scholarly journals The Joy of Having a Book in Your Own Language: Home Language Books in a Refugee Education Centre

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 250
Author(s):  
Nicola Daly ◽  
Libby Limbrick

In 2018, Aotearoa/New Zealand increased its annual refugee quota to 1000. When refugees arrive in Aotearoa/New Zealand they spend six weeks in a resettlement programme. During this time, children attend an introduction to schooling. First language (L1) literacy support for children experiencing education in a medium that is not their Home Language has been identified as essential for children’s educational success. This knowledge is reflected in Principle 4 of the International Literacy Association’s Children’s Rights to Read campaign, which states that “children have the right to read texts that mirror their experiences and languages...”. In 2018, the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY)-Yamada Foundation granted funding to IBBY in Aotearoa/New Zealand (IBBYNZ)/Storylines to supply books in the Home Languages of the refugee children in the introduction to school programme. Over 350 books were sourced in a range of languages including Farsi, Arabic, Tamil, Punjabi, Burmese, Karen, Chin, and Spanish. In this article, the sourcing of these books and their introduction to children in a refugee resettlement programme is described. Interviews with five teachers in the resettlement programme concerning the use of the books and how children and their families have been responding are reported. Future programme developments are outlined.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Torstonson ◽  
Denise Blake ◽  
Darrin Hodgetts ◽  
David M Johnston

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to highlight the role of not-for-profit (NFP) organisations in enhancing disaster preparedness. The authors set out to understand their perspectives and practices in regard to disaster preparedness activities to support people who live precarious lives, especially those who live as single parents who are the least prepared for disasters.Design/methodology/approachThe research draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 12 staff members, either in a group setting or individually, from seven NFP organisations, who were located in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) and Kaiapoi in Aotearoa New Zealand. These participants were interviewed eight years after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.FindingsFour key narrative tropes or elements were drawn from across the interviews and were used to structure the research results. These included: “essential” support services for people living precarious lives; assisting people to be prepared; potential to support preparedness with the right materials and relationships; resourcing to supply emergency goods.Originality/valueThis research contributes to disaster risk reduction practices by advocating for ongoing resourcing of NFP groups due to their ability to build a sense of community and trust while working with precarious communities, such as single parents.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ian Anderson

<p>2011 saw the lowest voter turnout in Aotearoa/New Zealand since women won the right to vote (Vowles, 2014). This decline in participation aligns with trends elsewhere in the Anglosphere (Ailes, 2015; Hansard, 2015). This organic crisis poses new questions for notions of the ‘public sphere’ and ‘publics’ – the forms of political engagement with citizens in a mass-mediated society. Fraser (1990) contends that in theorising the “limits of actually existing late capitalist democracy” (p. 57), we need a notion of pluralised and contesting ‘publics’ (ibid). The project asks how political parties named the 'public' (or publics) in the 2011 and 2014 Aotearoa / New Zealand General Elections. In order to consider the dominance of these political articulations, research will also consider whether these invocations of 'the public' found coverage in the national press. This is not intended as a sociological examination of actually existing publics, but an examination of dominant encoding (Hall, 2001). This analysis tests the thesis that dominant cross-partisan electoral discourses defined the 'public' in terms of dual identification with productive work and capital, in opposition to named subaltern publics. This formulation suggests that workers are called to identify with capital, following from Gramsci’s (2011) theorisation of bourgeois hegemony. Research begins with a content analysis of party press releases and mainstream coverage during the 2011 & 2014 General Elections, when official discourses hailing 'the public' are intensified. Content analysis quantifies nouns used for publics – for example, 'taxpayer', 'New Zealander', or even 'the public'. From this content analysis, the project proceeds to a critical discourse analysis, which seeks to historically contextualise and explain the patterns in content. Reworking Ernesto Laclau's (2005a) theorisation of populism to factor in the left/right axis (which Laclau considered outmoded), this critical discourse analysis considers what 'public' alliances are articulated, and what political programmes these articulations serve.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Herbert ◽  
Margaret Forster ◽  
Timothy McCreanor ◽  
Christine Stephens

<p class="Abstract">To broaden public health approaches to alcohol use, this study provides an initial exploration of the social context of alcohol use among Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand, from the perspectives of older Māori. Utilising a Māori-centred research approach, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 13 older Māori people to explore their personal experiences of alcohol use across their lifetime. Thematic analysis was used to identify common themes that contextualised stories of alcohol use within a Māori cultural framework. Four themes were identified: alcohol use within (1) a sporting culture, (2) a working culture, (3) the context of family, and (4) Māori culture. These themes highlight the influence of social factors such as the desire to socialise and seek companionship; the physical location of alcohol use; the importance of social networks, particularly <em>whānau</em> (family); and the role of cultural identity among Māori. In regard to cultural identity, the role of the <em>marae</em> (traditional meeting place/s of Māori), <em>tikanga</em> (the right way of doing things), and the relationship of <em>kaumātua</em> (respected elder) status to personal and whānau alcohol use are highlighted as important focuses for further research among Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 146394912199559
Author(s):  
Lesley Rameka ◽  
Ruth Ham ◽  
Linda Mitchell

A primary task for refugee families and children who are resettling in a new country is to develop a sense of belonging in that place, time and context. This article theorises the pōwhiri, the traditional Māori ceremony of welcome or ritual of encounter, as a metaphor for refugee families and children coming to belong in Aotearoa New Zealand. The theory-building is derived from observation of pōwhiri at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, where refugees live on their first arrival in Aotearoa New Zealand; pedagogical documentation from the Early Childhood Centre at the Auckland University of Technology Centre for Refugee Education; collaborative discussions with the co-researcher, Ruth Ham, who is the kaiako (‘head teacher’) at the Early Childhood Centre; and recordings of discussions with interpreters. The next phase in this research will be to trial and evaluate this theory and strategies of belonging in three different early childhood centres, two of which include refugee families, and the third, immigrant families.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Torstonson ◽  
Denise Blake ◽  
Darrin Hodgetts ◽  
David M Johnston

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to highlight the role of not-for-profit (NFP) organisations in enhancing disaster preparedness. The authors set out to understand their perspectives and practices in regard to disaster preparedness activities to support people who live precarious lives, especially those who live as single parents who are the least prepared for disasters.Design/methodology/approachThe research draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 12 staff members, either in a group setting or individually, from seven NFP organisations, who were located in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) and Kaiapoi in Aotearoa New Zealand. These participants were interviewed eight years after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.FindingsFour key narrative tropes or elements were drawn from across the interviews and were used to structure the research results. These included: “essential” support services for people living precarious lives; assisting people to be prepared; potential to support preparedness with the right materials and relationships; resourcing to supply emergency goods.Originality/valueThis research contributes to disaster risk reduction practices by advocating for ongoing resourcing of NFP groups due to their ability to build a sense of community and trust while working with precarious communities, such as single parents.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 473-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Dryden-Peterson

In this article, I probe a question at the core of comparative education—how to realize the right to education for all and ensure opportunities to use that education for future participation in society. I do so through examination of refugee education from World War II to the present, including analysis of an original data set of documents ( n = 214) and semistructured interviews ( n = 208). The data illuminate how refugee children are caught between the global promise of universal human rights, the definition of citizenship rights within nation-states, and the realization of these sets of rights in everyday practices. Conceptually, I demonstrate the misalignment between normative aspirations, codes and doctrines, and mechanisms of enforcement within nation-states, which curtails refugees’ abilities to activate their rights to education, to work, and to participate in society.


Author(s):  
Michael Coyle

In much of the world, colonialism has gone hand in hand with the deliberate suppression of Indigenous peoples’ values and the legal orders by which they governed themselves. In light of the marginal social conditions and threats to their future cultural survival that the imposition of colonial sovereignty has produced for Indigenous peoples, pressure has been rising in recent decades for states to recognize the right of Indigenous peoples to be governed by their own diverse laws and normative orders. To be effective, formal efforts to mediate the discourse between those norms and state laws will need to be capable of accommodating fundamental differences between Indigenous and state understandings of governance and of law. Drawing on Indigenous arguments for the revitalization of their laws as well as the insights of legal pluralism, this chapter sketches out a framework by which one might assess the adequacy of mechanisms that mediate between state and Indigenous norms. Our discussion will focus on Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand, two countries where the issue of legal pluralism has recently taken center stage.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document