Abstract
This introductory chapter to the book provides an overview of the challenges that face unaccompanied children and youth as they seek entry into new countries. There is an international increase of unaccompanied minors and refugees. Causes for their fleeing to new countries are reviewed and include poverty, war, climate change, violence, to join family members, and the quest for a better life. Even those who are resilient have experienced a variety of traumas before they arrive in the new country. How an institution, community or state responds to their entry will influence their well-being. The book demonstrates how a clinical sociology approach will provide benefits to children and support the articles recommended in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Notes
- 1.
The clinical sociology specialization often is traced to the fourteenth-century work of the Arab scholar and statesperson Abd-al-Rahman ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). The term clinical sociology was mentioned in Spain as early as 1899. The earliest continuous use of the words “clinical sociology” was in the United States was in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The words appeared in course titles at the University of Chicago, documents written by a medical school dean at Yale who wanted to have physicians trained in what he called clinical sociology and a 1931 American Journal of Sociology article, “Clinical Sociology,” by Louis Wirth.
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Vissing, Y., Leitão, S., Fritz, J.M. (2021). Clinical Sociology and Its Application to Analysis of Unaccompanied Children. In: Vissing, Y., Leitão, S. (eds) The Rights of Unaccompanied Minors. Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75594-2_1
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