Adding the information literacy perspective to refugee integration research discourse: a scoping literature review

Introduction. There is a substantial amount of research on refugees and integration. Also in library and information science there are studies focusing on refugees. However, this research knowledge doesn’t easily transfer between disciplines. This paper is a scoping literature review on main perspectives studied within integration research. The aim is to explore how the information perspective is represented and if there is a need for bringing the information perspective more actively into the integration research discourse.
Method.Review articles were retrieved from the Web of Science core collection indexes using Boolean search strings.
Analysis. (1) The retrieved review articles were categorised into the research areas with content description through keywords. (2) Thematic analysis of the review articles with information related perspectives was conducted.
Results. The analysis showed that most integration related research is done within public environmental and occupational health. In library and information science there is relevant theory development and important research on information literacy and other information related phenomena.
Conclusion. It is important to bring information literacy to the common integration frameworks as a (meta)facilitator of integration. Better communication is needed across the disciplines to guarantee the contribution of research results to successful integration.