| Summary: | Millions of people are forced to leave their homes each year, to flee difficult conditions and in search for a better life. There has been an increase in the number of children and youths seeking refuge in Iceland over the past decades. Social support and language proficiency are essential to young refugees’ well-being, and help them adapt to the host country, which can often be challenging. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the importance of friendships and school participation on perceived social support and language proficiency of children and youths who seek asylum in Iceland. Participants were children and youths (N=75) who sought asylum in Iceland between the years 2016 to 2020. Participants were between the age of 13 to 24 years (67% male). The instruments used was a semi-structured interview questionnaire, and the study was cross-sectional and correlational. Study results showed that most participants had friends in Iceland, particularly Icelandic friends. Contact with friends in Iceland was positively and significantly related to perceived social support. Additionally, contact with friends in Iceland was significantly and positively related to perceived language proficiency. Most participants attended school in Iceland, however, school participation was not found to be related to perceived Icelandic proficiency. Keywords: Social support, school participation, language proficiency, asylum-seeker Ár hvert neyðast milljónir manna til að yfirgefa heimili sín, til að flýja erfiðar aðstæður og í leit að betri lífsgæðum. Undanfarna áratugi hefur fjölgað í hópi barna og ungmenna sem sækja um hæli á Íslandi. Félagslegur stuðningur og tungumálakunnátta eru mikilvægir þættir í að auka vellíðan ungra innflytjenda og getur hjálpað þeim að aðlagast nýju umhverfi, en aðlögun getur reynst mörgum krefjandi. Markmið rannsóknarinnar var að greina mikilvægi vináttu og skólaþátttöku fyrir upplifun á félagsstuðningi og tungumálakunnáttu barna og ungmenna sem sækja um hæli á Íslandi. Þátttakendur voru börn og ungmenni ...
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