Lessons learned from qualitative and quantitative comparative research on refugee/receiving society integration in three European countries and Jordan
The FOCUS team has conducted research on integration from the angle of both the receiving and arriving community in three European countries (Croatia, Germany and Sweden) and Jordan using quantitative and qualitative methods on data collected through focus groups and a survey. From a methodological point of view this has been challenging both in the setting up to ensure comparability and also in the analysis of data.
The Forum will be organised as an open dialogue on conceptual and methodological challenges in integration research. FOCUS researchers will start by presenting methodological challenges and lessons learnt from data collection and from conducting comparative research in four countries with distinct characteristics in terms of migration history, policies, opportunity structures and welfare systems. The focus will be on the three European sites.
This event is organised by the FOCUS project, which has received funding from the European Union‘s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 822401.
If you want to do some reading to get into the topic, the following two texts may prove helpful:
The results from the FOCUS quantitative 'Survey of Arriving and Receiving Communities' in Jordan, Croatia, Germany and Sweden (October 2021)
The results from our 'Qualitative Field Study' in the same four countries (January 2021)
FOCUS is a research project funded under the European Commission’s H2020 programme.
FOCUS aims to make an impact on both research and practice by understanding and improving the dynamics of integration in Jordan, Croatia, Germany and Sweden, with a special emphasis on how psychological and social factors influence integration. This knowledge is used to transform and strengthen existing promising practices for social- and labour market integration, that will be pilot tested in at least five European countries and will be brought together in the Living Well Together Resource. The goal of this Resource is to support policymakers, community actors, civil society organisation and other practitioners in the field in responding to the needs of both arriving and receiving communities with both insights and ways to address the needs. In addition, FOCUS has the ambition to link existing networks of policy and practice through common activities.