The words ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’ have a wide variety of connotations in Britain, many of them negative. This unit explores how changing social policy and terminology help to shape, and are shaped by, the experiences of people seeking asylum in the UK. This study unit is just one of many that can be found on LearningSpace, part of OpenLearn, a collection of open educational resources from The Open University. Published in ePub 2.0.1 format, some feature such as audio, video and linked PDF are not supported by all ePub readers.