Magic Mix is an innovative social housing approach in the Netherlands designed to foster intergroup interactions through intentional mixed living arrangements. This study examines how the Magic Mix model influences the sociocultural integration of refugees by comparatively analyzing three distinct projects. Drawing on the semi-structured interviews with refugees and housing managers, our findings reveal that the composition and motivation of residents, the availability of targeted support services, and the quality of physical environments are crucial mediating factors in achieving successful social integration. The research underscores the need for thoughtful resident selection, accessible support infrastructure, and well-designed communal spaces for fostering meaningful social connections. The study concludes with policy recommendations to enhance refugee integration through more inclusive and supportive housing practices.

Refugees enrolling in host country higher education can improve their position in the labour market. However, little is known about the patterns underlying enrolment, and existing studies have only examined explanations at the individual level. This is problematic because opportunities to enrol in education are also dependent upon structural factors, and by ignoring this, studies run the risk of depicting non-enrolment as a consequence of individual shortcomings. We address this issue through the notion of arrival infrastructures and argue that existing infrastructures at multiple spatial scales may support or discourage enrolment. By focusing on the Netherlands, we were able to follow the enrolment of all registered refugees that arrived between 2014 and 2017 over time using registry data. We find that the accessibility of education, the municipal political climate and regional economic conditions influence educational enrolment. These findings show that dispersal policies can have detrimental effects on the social mobility of refugees.

Many studies have attributed differences in social mobility outcomes among refugees to explanations on the individual level. However, research is increasingly emphasizing that focusing on individual level characteristics may divert attention from the social, political, and economic conditions in which social mobility takes place. One contextual factor faced by refugees across Europe is obligatory asylum reception. This study investigates the relationship between reception circumstances and opportunities for social mobility. Building on existing research, we argue that in addition to the length of reception, the spatial, material, and institutional conditions of reception matter because they influence refugees' opportunities to accumulate social and human capital while waiting. Utilizing the Dutch register data, we followed the labor market entry, enrolment in education, and Dutch language acquisition of all refugees who arrived between 2014-2017 for a period of five years using survival analysis. Our findings confirm that waiting time can have a damaging effect on the social mobility of refugees. In addition, our analysis shows that remote reception locations hinder social mobility. A large distance between the reception center and the first independent dwelling also has a negative effect. Finally, we demonstrate that prolonged stays in irregular reception centers delay social mobility.

Sub-standard living conditions among migrant workers have become a structural feature all over Europe. In the Netherlands, this policy problem has persisted for over a decade despite much political attention. We investigate this issue by combining a governance network perspective with a critical discourse analysis. The study builds on an analysis of existing materials and interviews with stakeholders. The results reveal a disjuncture between policy rhetoric and practice; while it is often stated that migrant workers should not be seen as second-class citizens, housing policies have the implicit aim of keeping them out of sight of the rest of the population. Our findings show that housing policy for migrant workers prioritises the social reproduction of labour and the interests of the general population instead of the rights of migrant workers. This contribution adds to the growing literature on governance networks in housing studies by refuting the assumption of consensus-seeking in deliberation and highlighting the significance of power disparities.

China's rapidly growing ageing population fuels growing demand for healthcare. Yet institutional care facilities remains inaccessible to many. Policymakers have addressed this situation by emphasising community-based housing models that foster ageing in place. However, so far, the preferences of older people for the attributes of such community-based housing are not sufficiently known. This research performed a latent class choice analysis of Beijing survey data, identifying three distinct groups with differentiated housing preferences based on their health status, socioeconomic status, and current living situations. Respondents in the prosperous group exhibited preferences for spacious dwellings with professional healthcare. Respondents with physical disabilities favoured compact living spaces requiring healthcare to maintain their daily living. The marginal utilities for meal delivery services, dwelling location, and shared recreational spaces are highest among economically disadvantaged respondents. The findings of this study inform targeted community-based housing development for older people.

With China's entrance into the World Trade Organisation, an increasing number and diversity of international migrants have moved into Chinese cities, including entrepreneurs. Efforts to manage this migration influx are fraught with ambiguities. Business is welcomed but national visa requirements are very strict and local surveillance is abundant. For African migrants in particular, everyday discrimination adds to their exclusion from larger parts of the city and to insecure housing. This article analyses housing pathways of African entrepreneurs to identify ways in which they find access to housing over time and space in an institutional and geographical context that is highly constrained by formal rules and (informal) practices of urban gatekeepers.Drawing on extensive observations and in-depth interviews detailing housing biographies, the results show migrants' agency through coping strategies. They also reveal how transiency in housing arises from social practice, from the interaction between migrants' needs and landlords' interests in particular. The paper adds to existing housing pathways studies by identifying how these strategies and interactions are embedded in structural conditions that limit housing mobility patterns by confining access to limited residential locations.

Previous research has reported both positive and negative associations between school socioeconomic status (SES) and internalizing problems among adolescents. Little is known about cross-national differences in this association, as well as potential mediators and moderators. Therefore, this study investigated this association using representative cross-national samples of adolescents whilst exploring the mediating role of schoolwork pressure and classmate support, and the moderating role of family SES and country-level income inequality. Using data from adolescents aged 11-15 from 44 countries, participating in the 2017/2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study (N = 202,202), we employed multilevel regression models with cross-level interactions. School SES was operationalized as the average family affluence of adolescents within a school and psychological complaints (e.g., feeling low/depressed) were used as an indication of internalizing problems. On average across countries, adolescents in higher SES schools reported more psychological complaints, with a large effect size. However, differences in this association were observed across countries, with a positive association in 19 out of 44 countries, a negative association in one country, and nonsignificant associations in the remaining countries. Schoolwork pressure partially mediated the average association between school SES and psychological complaints, as school SES was positively associated with schoolwork pressure which was associated with more psychological complaints. Our results did not support the mediating role of classmate support. Also, we found a moderating effect of family SES, indicating a stronger positive association between school SES and psychological complaints for those with a below average family SES compared to those with an average and above average family SES. No moderating effect was observed for country-level income inequality. These findings suggest that adolescents with low family SES attending higher SES schools are especially at risk for psychological complaints, and may therefore require tailored support. A promising strategy to reduce psychological complaints entails addressing schoolwork pressure.

Sport plays an important role in society and is seen as a tool to promote social inclusion. However, sport involvement is socially stratified and people who are in marginalized populations (such as people with a disability, refugees, ethnic minorities) often do not participate and thus cannot experience the benefits of sport. This scoping review aims to add to the scientific understanding of why marginalized populations do or do not participate in sport by scoping, structuring, and synthesizing the research landscape on determinants influencing sport participation. A search was conducted in the interdisciplinary databases Science Direct and Web of Science. The initial search identified 829 potentially relevant studies, of which 38 studies were included in the analysis. This paper identifies research gaps and opportunities and employs a socioecological framework to present comprehensive overview of determinants of sport participation for people who are in marginalized populations to inform future research and interventions.

This paper investigates how interrelated processes of bordering - i.e. delimitation, interface and affirmation - work out in domains of Nigerian migrants' daily life in Guangzhou. The results reveal that migrants make use of marketplaces as interface platforms for economic exchange and cooperation with Chinese entrepreneurs, yet within a highly delimited playing field and with affirmation of cultural differences. They find residence in the city, with opportunities delimited by state and city laws. In neighborhoods, they find their stigmatization affirmed and lack inter-ethnic interface. Migrants also create underground churches, yet delimited into remaining invisible in the urban landscape. In churches, migrants affirm their identity and community but have limited inter-ethnic interface. The paper pinpoints fierce segregative and exclusionary outcomes for Nigerian migrants but they also persevere and gain agency in becoming a successful entrepreneur through instrumental inter-ethnic contact. Moreover, through non-instrumental intra-ethnic contact, they negotiate a sense of belonging in the city.

Across Europe, refugees face significant difficulties in finding employment. Many studies have attributed the disadvantaged labor market position of refugees to factors on the individual level, such as language barriers or health issues related to the experience of fleeing. While such explanations emphasize individual responsibility, ethnographic studies are increasingly contending that opportunities to integrate into the labor market can be restricted or enabled by arrival infrastructures. We contribute to this discussion by taking a quantitative perspective. Focusing on the Netherlands, we used extensive national register data that allowed us to follow refugees over time and break the concept of arrival infrastructures down into four dimensions, namely job access, neighborhood effects, enclave effects, and the local migration regime. In addition, because the Dutch dispersal policy distributed refugees - to a considerable extent - randomly across municipalities during the period under study, we were able to counteract problems of self-selection and reversed causality. We studied the labor market integration of refugees using competing risks analysis, taking educational enrollment and residential mobility into account. Our findings show that economic, social, and institutional arrival infrastructures manifest themselves at different scales but all matter in the labor market integration of refugees.

Background Studies have shown how environmental factors influence older people's health and functional limitations, which are crucial for achieving healthy aging. However, such a healthy aging model has been criticized for defining health as an absence of disease, because chronic conditions cannot be reversed through medical treatments. In response to such critiques, this study refers to Huber's positive health definition, arguing that health should not be defined as the absence of disease but as the ability to adapt and self-manage in the face of social, physical, and emotional challenges. There is a need to develop a community-based approach to healthy aging that considers how the residential environment enables older people to adapt and self-manage. Drawing on Sen's capability approach, this study proposes that such a community-based approach should provide a supportive environment to enable older people's capabilities to live independently. Methods Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis of data from 650 older people (60 years and older) surveyed in Beijing, we unravel which features of the residential environment support older people' s capabilities to live independently and how these impacts differ depending on older people's frailty levels. Results The results show that four environmental factors, namely perceived accessibility (B = 0.238, p < 0.001 for physical capability, B = 0.126, p < 0.001 for social capability, B = 0.195, p < 0.001 for psychological capability), pleasant surroundings (B = 0.079, p < 0.05 for physical capability, B = 0.065, p < 0.05 for social capability), meeting opportunities (B = 0.256, p < 0.001 for social capability, B = 0.188, p < 0,001 for psychological capability, and life convenience B = 0.089, p < 0.05 for physical capability, B = 0.153, p < 0.001 for psychological capability) positively affect older people's capabilities to live independently. These four environmental factors cause differences in older people's capabilities between different neighborhood types. Moderation analysis shows that meeting opportunities are more relevant for frail older people (B = 0.090, p < 0.001 for social capability, B = 0.086, p < 0.01 for psychological capability). Conclusions This study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the role of supportive residential environments in enabling older people to live independently. Furthermore, we identify four environmental factors that support older people's capabilities. Results can be used to develop effective community-based environmental support to enable older people to live independently.

Aging populations around the world are growing rapidly. Older people prefer to age in place, but they have health needs that require environmental support at the community level. Drawing on Sen's capability approach, we argue that as chronic conditions are inevitable when older people become frail, the policy should focus on providing conversion factors to support older people's capabilities to live independently. The empirical studies, therefore, investigate how residential environment characteristics as conversion factors influence aging-in-place intentions. This study conceptualizes the aging-in-place concept as an intention predicted by three constructs of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control). Drawing on a survey of older respondents in Beijing, this study used mediation and moderation analysis to examine the effects of environmental conversion factors on aging-in-place intentions, particularly if these factors increase the perceived behavioral control to live independently. The results show that home accessibility and meeting opportunities positively correlate with aging-in-place intentions. Three TPB components fully mediate such positive effects, with perceived behavioral control having the largest mediation effect. Additionally, meeting opportunities are more influential on aging-in-place intentions for non-frail older adults due to the more significant influence meeting opportunities have on their perceived behavioral control. The results contribute to understanding how the residential environment supports aging in place by supporting older people's capabilities. The results can be used to provide policy recommendations for developing more effective community-based interventions for older people.

Recently, post-socialist inner cities have been transforming through various processes of revitalisation and gentrification. The resulting physical and social contrasts of neighbouring localities lead to the spatial fragmentation of inner-city areas that may produce variegated effects on the everyday life of local residents. This paper examines how long-term residents of an inner-city neighbourhood in Prague undergoing residential and commercial gentrification have perceived and lived through its change. Specifically, it reveals how the ongoing changes influence residents’ place attachment. The paper relies upon qualitative methodology using semi-structured in-depth interviews with long-term inhabitants (>20 years). Empirical findings point to a strong and stable place attachment, despite ambivalent attitudes towards recent changes related to gentrification. The effect of gentrification on place attachment appears to be relatively limited. Many residents acknowledge that gentrification has reversed the deterioration that characterised the neighbourhood in the past. Moreover, negatively perceived changes to the neighbourhood are often not attributed primarily to the gentrification process but understood as a natural part of residents’ own ageing, wider societal changes, and historical development of the neighbourhood. The article highlights the need to investigate the personal, spatial and temporal contexts to comprehend the complex effects of gentrification on long-term residents.

Abstract Noticing the deficiencies of the traditional successful aging model, this study proposes a community-based approach to promote healthy aging that enables older people to adapt and self-manage from the capability approach perspective. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis of data from 650 older adults (60 years and older) surveyed in Beijing, this study aims to unravel how the residential environment supports Chinese older adults' capabilities to live independently. The results show that inequalities in residential environments cause differences in older adults’ capabilities between neighborhoods. Four environmental factors (namely: home accessibility, pleasant surroundings, meeting opportunities, and life convenience) positively affect older adults’ capabilities to live independently. Meeting opportunities are more relevant for frail older adults. This study contributes to the understanding of how the residential environment supports healthy aging from the capability approach perspective. Results can be used to develop effective community-based policies.

We investigated trends in associations between physical and social neighbourhood and school characteristics and adolescent mental health problems between 2005 and 2017. Nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional data collected in the Netherlands among primary (N = 5,871) and secondary school students (N = 20,778) were analysed through cross-classified multilevel models. Hardly any evidence was found for over-time changes in associations between neighbourhood and school characteristics and adolescent mental health problems. Findings showed that for both groups of students, only social characteristics within the two contexts were associated with adolescent mental health problems. For secondary school students, school effects were larger than neighbourhood effects, while the opposite was true for primary school students. Specifically, primary school students residing in more socially fragmented or lower socioeconomic status (SES) neighbourhoods, and lower SES schools, reported more conduct problems and peer relationship problems. For secondary school students, only the SES of the neighbourhood and the school was associated with all four aspects of mental health problems. Remarkably, the direction of the associations between neighbourhood/ school SES and adolescent mental health problems varied across the different mental health outcomes. More research is warranted to replicate our findings.

Abstract Noticing the deficiencies of the traditional successful aging model, this study proposes a community-based approach to promote healthy aging that enables older people to adapt and self-manage from the capability approach perspective. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis of data from 650 older adults (60 years and older) surveyed in Beijing, this study aims to unravel how the residential environment supports Chinese older adults' capabilities to live independently. The results show that inequalities in residential environments cause differences in older adults’ capabilities between neighborhoods. Four environmental factors (namely: home accessibility, pleasant surroundings, meeting opportunities, and life convenience) positively affect older adults’ capabilities to live independently. Meeting opportunities are more relevant for frail older adults. This study contributes to the understanding of how the residential environment supports healthy aging from the capability approach perspective. Results can be used to develop effective community-based policies.

This article explores how African entrepreneurs in Guangzhou manage to survive in an environment that is characterized by harsh competition and major institutional restrictions. Combining literature on social networks theory with the mixed embeddedness approach, this paper presents an analysis of African entrepreneurial trajectories as a transnational and locally embedded process through exploring networking and trust-building strategies that African entrepreneurs employ to (re)position themselves in the Sino-African value chain. Based on ethnographic research on African entrepreneurs in Guangzhou, it shows that many African entrepreneurs are changing positions in the value chain by moving closer to Chinese production. Moving closer to the production side necessitates entrepreneurs to develop stronger local embeddedness whereas at the same time they need to maintain their transnational ties. Entrepreneurs in earlier phases rely on a ties with other Africans in Guangzhou, while in later phases they are embedded in a more diversified network.

Sub-standard living conditions among migrant workers have become a structural feature all over Europe. Although this has attracted the attention of many scholars, there is a lack of studies on the complex relations between various stakeholders in governing housing. This study fills this gap by analysing this housing issue from a governance network perspective. Through an analysis of policy documents and interviews with twenty-one stakeholders, we investigated institutional and strategic complexities. The results show that decision-making is complicated by unclear institutional accountability patterns and the diverging strategic interests of various stakeholders. The interrelationship between the loosely defined institutional setting (structure) and the varying interests of involved actors (agency) has led to a policy impasse that is difficult to breach. We argue that a reconsideration of existing accountability patterns is needed to reduce sub-standard housing conditions among migrant workers in the Netherlands.

This study examined associations between characteristics of the residential neighbourhood and the school and adolescent mental health, including the moderating role of family socioeconomic status (SES) and family support. Nationally representative Dutch data from adolescents aged 12-16 (N = 6422) were analysed through cross-classified multilevel models. Findings showed that school characteristics are more strongly linked to adolescent mental health than residential neighbourhood characteristics. More specifically, higher levels of school SES were associated with more hyperactivity-inattention problems, while higher levels of school social disorder were related to more conduct problems and more peer relationship problems. Further, higher levels of school SES were associated with more emotional symptoms only for adolescents with a relatively low family SES. Higher levels of neighbourhood SES were associated with fewer peer relationship problems. Overall, there was little evidence for the moderating role of family SES or family support.