”You should stay the way you are, but become a bit bigger” : A qualitative study on how social workers within residential care homes for unaccompanied children understand and implement the concept of “integration”.

The aim of this study was to examine the concept of “integration” within residential care homes for unaccompanied children. More specifically its aim was to find out how the social workers themselves within residential care homes for unaccompanied children understand the concept of integration and how they work for it. The study was based on a qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven social workers within four residential care homes for unaccompanied children. Six themes were identified that seemed to play a role in the discussions about integration: development-acceptance, learning process, communication & relationships, process, personality and common sense. The analysis was based on previous research in the field and the theory of action by Pierre Bourdieu called practical reason. As a conclusion the first three themes can be seen as an understanding of the concept of “integration”. The last three themes exemplify the practical integration work. Despite the lack of regulatory documents, the social workers show a common understanding of the concept and a similar implementation which can be explained by a dominant implicit doxa within the field