Resilience within the context of refugee youth adaptation to new life in Canada
Abstract
In response to recent refugee crises around the world, scholars have called for research on resilience among war-affected children and youth as an important area of focus that offers culturally and contextually relevant implications for effective support services. While empirical research on the resilience of refugee youth has been gradually increasing, the current scholarship still lacks social, cultural, and contextual sensitivity. As such, this dissertation research, which consists of three conceptually linked manuscripts, represents a purposeful attempt to address this gap by exploring the resilience of refugee youth in a postmigration Canadian context, with contributions to research, policy, and practice. Refugee youth were recruited from Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. Manuscript 1 centres on the definition of refugee youth resilience as it relates to postmigration resettlement and explores the theoretical connections between resilience and positive adaptation. This manuscript proposes a culturally and contextually relevant conceptualization of resilience from the bioecological lens, integrating the three intertwined developmental, acculturative, and psychological perspectives. Manuscript 2 focuses on a critical and extensive review of the extant literature on refugee children and youth. It synthesizes empirical evidence from scholarship on young refugees’ resilience and presents a host of biological, psychological, social and cultural determinants of resilience, which interact with one another across multiple levels of social and ecological contexts to determine adaptive responds to stressful experiences. Finally, Manuscript 3 reflects qualitative research on pathways leading to positive adaptation to a Canadian postmigration context to provide knowledge about the pathways leading to resilience among refugee youth. It outlines a classic grounded theory study that generated a substantive theory conceptually explaining the underlying process of positive adaptation from the perspectives of 15 Canadian refugee youth. Together, findings from this dissertation research spur integration of knowledge and strategies to inform practice and policies to mitigate risk and promote resilience in multiple systems that shape refugee youth adaptation over the resettlement course.
Notes
Community organizations: n/a
Integration timeline: had been in Canada for 3 – 5 years
Key findings:
1) Resilience was defined by refugee youth as consisting of doing well and feeling well as they resettled in Canada.
2) Positive adaptation to Canadian society was grounded in negotiating belonging, which consisted of: doing well in school, cultivating good friendships, engaging positively at home, participating in the community, negotiating (bi)cultural identity, reconciling culture clash, acquiring English and/or French language, nurturing positive self of self and competence, coping with trauma and emotional distress, coping with and working against discrimination, establishing permanency, and preparing for life after high school (e.g. post-secondary, career, starting a family).
3) Positive personal traits that fostered resilience in youth were: living by well-informed values, optimism, strong motivation, a sense of agency, perseverance, resourcefulness and flexibility.
4) The amount and availability of community supports and resources for refugee youth additionally impacted their feelings of resiliency.
Key populations: refugee youth ages 18 to 24 years old who had come to Canada as a refugee in their late teens (i.e. age 15+)
Key recommendations:
1) Develop educational programs and policy initiatives that promote positive public attitudes towards refugees to decrease discrimination and facilitate belonging.
2) Train teachers and educational staff to treat diversity as a strength and a personal resource rather than a barrier.
Locations: Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto
Future research / gaps identified:
Better understand the impact of diversity within refugee youth (e.g. unaccompanied, unauthorized, gender, sexual orientation, different locations across Canada).
Open access: Yes