Maheva Butchart (BSc Sociology and Social Policy) was awarded the Second Highly Commended prize for her dissertation exploring the role of third sector organisations in supporting refugee integration.
Read on for more information about Maheva's prizewinning entry...
The role of the third sector within refugee integration: A qualitative approach to uncover the barriers refugees face when integrating into the UK
My research focused on the social challenge of the integration of refugees within the UK, particularly the barriers which refugees can face in terms of their integration. It also explored the increasing intervention of the third sector in assisting refugees with their integration in order to help them overcome these barriers.
My literature review explored the increasing dependence the world has on the third sector to assist with the refugee ‘crisis’ whilst many governments impose restrictions on their countries’ borders. It also analysed the importance of integration and how language and education, citizenship and social capital all have an important role in helping with refugees’ integration.
I conducted semi-structured interviews with employees and volunteers of a charity whose main focus is to help refugees integrate into the surrounding area (South of the UK). This was in order to help answer my research questions which were:
What I deemed to be the most significant finding of my research was that schools were not always aware that they had refugee students in their classes. This was of significance as a lot of the relevant literature focused on the need for schools to help refugee children integrate by adapting their teaching to meet the varying needs of these students. However, if teachers are unaware of refuge students in their classes then they are obviously unable to adapt their teaching or even to be aware of the potential issues that a refugee student might have. For example, issues of trauma and disrupted education.
Firstly, my research identifies varying barriers to refugees’ integration which were not highlighted within the relevant literature nor previous research. For example, my research revealed the cultural issues of men discussing their mental health and also how schools moving toward being completely online act as barriers to the integration of refugees. With the rise in refugees fleeing their homes, it is arguably of significant importance to ensure that refugees accepted into the UK, integrate successfully. Therefore, being aware of barriers which can prevent or disrupt refugees’ integration processes is vital as it is the first step in being able to help develop policies to counter act them.
Additionally, my research demonstrates the ways in which a third sector organisation can help in overcoming the varying barriers to refugees’ integration. This has the potential for other third sector organisations to implement similar tactics and to also demonstrate to the government the schemes and policies which are needed for refugees’ successful integration. For example, the existing literature brings to light the importance of refugees understanding British culture. However, as well as this, my research also demonstrated that it was equally important for refugees to share their own culture and experiences with British people. This helped UK nationals to understand and sympathise with the refugees. Therefore, schemes which allow for this sharing of cultures could potentially be a policy which in turn would make a social impact in terms of aiding refugees’ integration processes.
My research also highlighted the vital need for schools to be made aware of any refugee students who were enrolled with them. This is because refugee students can have significant needs that must be met in order for them to have a better chance of integrating successfully. Therefore, these needs being met has the potential to greatly improve successful integration and to help these students achieve highly within their education. This discovery that schools are not always aware that they have refugee students enrolled with them has the potential social impact of ensuring that this is rectified through government policies, in order to ensure that refugee students’ needs are met within their schools.
Finally, with the global number of refugees reaching record high levels of 22.5 million, I believe it’s extremely important to conduct research and implement policies surrounding what helps the integration of these many displaced people. Research in this field has the potential impact of assisting in the social issue of refugee integration in terms of influencing policies which will help overcome barriers to integration and also better help the third sector in their rising involvement with refugee integration.