Much of the existing policy studies and academic articles on integration of migrants and refugees focus on either the perspective of policymakers and host societies or refugees themselves living within a single institutional environment. This report adopts a simultaneous top-down and bottom-up approach for analyzing Syrian refugees’ understandings of the multidimensional aspects of integration across three countries: Jordan, Turkey, and Sweden. We studied legal, linguistic, economic, institutional, social, and psychological aspects of integration.Key take-aways of our study include: • Across the three cases, citizenship is a particularly important factor contributing toward feelings of equality and integration in the host society. • Open access to and equal opportunities in the labor market, as well as easy validation of formal qualifications, facilitate refugees’ economic and psychological integration. • Learning the local language to a proficient level and building social ties with the host population are recognized as vital for different aspects of integration. • Our interviewees in Sweden—and to a lesser extent in Turkey and Jordan—express worries of losing one’s original culture and identity, which negatively affects their ability to socially and psychologically integrate. • In terms of institutional trust, our interviewees expressed fear of interacting with official institutions in Turkey and Jordan while more trust exists in Sweden, where refugees expect Swedish institutions to be helpful and honest. • Our interviewees view Sweden as successful in formal aspects of integration, measured by high levels of institutional trust, appreciation of the clear legal path toward citizenship, and recognition of the importance of formal integration programs. Yet, social and psychological integration of Syrians in Sweden remains weak, and economic integration requires further efforts to match refugees with jobs that make use of their formal qualifications. • On the contrary, Jordan seems to be more successful in terms of social and linguistic integration due to shared culture and language with Syria. Yet, restrictions on accessing the labor market, the lack of a clear path for citizenship, and low institutional trust all have been expressed as major hindrances to other dimensions of integration. • In Turkey, mixed feelings are expressed depending on whether the person has obtained citizenship or not, a privilege which is granted on a seemingly arbitrary basis. In general, refugees in Turkey struggle across most of the dimensions of integration due to absence of clear economic, linguistic, cultural, and legal policies facilitating refugees’ integration in the country
