Moving Beyond English as a Requirement to "Fit In": Considering Refugee and Migrant Education in South Australia

This paper presents findings from research conducted in two primary schools in South Australia with New Arrivals Programs (NAPs). The paper draws upon two forms of data: questionnaires administered to teachers and ethnographic observations of children at play in the schoolyard. These data are used to examine two aspects of education for refugees and other migrants: (1) the assumption that English language acquisition is central to the “integration” of refugees and other newly arrived migrants (and both that integration is of key importance and that the work of integration must primarily be undertaken by refugees and other migrants, not the broader community); and (2) the impact of power differentials between NAP and non- NAP students in the use of playground spaces. We argue that the education provided to refugee and newly arrived migrant students in NAPs needs to move beyond treating English language acquisition as a requirement to “fit in,” and we call for schools with high populations of refugee and migrant students to consider how spatial relations in their schools may be negatively impacting these student populations. Finally, the paper calls for an approach to education that is situated in global contexts of colonization and power relations, and in which the terms for inclusion of NAP students are mutually negotiated, rather than predetermined.Cet article présente les résultats de la recherche menée dans deux écoles primaires en Australie-Méridionale offrant des programmes pour nouveaux arrivants (New Arrivals Programs). La recherche s’appuie sur deux types de données: questionnaires administrés aux enseignants et observations ethnographiques des enfants au jeu dans la cour d’école. Ces données sont utilisées pour examiner deux aspects de l’éducation pour réfugiés et autres migrants: 1) l’hypothèse voulant que l’acquisition de la langue anglaise est au cœur de «l’intégration» des réfugiés et autres nouveaux arrivants (et à la fois que l’intégration est d’une importance capitale et que le travail d’intégration doit se faire prioritairement par les réfugiés et autres migrants, et non l’ensemble de la communauté); 2) l’impact des écarts de pouvoir entre les nouveaux arrivants et les autres écoliers dans l’utilisation des espaces de jeux . Les auteurs soutiennent que l’enseignement dispensé aux écoliers réfugiés et nouvellement arrivés dans le cadre des programmes pour nouveaux arrivants doit aller au-delà du traitement de l’acquisition de la langue anglaise comme nécessaire à l’«intégration», et demandent aux écoles ayant de fortes populations d’écoliers réfugiés et migrants d’examiner comment les relations spatiales au sein de l’école peuvent avoir un impact négatif sur ces populations. Enfin, les auteurs favorisent une approche éducative située dans les contextes mondiaux de la colonisation et des relations de pouvoir dans laquelle les conditions d’intégration des écoliers nouvellement arrivés sont mutuellement négociées, plutôt que prédéterminées

Mapping the Health Experiences of Australians Who Were Female Assigned at Birth But Who Now Identify with a Different Gender Identity

Copyright 2013 Föreningen Lambda Nordica. Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisher

Care for Children with Migrant or Refugee Backgrounds in the School Context

Author accepted manuscript (post print) made available in accordance with publisher policy.While teachers are increasingly being asked to provide ‘care’ for students in their classrooms, very little research has explored what care might look like for students with migrant or refugee backgrounds. This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted with children when they began school in Australia in the Intensive English Language Program (IELP), with a focus on how care might be provided and defined. Participants were 63 migrant or refugee children (15 refugee students and 48 migrant students; 35 males and 28 females) aged between five and 13 years of age (M = 7.40 years, SD = 2.39), and 14 IELP teachers (10 women and four men). The aims of the broader study of which this paper forms one part were to explore experiences at school through a mixed-methods, participatory methodology. The current paper takes a deductive approach, and focuses specifically on the relationships between students and teachers as one dimension of care for students. We found that students had positive relationships with their teachers, and reported feeling safe at school. Teachers reported some challenges in relation to their relationships with students, particularly in the case of students with refugee backgrounds. We suggest that the concept of care for children with refugee and migrant backgrounds needs further work, particularly in mainstream education settings

Australian lesbian, gay and/or transgender people and the law

Copyright 2014 Federation Press. Author accepted manuscript reproduced here with permission from the publisher.Notionally the law is designed to protect people from harm or stigma (Posner 2002): it can of course do the opposite. While, as this chapter outlines, laws in Australia have increasingly become inclusive of lesbians, gay men and/or transgender people, this is only a relatively recent development in Australian law, and there is a much longer history of the law endorsing the marginalisation of these populations.1 For social workers, this means two things. Firstly, given the relationship between the law and social norms (where laws reflect social norms as much as they shape them), it is likely that historically many in the social work profession may have been complicit with the marginalisation of lesbians, gay men and/or transgender people. This might have been implicitly (i.e., by failing to challenge stereotypes or discrimination against lesbians, gay men and/or transgender people) or explicitly (i.e., by endorsing the marginalisation of lesbians, gay men and/or transgender people including in social work practice). Given the relatively slow and recent change in Australian laws related to lesbians, gay men and/or transgender people, it is possible that some social work practitioners continue to hold uninformed or discriminatory attitudes towards these populations, a fact that this chapter attempts to address through the provision of information about current laws and their impact upon these populations

White Australian adoptive mothers' understandings of birth cultures and families

This paper reports an analysis of interviews conducted with 10 White Australian women who had undertaken intercountry adoption. The paper begins with an overview of how issues of culture play out within discourses of intercountry adoption in general and how this occurs specifically in Australian policy in regard to intercountry adoption. The analysis highlights how the interviewees were in many ways inculcated in broader Australian discourses of intercountry adoption, as much as in some instances there was an attempt to resist this. The paper concludes by discussing how it might be possible for White adoptive mothers in Australia to do other than remain complicit with marginalizing accounts of adoptive children's birth cultures and parents.Australian Research Council Grant DP11010189

Healthcare experiences of gender diverse Australians: a mixed-methods, self-report survey

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background To date the healthcare experiences of gender diverse Australians have received little attention. Previous international research indicates a range of both negative and positive healthcare experiences amongst this diverse population, with negative experiences being those most frequently reported. Method An online survey was designed to examine the healthcare experiences of gender diverse Australians. The survey included Likert scales asking participants to rate their mental and physical health, and their experiences with psychiatrists, general practitioners and surgeons (in terms of perceived comfort, discrimination and information provision). Open-ended questions provided the opportunity for participants to further elaborate on their experiences. Data were collected between June 2012 and July 2013. Quantitative data analysis was conducted utilising SPSS 17.0, including ANCOVAs and correlations to examine the relationships between variables. Qualitative data were coded by the authors in terms of negative or positive responses and the validity of ratings were assessed utilising Cohen's kappa. Results 110 people assigned male at birth (MAAB) and 78 people assigned female at birth (FAAB) completed two separate surveys. All identified as gender diverse as defined in this paper. 70% of participants had accessed a psychiatrist. Participants MAAB rated their experiences with psychiatrists more highly than participants FAAB. 80% of participants had accessed a general practitioner. Comfort with, and respect from, general practitioners were both positively correlated with mental health, whilst discrimination was negatively correlated with mental health. 42.5% of participants had undertaken sex-affirming surgery. Those who had such surgery reported higher levels of physical and mental health than those who had not undertaken surgery. Participants MAAB reported more positive experiences of surgery than did participants FAAB. Conclusions Findings highlight the need for increased education of medical practitioners in regards to engaging with gender diverse clients

Experiences of school belonging for young children of refugee backgrounds

Author version made available in accordance with publisher copyright policy.Previous research with adolescents with refugee backgrounds living in countries of resettlement has found that school belonging has an impact on a range of wellbeing and developmental outcomes, including mental health, peer relationships, self-esteem and self-efficacy, and academic achievement. However, very little research has explored school belonging in younger children with refugee backgrounds (i.e., under 13 years of age). In this article we report on a participatory research project concerning the experiences and understandings of school belonging with 15 children with refugee backgrounds (aged from 5 to 13 years old) who had been living in Australia for less than 12 months. The research aimed to explore experiences of school and school belonging from the perspective of children, and utilised photo elicitation techniques. The study found that refugee children were able to create a sense of school belonging through aspects of the school environment that reflected their identity and values, and through their relationships with their peers and teachers. In conclusion, we highlight the importance of ensuring that schools create spaces for refugee students to demonstrate their knowledge, values, and skills at school, and to ensure that strategies to promote school belonging in refugee students take into account their experiences and identity

The Impact of Pregnancy Loss on Women’s Adult Relationships

Copyright 2014 Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisher.Previous research has identified that women feel isolated and in need of emotional support following pregnancy loss. However, little previous research has focused on how pregnancy loss affects a woman’s relationships with her partner, family and friends. Fifteen South Australian women (31 to 71 years old) were interviewed about their experience of pregnancy loss. Thematic analysis identified that the women’s family and friends were not always an available support following pregnancy loss, either due to the presentation of their own grief, or a lack of understanding of what the women were experiencing

Public and private families: a comparative thematic analysis of the intersections of social norms and scrutiny

Post print (author accepted) manuscript made available 12 months from publication in accordance with publisher copyright policy. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in [Health Sociology Review] on [1 Feb 2016], available online: http:// www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14461242.2015.1135071Despite the increased diversification of Australian families, the nuclear family formed through reproductive heterosex continues to be treated as the norm. This paper argues that this norm impacts negatively upon families formed in other ways, by exposing them to increased scrutiny. Drawing on interviews with 60 participants from four cohorts (families formed through reproductive heterosex, intercountry adoption, long-term foster care, or surrogacy), a comparative thematic analysis is presented in which two key themes are elaborated: (1) the impact of government policies and practices, and (2) the degree to which families are treated as public property. Findings suggest that families formed through reproductive heterosex were the least regulated and scrutinised; families formed through either adoption or surrogacy received a considerable degree of regulation and scrutiny; and foster families were the most scrutinised and negatively impacted by government policies. The paper concludes by considering what is required to engender more inclusive and supportive responses to all families

Avoiding stuck places: University educators’ views on supporting migrant and refugee students with transitioning through and out of higher education

University student equity cohorts experience inequitable graduate/ employment outcomes. These challenges are magnified for Culturally and Linguistically Marginalised Migrant and/or Refugee students (CALMMR). Consequently, this study aimed to investigate the views of Australian university educators on the transitioning of CALMMR students from higher education into employment. Employing mixed methods, this study commenced with a survey of university educators (n=40) followed by semi-structured interviews (n=13). Findings highlighted that specialised, diverse support is needed for CALMMR students across studies and into careers. Specifically, students faced additional challenges, which are not being met in a fragmented university system. Universities need to provide support that is more holistic, targeted, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive, to address the inequity in graduate/employment outcomes experienced by CALMMR students