RESEARCH METHODS

A. Introduction

This research project had five separate but inter-related components.

• The core of the project involved locating and interviewing a random sample of refugees destined to the seven host communities. Thus, this component of the study could answer questions about: the refugee retention rate of the various communities; reasons why refugees stay in or leave host communities; refugees’ evaluations of life in and services available to them in their communities; and refugees’ experiences in leaving their home country and coming to Canada.
• A second key component of the study consisted of a set of semi-structured interviews with individuals in the various communities who were involved in providing services for refugees. These interviews were designed to collect information about refugee settlement experiences from the perspective of those responsible for assisting them.
• A public opinion survey of randomly selected adults in each of the seven host communities comprised the third component of the study. This survey focused on residents’ perceptions of the experiences of refugees in their community, and on general awareness of and reactions to refugee and immigration issues.
• The fourth part of the study consisted of an analysis of aggregate data (primarily from the 1991 and 1996 national Census) describing the seven host communities. Such information can be useful in trying to determine some of the reasons why different communities might have different refugee retention rates.
• A review of academic research and public policy documents on refugee and immigration-related issues formed the fifth part of this study. The information collected from this literature review informed the design of the various data collection components of the study as well as the interpretation of the results from the three different surveys.

A more detailed description of the research methods employed in each of the five components of the larger study follows below.