectives with respect and integrity. Participants' data are represented in tables as full transcripts with CAI questions and tasks, and are analyzed using exegetical textual analysis. Analyses reveal similarities and differences in young people's themes and personalized concerns in relation to their life circumstances in resettlement. All four unaccompanied minors were worried about the families from whom they were isolated. Two young women who were humanitarian refugees were preoccupied with family separation and reunion, and also with their own inner states and behavior. Two young men who had been asylum seekers were focused on family and their own educational advancement. The value of the CAI approach is discussed in relation to criticisms of reductionism in quantitative and qualitative data; its ability to support young refugees to express their views with agency and confidence; and the representation of young people's expressed perspectives as a basis for understanding and for supportive programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]