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Negotiating Futures: How Schools Shape Belonging for Young Newcomers in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
Katholieke Univ Leuven, Fac Psychol & Educ Sci, Parenting & Special Educ Res Unit, Leuven, Belgium..ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4468-6537
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Social medicine/CHAP. Dalarna Univ, Sch Hlth & Welf, Falun, Sweden..ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0038-9402
Univ Copenhagen, Dept Publ Hlth, Copenhagen, Denmark..ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2068-1814
Norwegian Ctr Violence & Traumat Stress Studies NK, Oslo, Norway..
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2024 (English)In: Journal of Child and Family Studies, ISSN 1062-1024, E-ISSN 1573-2843, Vol. 33, no 11, p. 3500-3515Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Scholars draw increasing attention to the importance of belonging for young refugees' and migrants' well-being, indicating the need to develop an in-depth understanding of their experiences seeking to belong in resettlement. For refugee and migrant newcomers, schools might constitute particularly significant spaces in their negotiation of belonging, due to being a central developmental and acculturative context in resettlement, and a context where newcomers are situated within interpersonal and cultural positions of their families, home, and host society. Rooted in a conceptualization of belonging as a dynamic, plural, and relationally negotiated experience, this study explores how young newcomers' negotiation of belonging takes shape within the school context and how their experiences seeking to belong relate to their well-being. To that, the study engages with the qualitative inquiry of 163 newcomers' (age 11-24) experiences through focus groups conducted in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Cross-national, joint thematic analysis resulted in two themes: 1. Ambivalences shaping belonging; and 2. Challenging barriers to belonging. Our findings suggest that, in school, newcomers meet opportunities and barriers in their negotiation of belonging that takes shape at the intersection of family, transnational, and host society relations. Schools furthermore seem central spaces for newcomers to exercise agency and creativity in their search for belonging in resettlement. Our findings spark thought on belonging as a reconstructive process in coping with migration and have implications for how schools can support belonging and well-being, through engaging with life stories of migration and the plurality of meanings encroaching upon newcomers' school trajectories.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature, 2024. Vol. 33, no 11, p. 3500-3515
Keywords [en]
Refugee young people, Migrant young people, School, Belonging, Well-being
National Category
International Migration and Ethnic Relations
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-548567DOI: 10.1007/s10826-024-02923-xISI: 001329054200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85206130903OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-548567DiVA, id: diva2:1931652
Funder
EU, Horizon 2020, 754849Available from: 2025-01-27 Created: 2025-01-27 Last updated: 2025-01-27Bibliographically approved

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Osman, FatumoDurbeej, NatalieSarkadi, Anna

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