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Parental support is vital for the well‐being and resilience of children with a refugee background as they navigate resettlement. However, providing such parental support is challenging for parents facing significant life changes due to involuntary migration and are unfamiliar with their new society. This study distinguishes between emotional and informational support, focusing on whether parents prioritize informational parental support–involving advice or exchanging information–and examines its determinants. We applied a multiple linear regression model on a data set with 254 recently‐arrived refugee parents of 10‐ to 16‐year‐olds. Results indicate that informational support is predicted by both the parent's educational level as well as their Dutch language proficiency. We conclude that enhancing language proficiency is crucial to empower parents in offering more informational support to their children, aiding their understanding of the new society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the extent to which policy variation matters for refugee integration, focusing on two parallel local integration programs varying in intensity and comprehensiveness and their effects on refugees’ economic and socio-cultural integration. We employ 3-wave panel data including detailed information on Syrian refugees from the moment they were granted asylum status in the Netherlands up to four years later. After accounting for treatment assignment bias using coarsened exact matching, random effects analyses showed a significant increase over time in refugees’ Dutch language proficiency, identification with the host community, self-reliance, participation in volunteer or paid work, and welfare independence. However, we did not find convincing evidence to suggest that refugees’ integration process developed differently depending on the integration program. We discuss possible explanations for our findings and advance policy interventions that aim to foster refugee integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discussions on integration, the perspective of newcomers themselves is rarely included. As recently arrived refugees' integration is subject to policy, we investigate their understanding of and expectations for integration within a (local) policy context in the Netherlands. Using focus group data with Syrian and Eritrean refugees recently settled in Rotterdam, results show participants understood integration as not being marked as different and becoming self-reliant (through work, language, social connections, and cultural knowledge). While partly coinciding with policy objectives, participants emphasized mutual effort, especially socio-culturally. Policy implementation was particularly criticized, pointing toward the need for extensive, practical, and person-oriented support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In European countries, refugees await the approval of their asylum claim in reception centres. Scholars have repeatedly expressed concern about the consequences of a long reception period for refugees' mental health but the mechanisms that drive this negative relationship remain not fully understood. Using survey data from 481 Syrian refugees in the Netherlands, we show that the length of stay in reception centres was associated with an increasing number of forced relocations between reception centres, which weakened refugees' mental health during their resettlement up to 2 years later. In an attempt to improve refugees' mental health, reception centres now offer day‐time activities. However, while we find that length of stay in reception centres was associated with more frequent participation in day‐time activities, it did not substantially improve refugees' mental health. We call for policy makers to reduce the detrimental effects of a frequent forced relocations between reception centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current experimental study (N = 546) compares the effect of exposure to a television news story with a positive and negative tone on anti-immigrant attitudes and carry-over effects to uninvolved immigrant groups. Results reveal that exposure to a "negatively" valenced news story about North African immigrants increased negative attitudes toward that same group. Importantly, however, we find carryover effects of exposure to a "positively" valenced news story about North African immigrants to attitudes toward uninvolved immigrant groups. Together, these findings show that the effect of exposure to television news tone has more ramifications than previously thought, and that the impact of exposure to a positive or negative news story differs for direct effects vis-à-vis carry-over effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research examines television news as a contextual determinant of intergroup threat from North African immigrants in Flanders (i.e. the northern part of Belgium). We content analyse the prevalence of intergroup threats in television news over an eleven-year period (2003-13), and take an experimental approach to examine the impact of these threatening news stories on perceived threats from North African immigrants. The content analysis revealed that (combinations of) safety and cultural issues were widespread in television news content. Experimental evidence showed that exposure to safety and cultural issues in news content increased perceptions of safety and cultural threat accordingly, but exposure to economic issues revealed no effect for economic threat. We conclude by emphasizing the potential of television news content in affecting perceptions of intergroup threat, particularly for those threats which are commonly present in the news and readily accessible in natives' minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is twofold. First, we expand on the literature by testing whether generalized trust is negatively related to anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe. Second, we examine to what extent the relation between generalized trust and anti-immigrant sentiments is dependent upon cross-group friendships. We apply multilevel linear regression modeling to representative survey data enriched with levels of ethnic diversity covering 21 European countries. Results show that both generalized trust and cross-group friendship are negatively related to anti-immigrant sentiments. However, there is a negligible positive relation between generalized trust and cross-group friendship (r = .10), and we can clearly observe that they operate independently from one another. Hence, trusting actors are not more likely to form more cross-group friendships, and cross-group friendship do not lead to the development of more generalized trust. Instead, the findings show that generalized trust leads immigrants too to be included in the radius of trusted others and, as a consequence, the benign effects of generalized trust apply to them as well. We conclude that the strength of generalized trust is a form of generalization, beyond the confines of individual variations in intergroup experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]