Research on children’s friendship in culturally diverse contexts has shown that children are more likely to choose friends from their own ethnic or racial group than others. This article examines this tendency from the perspective of 10- to 12-year-old girls attending ethnically mixed primary schools in Dublin, Ireland. It argues that both the emotional challenges involved in encounters across divides and the dynamics of all children’s friendships have a significant role to play in the manner in which boundaries are drawn.
This article examines the problematization and regulation of parenting practices within reception centres accommodating Syrian asylum-seeking and refugee parents who had recently arrived in the Republic of Ireland through relocation and resettlement schemes. Based on qualitative research, the article demonstrates how reception-centre staff often assumed a regulatory role over parenting in a number of different ways: by informing and warning; watching and regulating; taking on parental roles; and referring. The findings suggest that parents are subject to intrusive observations and interventions within reception centres. This happens in a context where refugee families are living in institutional-type ‘collective’ accommodation staffed by personnel who generally lack the requisite qualifications and competencies to undertake the complex roles involved. An undue burden is placed on personnel to respond to situations for which they do not have the necessary skills, resulting in negative consequences for parents and children. Ultimately, this article points to the structural causes of these issues, namely the unsuitability of institutional-type accommodation for family life.
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