Integration of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Refugee Minors in Sweden

Abstract: This study is focused on getting a deeper understanding of the access unaccompanied refugee youth have to integration. Thesis will examine what fosters and what hinders minors’ integration. Research is based on a qualitative field study carried out in Southern and Western Sweden. 36 semi–structured interviews were conducted with current and grown-up alone coming refugee minors; houses managers and social workers; local authorities’ representatives and decision makers; Migration Board employees.The (Dis)Empowerment model by Friedmann will be applied to analyse collected information. Thus, this thesis examines youth perspectives on their economic, social, cultural and political integration by connecting their experiences of life in Sweden to eight bases of social power, which (dis)empower them.The study shows that youth are willing to integrate into society, and to some extent they have access to integration. However, the research argues that minors’ access to bases of social power and youth’s usage of them is unbalanced and inconsistent. Interviewed youth have sufficient access to defensible life space, instruments of work and livelihood, and surplus time. Thus, they have capabilities to perform their life functions. On the other hand, youth have limited access and capabilities to the bases of social organizations and networks, financial resources, knowledge and skills, as well as unbalanced access to information and public policy action. This hinders youth economic, social, cultural and political integration. Moreover, these major obstacles are being reinforced by discrimination within the host society.