Young newcomers at the crossroads of new beginnings: A contextual framework on experiences in urban Belgium Minne Huysmans
Abstract and Figures
Our world is becoming increasingly connected, urban and diverse. Cities play a central role as hubs and cross points in migration processes. For a majority of youngsters with roots in migration, cities have become a place where they establish a new life. Such a displacement however, is not without challenges. One of the key aspects for young newcomers in establishing a new life, is that they are often forced to move to places where they cannot immediately enjoy full rights as citizens or receive the support needed to connect to this new environment.
The present dissertation voices the experiences, needs and strengths of young newcomers who (re)build their lives in urban Belgium. More specifically it aims to map young newcomers’ experiences and needs related to citizenship theoretically, and to social networks and social support empirically. In order to do so, two stages of qualitative interviews with 122 young newcomers within their first years in Belgium were deployed. The entire dissertation emerged through a close collaboration with more than 60 organisations in the field of youth work, governmental migration agencies and NGO’s.
The results of this dissertation demonstrate that young newcomers have fragile networks in their first years in Belgium. Young newcomers all experience a detachment from the society surrounding them. At the same time, they stress on a clear willingness to participate in their new communities on the one hand and to belong on the other. Structural barriers linked to their migration context show a need for a rights and participation approach towards a substantive access to and integration in society. A more balanced path between their perspective as young newcomers and young people, between vulnerability and resilience, between empowerment and emancipation, and between welfare organisations and youth work organisations is needed to generate a more balanced access to their new living environment.
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Asylum accommodation is held to isolate asylum seekers spatially and socially from the majority population in host societies. Little attention has been devoted to variation in asylum accommodation at the level of the everyday. Central to this paper is the argument that variation between localities, as well as variation on the level of the built environment creates ‘uneven geographies of asylum accommodation’. The paper theorizes that more ‘open’ forms of asylum accommodation may foster familiarity between asylum seekers and local residents through the development of closer everyday social relations, and more ‘closed’ forms of asylum accommodation may enforce feelings of unfamiliarity by strengthening processes of categorization and everyday bordering. In so doing, we propose to differentiate between ‘spatial’, ‘material’ and ‘institutional’ dimensions of openness of asylum accommodation and aim to understand ‘(un)familiarity’ as expression of people’s experiences, knowledge and perceptions of social distance. We further argue that feelings of (un)familiarity are connected to processes of belonging and estrangement.
This analytical paper seeks to address the link between young refugees, citizenship and youth work policy within a European framework. The aim is to build upon the emerging reflection on how to ensure faster and more efficient integration and participation of young refugees in Europe.
Published @ Youth Partnership. Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth.
https://pjp-eu.coe.int/en/web/youth-partnership/refugees-seminar
Background
This qualitative study examined how individuals with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), their caregivers, and clinicians defined meaningful change, primarily in the Type II and non-ambulant type III patient populations, associated with treatment of this condition. In addition, we explored participants’ views about two measures of motor function routinely used in clinical trials for these SMA subtypes, namely the expanded version of the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale (HFMSE) and the Upper Limb Module (ULM). Methods
The 123 participants (21 with SMA, 64 parents, and 11 clinicians), recruited through SMA advocacy organizations, participated in one of 16 focus groups or 37 interviews. The sessions were audio-recorded, and verbatim transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. ResultsFor the participants, meaningful change was relative to functional ability, and small changes in motor function could have an important impact on quality of life. Because patients and families feared progressive loss of functional ability, the participants saw maintenance of abilities as a meaningful outcome. They believed that measures of motor function covered important items, but worried that the HFMSE and ULM might not be sensitive enough to capture small changes. In addition, they felt that outcome measures should assess other important features of life with SMA, including the ability to perform daily activities, respiratory function, swallowing, fatigue, and endurance. Conclusions
Given the heterogeneity of SMA, it is important to expand the assessment of treatment effects to a broader range of outcomes using measures sensitive enough to detect small changes.
Although grounded theory and qualitative content analysis are similar in some respects, they differ as well; yet the differences between the two have rarely been made clear in the literature. The purpose of this article was to clarify ambiguities and reduce confusion about grounded theory and qualitative content analysis by identifying similarities and differences in the two based on a literature review and critical reflection on the authors’ own research. Six areas of difference emerged: (a) background and philosophical base, (b) unique characteristics of each method, (c) goals and rationale of each method, (d) data analysis process, (e) outcomes of the research, and (f) evaluation of trustworthiness. This article provides knowledge that can assist researchers and students in the selection of appropriate research methods for their inquiries. Copyright 2014: Ji Young Cho, Eun-Hee Lee, and Nova Southeastern University.
In this symposium, we explore how urban citizenship is about expressing, if not producing, difference, and how fragmentation of claims affects urban citizenship and right to the city movements with their universal, all-inclusive ideals. Investigating social movements, political participation and conflicting diversities in public space in Tel Aviv and Berlin, we see a trend towards a diversification of interests, a weakening of movements, and even a competition over rights and resources rather than a development of mutual support and solidarities among various groups on the pathway to a livable city. This tension, we argue, deserves attention. Radical urban scholarship and politics need to better understand the historical and place-specific contexts that structure the formation of citizenship claims and the courses that citizenship struggles take. Celebrations of urban citizenship as a more contextualized, community oriented, and bottom-up framework (in comparison to national citizenship) should therefore be complemented by a careful investigation of their fragmented and fragmenting practices.
This paper reflects on the understanding of contemporary forms of identity construction within the fields of ethnicity, migration and transnational population movements. It casts a critical eye on new forms of identity hailed by the related notions of diaspora, hybridity and cosmopolitanism. The paper also reflects on the concept of intersectionality which provides a more integrated analysis of identity formation by arguing for the inter-connections between social divisions, such as those of gender, ethnicity and class. The paper argues that the concept 'translocational positionality' (see Anthias) is a useful means of addressing some of the difficulties identified within these approaches. This concept addresses issues of identity in terms of locations which are not fixed but are context, meaning and time related and which therefore involve shifts and contradictions. It thereby provides an intersectional framing for the understanding of belonging. As an intersectional frame it moves away from the idea of given 'groups' or 'categories' of gender, ethnicity and class, which then intersect (a particular concern of some intersectionality frameworks), and instead pays much more attention to social locations and processes which are broader than those signalled by this.
This report examines the ways in which people use social networks to help cope with or escape from poverty, and how this varies within and between ethnic groups. It shows how networks can also function to restrict ambition and hinder attempts to move on in life. Drawing on interviews and case studies with people from a range of ethnicities and income brackets, the study explores how people's propensity to use networks to move out of poverty is affected by different levels of awareness, access and ability. The report: • explores the ways in which ethnicity, gender and class play important roles in shaping people's networks; • illustrates how it can be hard for people in, or at the margins of, poverty to establish 'bridging' links with others who can create opportunities and advantage; • emphasises the role of voluntary, community and faith organisations in supporting people to make connections that help them address poverty; • suggests ways in which agencies can support people to use and extend their networks to help them move out of poverty. cOntentS Executive summary 03 1 Introduction 08 2 Awareness of networks and the capacity to use them 13 3 Access to networks 19 4 The use, usefulness and limitations of networks 26 5 Making the links: implications for policy and practice 37
Objective: The number of individuals seeking refuge and safety in European and Western host-societies has increased in recent years, and there is no evidence to suggest that this trend will reverse in the foreseeable future. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and youth are particularly vulnerable to risk. The detrimental influence of political conflicts, war, and forced migration on asylum-seeking individuals' mental health is well-documented; however, the stressors encountered after arrival to the host country have been investigated less frequently. This study explored how a group of 6 male refugees from Afghanistan experienced arriving to the Swedish host-society as unaccompanied minors, and how they perceived the support available to them. Method: Based on individual semistructured interviews, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was carried out to explore the perceived risks and protective factors during the first months and years in the host-society. Results: The qualitative findings draw attention to the crucial importance of clarifying the complex asylum-seeking process, the protective influence of social support, the importance of educational guidance, and participants' strong desire to fit in and move forward with their lives. Conclusion: The resulting information can inform the practice of supporting asylum-seeking youths' adaptation in host-societies and in developing assessment measures and interventions for these groups. Specifically, the results indicate the protective role of social support and highlight the potential value of mentoring schemes.
The aim of this paper is to explain and discuss timeline interviews as a method for doing life history research. It is a ‘how to’ article explaining the strengths and weaknesses of using a timeline when conducting qualitative interviews. The method allows the interviewee to participate in the reporting of the interview which may give raise to ownership and sharing of the analytical power in the interview situation. Exactly for this reason, it may not be the most appropriate method for interviewing elites or for conducting insider interviews where positionality can be at play. The use of the timeline should not lead the interviewer or the interviewee to assume linearity and coherence; it is an organising principle for the events. It provides an opportunity for linking the story with the wider social, political and environmental context during the interview. While the method is very suitable for life story research, it can also be used for other types of studies where interviews are made.
Research for effective psychological interventions for refugee and asylum-seeking children has intensified. The need for interventions in environments more easily accessed by children and families is especially relevant for newly arrived populations. This paper reviews the literature on school and community-based interventions aimed at reducing psychological disorders in refugee and asylum-seeking children.
Comprehensive searches were conducted in seven databases and further information was obtained through searching reference lists, grey literature, and contacting experts in the field. Studies were included if they reported on the efficacy of a school or community-based mental health intervention for refugee or asylum-seeking children. Two independent reviewers made the final study selection, extracted data, and reached consensus on study quality. Results were summarized descriptively. The marked heterogeneity of studies excluded conducting a meta-analysis but study effect-sizes were calculated where possible. Twenty one studies met inclusion criteria for the review reporting on interventions for approximately 1800 refugee children. Fourteen studies were carried out in high-income countries in either a school (n = 11) or community (n = 3) setting and seven studies were carried out in refugee camps. Interventions were either primarily focused on the verbal processing of past experiences (n = 9), or on an array of creative art techniques (n = 7) and others used a combination of these interventions (n = 5). While both intervention types reported significant changes in symptomatology, effect sizes ranged from 0.31 to 0.93 and could mainly be calculated for interventions focusing on the verbal processing of past experiences.
Only a small number of studies fulfilled inclusion criteria and the majority of these were in the school setting. The findings suggest that interventions delivered within the school setting can be successful in helping children overcome difficulties associated with forced migration.
This paper is about the social networks of young unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees in London. It discusses the findings of a 12-month qualitative study using photo elicitation interviews with eight young refugees to explore their social networks. The analysis points to the potential of social networks to provide emotional and material support for young refugees and discusses the extent to which social capital flows through these networks. It explores the importance of place and gender in shaping their entry into and formation of these networks. It concludes that the formation of weak ties particularly to institutional actors is important in providing young refugees with access to material and cultural resources.
In this paper, we propose a relational perspective on citizenship that captures the meanings and practices of citizenship, and their geographies in the contemporary period of accelerated and globalized movement of people across national boundaries. A relational perspective makes it possible to tease out both the complex articulations of state and civil society in the construction of citizenship, and the intricate local, national and transnational interconnections shaping contemporary state conceptions and social practices of citizenship. Using Turkish immigration to Germany as a case study, we examine the complex negotiations between state and civil society in the (re)construction of German citizenship law, paying particular attention to the role of immigrant institutions in this process. Drawing on an ethnography of Turkish immigrants' social practice of citizenship in Duisburg Marxloh, we show that they simultaneously engage with multiple states and public spheres to express their identities, and confront exclusions and discrimination at multiple scales.
The authors addressed the specific role of and contradictory results previously obtained regarding ethnic versus host support networks in influencing directly and/or buffering the impact of perceived discrimination on the well-being of immigrants. A nationwide adult probability sample (N= 2,360) included Finnish repatriates and Russian and Estonian immigrants in Finland from Russia, Estonia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union. Perceived discrimination had a significant impact on psychological well-being. The results demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between available and activated social support. In the total sample, strong evidence was obtained for the direct and the buffering effect of host support networks on well-being. In addition, social support provided by ethnic networks abroad was generally beneficial for the psychological well-being of the immigrants. Under some conditions, ethnic support networks were also beneficial for psychological well-being.
This study explores the interaction between migrants' social relationships in their community (their social capital), and the development of a stable and integrated society (social cohesion) at the local level. The concept of social capital - the processes by which individuals and groups invest in social relationships and share resources between themselves - resonates with current concerns about the ways in which different communities, notably minority ethnic groups, relate to their wider social world. The report outlines how, since the 1990s, the increasing volume and diversity of migrants has affected the UK's political landscape. It reviews how the government has prioritised the need for social cohesion, to counter the perceived challenges which new migrants pose to a cohesive 'national identity'. This stance marks a significant shift away from the longstanding promotion of multicultural race relations and the acceptance of 'difference'.
Increasing transnationalism challenges the predominant statist treatment of migration and citizenship. Global, indeed cosmopolitan, citizenship offers an alternative to open border policies and global migratory management that focuses on the extent to which political agents are free to move and join different societies. Multilayered citizenship and multileveled political membership encourages a supranational institution dedicated to global deliberation. Such a migratory regulatory system and new admission criteria developed under the universal membership regime ensure the grant of civil, social, and political rights to all migrants.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Research demonstrates the important role of refugees and asylum seekers' social networks in providing both the practical and emotional support necessary to mitigate social exclusion and promote integration within receiving societies. Based on research conducted by the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund, we highlight the barriers to network building for refugee and asylum seeking children and families, and the ways in which Children's Fund strategies and practices are tackling these. Using the ‘Indicators of Integration Framework’ developed by Ager and Strang (2004), we describe the activity of Children's Fund services in relation to the concepts social bonds, social links and social bridges. Such attempts to reduce social exclusion are seen to have limited effectiveness when framed by a government policy context favouring the development of social bridges at the expense of social links and bonds.
During the past decades, there is a growing interest in the role social networks play in migration processes. In the case of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM), the migration movement means a rupture in their social network, forcing them to rebuild new networks in their new environment. 34 URM who recently migrated to Belgium were interviewed, stressing on social networks and social support shortly after arrival. The results demonstrate that the daily lives of URM are structured around the reception facilities, with little links to the neighbourhood or city they are living in. URM’s social support networks derive from their formal network. This local embeddedness makes URM’s network accessible and supportive, but also homogeneous with little links to the broader society. Due to frequent movements from one reception centre to another, social networks are instable and URM have to regularly invest in the building and rebuilding of their social networks.
Objectives:
The current study aimed to understand the reciprocal relationship between social networks and mental health in old age. It explored the dynamic aspects of that relationship and assessed the influence of social networks on mental health, as well as a concurrent influence of mental health on change in social connectedness.
Method:
The data came from two measurement points in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The analytic sample was composed of adults aged 65 years and above (N = 14,706). Analyses were conducted via latent change score models.
Results:
Analyses showed a reciprocal association between social networks and mental health; baseline social connectedness led to mental health improvements and a better initial mental state led to richer social networks. The results further indicated that the relative effect of mental health on change in social network connectedness was greater than the corresponding effect of social network connectedness on change in mental health. No gender differences were found regarding the reciprocal associations.
Discussion:
The results of this study demonstrate the dynamic inter-relationship of social networks and mental health. It highlights the need to take into account both directions of influence when studying the impact of social relationships on mental health.
Purpose
Services for refugees and asylum seekers frequently experience gaps in delivery and access, poor coordination, and service stress. The purpose of this paper is to examine the approach to integrated care within Companion House (CH), a refugee primary care service, whose service mix includes counselling, medical care, community development, and advocacy. Like all Australian refugee and asylum seeker support services, CH operates within an uncertain policy environment, constantly adapting to funding challenges, and changing needs of patient populations.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews with staff, social network analysis, group patient interviews, and service mapping.
Findings
CH has created fluid links between teams, and encouraged open dialogue with client populations. There is a high level of networking between staff, much of it informal. This is underpinned by horizontal management and staff commitment to a shared mission and an ethos of mutual respect. The clinical teams are collectively oriented towards patients but not necessarily towards each other.
Research limitations/implications
Part of the service’s resilience and ongoing service orientation is due to the fostering of an emergent self-organising form of integration through a complex adaptive systems approach. The outcome of this integration is characterised through the metaphors of “home” for patients, and “family” for staff. CH’s model of integration has relevance for other services for marginalised populations with complex service needs.
Originality/value
This study provides new evidence on the importance of both formal and informal communication, and that limited formal integration between clinical teams is no bar to integration as an outcome for patients.
Cosmopolitanism or cosmic/universal citizenship is a powerful ethical and political discourse that has been deployed in a variety of ways since its inception in the Ancient Greek world. The present article briefly surveys a selection of contemporary mainstream accounts, which are also liberal, top-down accounts, as represented by David Held, Jürgen Habermas, and Martha Nussbaum. It then proceeds to outline a number of critiques, of which it is suggested the most important are the concept's supposed relation to imperialism and the tendency in liberal discourses to erase political antagonism. I then proceed to show how a range of bottom-up and radical approaches, as represented by Fuyuki Kurasawa, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Jacques Derrida, Hardt and Negri, and Costas Douzinas, can serve to imagine cosmopolitanism differently. My aim is restricted to showing that it is possible, contrary to common understanding, to conceive cosmopolitanism outside standard liberal discourses and in terms of a radically democratic, anti-hegemonic, and antagonistic mode of political resistance. I conclude, somewhat paradoxically, that it is only when cosmopolitanism acts against cosmopolitanism that the concept's place in the history of ideas is not foreclosed.
Experiencing conflict and restorative justice in Brussels
This article stems from a practice-oriented research on restorative justice and perceptions of conflict in a poor neighbourhood in Brussels: the Anneessens district. The first part of the article focuses on the conceptual shift from a crime-oriented towards a conflict-oriented restorative justice, including the search for a user-friendly working definition of ‘conflict’. The classical restorative justice story receives a facelift in order to address metropolitan challenges. The second part analyses 41 walking interviews of residents, focusing on conflict themes and zones. The third part cautiously checks the working definition in the frame of the analysed data. A provisional conclusion entails that the notion of crime and its related meanings should not be discarded too quickly.
Objective. This article reviews available qualitative studies that report young refugees' ways of dealing with adversity to address their sources of resilience. Design. We searched five electronic databases. Twenty-six empirical studies were included in the review. A meta-ethnography approach was used to synthesize these qualitative studies. Results. Six sources of resilience emerged: (1) social support, (2) acculturation strategies, (3) education, (4) religion, (5) avoidance, and (6) hope. These sources indi‐ cated social as well as personal factors that confer resilience in young refugees, but most of them also had counterproductive aspects. Conclusion. The results, from an ecological developmental perspective, stressed the interplay between protective and risk processes in the mental health of young refugees who had resettled in Western countries, and they emphasized the variability as well as the universality of resilience-promoting processes. Further research is needed to explore the cultural shape of resilience and the long-term consequences of war and migration on young refugees.
In recent decades, the meaning and value of formal state citizenship has shifted dramatically. In the same period, scholarship on citizenship has drawn attention to the proliferation of alternative forms of sub-, supra- and transnational citizenship, at times obscuring the ongoing importance of formal state citizenship. For refugees, however, formal state citizenship remains a critical and widely shared goal. Drawing on interviews with 51 young people from refugee backgrounds in Melbourne, Australia, this article explores the intersecting themes of mobility and security that were identified by participants as the most important benefits of acquiring formal state citizenship in the country of resettlement. In contrast to the insecurity of forced migration, formal state citizenship provides a privileged mobility that enables refugee-background youth to maintain and create transnational identities and attachments and to be protected while doing so, while also granting a secure status within the nation state and insurance against further displacement in an uncertain future. In offering these forms of mobility and security, formal state citizenship contributes to a sense of ontological security among refugee-background youth, providing an important foundation for building national and transnational futures.
This article explores how unaccompanied young refugees living in a rural village in Sweden make sense of home and belonging. From a post-structuralist approach, belonging and home are understood as ongoing processes that are negotiated with others, and via processes of othering and racialisation. This article demonstrates that the form of housing available, together with experiences of social exclusion in the village, may contribute to othering and thus challenge their feelings of home and belonging. However, they do construct some kinds of belonging and feelings of home based on social relationships and places that they have access to.
Parents and peers have been studied extensively as distinct agents of socialization. However, less attention has been paid to the interface of the family and peer subsystems or to the role of nonparental family members, particularly during the pre-adolescent period referred to as middle childhood. The aims of this study were (a) to examine the linkage between social support provided to the child in the context of the family and the quality of children's friendships outside the family and (b) to determine whether family support and friendship quality contribute uniquely to the child's self-esteem. Personal interviews were conducted with 185 fifth-grade African American, European American, and Hispanic American children to obtain measures of family support, friendship quality, and self-esteem. Across ethnic groups, family support was predictive of friendship quality and both family support and friendship quality were associated with self-esteem. Parents, nonparental adult family members, and siblings contributed differentially to different components of friendship quality, affirming the value of a social network perspective for the study of developmental issues.
Migrants’ personal communities are often composed of both local and transnational ties. So far little is known about how transnationality influences the provision of different dimensions of social support in migrants’ personal communities. Structural and relational characteristics of personal communities as well as attributes of egos are seen to explain how social support is provided. The study addresses the question of which dimensions of support are transferred across national borders as well as what structural, relational and ego-attributional constituents of migrants’ personal communities form social support. It presents data on personal communities from an online survey with n = 234 German migrants in Great Britain. The results show that household, local, national and transnational relationships provide a wide array of social support. Though being restricted in the tangible dimensions of social support (instrumental, social companionship), transnational ties provide more intangible (emotional) support. Conflicts are less prevalent in transnational relationships than within the household. Furthermore, the multi-level analysis of the ego-centred network data shows that both structural characteristics of personal communities (size, density) and ego attributes (e.g. age and gender of ego, time of residence in country of residence) are less relevant than relational characteristics (e.g. contact frequency, tie strength and esp. transnationality) in explaining how migrants receive social support. This result challenges a structural approach to the explanation of social support in personal communities of mobile people.
To understand the way children develop, Bronfenbrenner believes that it is necessary to observe their behavior in natural settings, while they are interacting with familiar adults over prolonged periods of time. His book offers an important blueprint for constructing a new and ecologically valid psychology of development.
This paper brings a relational perspective to studies of citizenship beyond national borders. Analysing the responses of 16 to 19-year-old young people in Bradford (UK) to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we demonstrate the complex entanglements of young people's lives with international politics and develop a relational conceptualisation of citizenship. Departing from the scalar logics and universalising assumptions upon which many definitions of cosmopolitan citizenship are based, we show that youth citizenship across and beyond national borders evolves from specific lines of connection and disconnection that are actualised and modified in performances of citizenship identities, giving rise to diverse political positions and dissent, both with the state and between young people. We conclude with some suggestions for translating these ideas into youth citizenship practices.
This paper analyses the problematic nature of citizenship as a modern achievement faced with the challenge of vindicating ancient ideals in what is increasingly considered to be a ‘postmodern’ world. It offers a parallel analysis of childhood as a characteristically modern construct whose reality in children's life-worlds is threatened by social conditions of postmodernity, and whose discursive articulation is increasingly exposed to critique from the standpoint of philosophical post-modernism. In response, it argues for the incorporation of key elements of Athenian/republican citizenship — emphasising speech, action, and interdependence — in early childhood education, an incorporation already strongly prefigured in the exemplary experiment at Reggion Emilia in Italy.
There is growing interest in the role of migrants' social networks as sources of social capital. Networks are, however, often conceptualized rather loosely and insufficient attention has been paid to how migrants access existing networks or establish new ties in the `host' society.The assumption that migrants are able to access dense networks within close-knit local communities simplifies the experiences of newly arrived migrants, underestimating difficulties they may face in accessing support. Exploring the work of Putnam, as well as Coleman and Bourdieu, we critically engage with the conceptualization of bonding and bridging social capital, and the relationship between them, through an exploration of Polish migrants' networking skills and strategies. In examining the different types and levels of support derived through social ties, this article contributes to understandings of social networking by arguing for a greater differentiation and specification of networks both vertically and horizontally, but also spatially and temporally.
Based on the findings of an exploratory study on support systems and help-seeking experiences of thirty-six survivors of war and torture, this article presents their experiences with two supportive resources, formal mental health services and community peer groups. The aim of this article is to discuss factors that shape survivors' use of mental health services as well as the functions and benefits of community peer groups.
This paper examines the ways in which ‘Palestine’ and ‘Palestinianess’ are culturally, socially and symbolically produced and regulated through formal and non-formal institutional sites in Palestinian camps in south Lebanon. It argues that although institutional power, processes and outcomes help to construct shared notions of ‘Palestinianess’, they also produce contestations and internal ‘others’. Moreover, since Palestinian youth identities are produced inter-textually across multiple civil society institutions, the artificial divide between the school and the community is challenged, the school is decentred as the primary learning site for the construction of youth identities, and notions of ‘student’ and ‘teacher’ are destabilised. This has important implications for how citizenship education is theorised and practised in the contexts of transience, political instability and conflict.
Presents a hierarchical mapping technique using a diagram of concentric circles to represent the degree of closeness of members of the social support network. This method does not assume that particular family or social relationships automatically ensure network membership. The method provides a relatively unbiased account of social support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Modern liberal democracies owe their stability and relative success to the coming together of two ideals which originate in distinct historical periods: the ideals of self-governance and territorially circumscribed nation-state. Self-governance defines freedom as the rule of law among a community of equals who are citizens of the polis and who have the right to rule and to be ruled. This ideal emerges in 5 th -century Athens and is revived throughout history in episodes such as the experience of self-governing city-states in the Renaissance, the Paris commune of 1871, the anarchist and socialist communes of the Russian Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War.
Social networks in the 21st century include a wide array of partners. Most individuals report a few core ties (primarily family) and hundreds of peripheral ties. Weak ties differ from intimate ties in emotional quality, stability, density (i.e., who knows whom), and status hierarchies. Undoubtedly, close ties are essential for human survival. Yet peripheral ties may enhance life quality and allow people to flourish. Weak ties may serve (a) distinct functions from intimate ties (e.g., information, resources, novel behaviors, and diversion), (b) parallel functions to intimate ties (e.g., defining identity and positions within social hierarchies, helping when a family member is ill, providing a sense of familiarity), and (c) reciprocal influences between peripheral partners and family members (e.g., bioecological theory). Family science might benefit from investigating consequential strangers who pepper daily life.
Using the methodology of Walker and Avant, the purpose of this paper was to identify the most frequently used theoretical and operational definitions of social support. A positive relationship between social support and health is generally accepted in the literature. However, the set of dimensions used to define social support is inconsistent. In addition, few measurement tools have established reliability and validity. Findings from this conceptual analysis suggested four of the most frequently used defining attributes of social support: emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal. Social network, social embeddedness, and social climate were identified as antecedents of social support. Social support consequences were subsumed under the general rubric of positive health states. Examples were personal competence, health maintenance behaviours, perceived control, sense of stability, recognition of self-worth, positive affect, psychological well-being, and decreased anxiety and depression. Recommendations for future research were made.
Initiatives to promote aging in place have emerged rapidly in the United States across various health care settings (e.g., acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities) and broader community settings (e.g., public social service agencies). Moreover, recent federal policies include a growing number of provisions for local efforts to promote aging in place. Despite emerging bodies of research that have described singular initiatives in their own right, there has been very little scholarship that forges conceptual linkages across this increasingly vast domain of research, practice, and policy. Integrative theory development is critical to ensure that aging-in-place initiatives do not become fragmented from each other. This article uses insights from ecological frameworks-specifically Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory and M. Powell Lawton's general ecological model of aging-to conceptualize a range of programs as aging-in-place initiatives and for describing their similarities and differences, particularly in terms of the features through which they intend to promote aging in place. Theoretically derived dimensions along which to characterize aging-in-place initiatives include environment-focused aspects (e.g., the types of social systems and structures that the initiatives target for change) and person-focused aspects (e.g., the extent to which the initiatives target particular subgroups of older adults). The article concludes with a discussion on how these theoretically derived dimensions can be used to advance and integrate research, practice, and policy to systematically develop and expand aging-in-place initiatives.
Global migration has reached historic levels affecting every single country in the world. One of the most significant effects of this heightened mobility has been that a growing proportion of the residents of migrant receiving places lack national citizenship and are thus deprived of effective sociopolitical inclusion, representation, and participation in the localities where they have moved to for work, refuge or retirement. This disjuncture between the spaces of citizenship and daily life, in turn, has led to a devolution of citizenship claims-making from national to urban space. This paper begins by identifying four key political economic developments operating at the global scale that have unsettled the established view of the close correspondence between nationhood and citizenship. It then focuses on the uses and limits of the increasingly voluble discourse on 'the right to the city' as a way to create alternative political spaces in which variously excluded groups of urban inhabitants might empower themselves. Three strikingly different examples of widely diverse group actions and state responses to illustrate the practical strengths and limits of 'the right to the city' discourse are narrated. We end by offering what we believe to be a more useful way to envisage and analyse the interplay between global mobility and urban citizenship. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.
About the book: From women's rights, civil rights, and sexual rights for gays and lesbians to disability rights and language rights, we have experienced in the past few decades a major trend in Western nation-states towards new claims for inclusion. This trend has echoed around the world: from the Zapatistas to Chechen and Kurdish nationalists, social and political movements are framing their struggles in the languages of rights and recognition, and hence, of citizenship. Citizenship has thus become an increasingly important axis in the social sciences. Social scientists have been rethinking the role of political agent or subject. Not only are the rights and obligations of citizens being redefined, but also what it means to be a citizen has become an issue of central concern. As the process of globalization produces multiple diasporas, we can expect increasingly complex relationships between homeland and host societies that will make the traditional idea of national citizenship problematic. As societies are forced to manage cultural difference and associated tensions and conflict, there will be changes in the processes by which states allocate citizenship and a differentiation of the category of citizen. This book constitutes the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to the terrain. Drawing on a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge, and including some of the leading commentators of the day, it is an essential guide to understanding modern citizenship.
Because refugee families tend to underutilize mental health services, schools have a key mediation role in helping refugee children adapt to their host country and may become the main access point to prevention and treatment services for mental health problems. Many obstacles hamper the development of school-based prevention programs. Despite these difficulties, a review of existing school-based prevention programs points to a number of promising initiatives that are described in this article. More interdisciplinary work is needed to develop and evaluate rigorously joint school-based education and mental health initiatives that can respond to the diverse needs of refugee children.