Scaling up and Crowding out: How German Adult Education Centers Adapted Course Offers to Refugee Integration

Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the local environment can affect opportunities for participation in adult learning: First, exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees to counties, we causally estimate by how much VHS scaled up their German language course (DAF) supply as a reaction. Moreover, we show that DAF courses were created almost exclusively at the cost of other courses, that is, by crowding out. Second, we uncover heterogeneities in scaling success. VHS with more prior DAF course experience and larger VHS adapted better, which shows the relevance of initial conditions in course offers.

Lost in Transition: Designing for Refugee Integration in New Zealand

<p>Political unrest and internal conflict over recent years had forcefully displaced millions of people. As a result, the developed countries of the world are pressured to take in more refugees and New Zealand is included in this group. In response, New Zealand recently increased its intake of refugees, especially families from Syria. A rapid increase of immigrants from a foreign culture can create fear relating to social and economic instability for the host country residents. If their concerns are not addressed, it can lead to tension between the host community and the refugees. In addition, many refugees have difficulty in transitioning, facing problems such as language barriers and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The short orientation they received before relocation is usually insufficient to help them adjust to the new country. In order to improve the process of refugee integration in New Zealand, this thesis examines how architecture can facilitate positive social engagement between host communities and refugees.</p>

Lost in Transition: Designing for Refugee Integration in New Zealand

<p>Political unrest and internal conflict over recent years had forcefully displaced millions of people. As a result, the developed countries of the world are pressured to take in more refugees and New Zealand is included in this group. In response, New Zealand recently increased its intake of refugees, especially families from Syria. A rapid increase of immigrants from a foreign culture can create fear relating to social and economic instability for the host country residents. If their concerns are not addressed, it can lead to tension between the host community and the refugees. In addition, many refugees have difficulty in transitioning, facing problems such as language barriers and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The short orientation they received before relocation is usually insufficient to help them adjust to the new country. In order to improve the process of refugee integration in New Zealand, this thesis examines how architecture can facilitate positive social engagement between host communities and refugees.</p>

Leveraging the Power of Peer Groups for Refugee Integration

Refugee integration, one long-term solution to the large number of people fleeing their home countries, constitutes a challenge for both refugees and host societies. ICT and especially online peer groups seem promising to support this process. Building on literature demonstrating the societal benefits of peer groups, this paper proposes a novel peer-group-based approach to address refugee integration and introduces both an online and offline realization. A randomized field experiment in cooperation with public (refugee) services and a non-governmental organization makes it possible to expand existing research by quantitatively demonstrating societal benefits of online peer groups and ICT for refugee integration. Further, this paper is the first to assess the effectiveness of online and offline peer groups in one experimental setup comparatively. Results show that peer groups provide substantial value with respect to the integration domains social bridges, social bonds, rights and citizenship as well as safety and stability. While the outcome of the various integration domains differs for online and offline peer groups, participants’ adoption rates were higher for online peer groups.

Refugee Integration and Globalization: Ugandan and Zimbabwean Perspectives

This article examines refugee integration in a globalizing world through the example of the efforts made, and challenges faced, by refugees, communities, and governments in Zimbabwe and Uganda. Using documentary analysis, the article shows how the two countries have striven to integrate refugees through encampment and non-camp settlement policies despite structural challenges such as restrictions on movement, economic crises, high unemployment, and limited state funding and resources. The article begins by conceptualizing globalization and integration and then reviews the perspectives on refugee integration in the two countries. It concludes with some recommendations to improve refugee integration in both countries.

What Makes Me Want You Here? Refugee Integration in a Zambian Settlement Setting

Many of the world's refugees remain in Africa, where they stay long-term, mainly in neighboring countries. The present directions point to integration, in which the host society and the political surroundings play a key role. This paper aims to investigate the ways in which public opinion towards and contact with refugees support integration processes. We apply this research to a settlement setting in rural Zambia, a recent dataset of 275 households from 2018, and an econometric analysis. This is the first study dealing with a set of factors that affect the hosts’ opinion towards and contact with refugees in an African settlement context, and with respect to the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework produced by the United Nations. Our results show, particularly, the religiosity, group membership, life satisfaction, food insecurity, agricultural ownership and natural resource uses of the host society to be the main factors that need policy consideration for the promotion of refugee integration. Stakeholders dealing in host–refugee settings and seeking for durable solutions should roll out community programs to address threat perceptions and interaction improvements.