New Kiwis, Diverse Families: Migrant and former refugee families talk about their early childhood care and education needs

Methodology

This small-scale qualitative study provided an initial exploration of migrant and refugee families’ preferences and priorities for ECE. It was carried out by a social geographer with cross-cultural research experience working with refugee communities, who is the mother of a pre-school child. She was supported by a researcher and project manager from the Families Commission who is a grandmother. Both researchers are Päkehä.

The particular cultural or ethnic communities approached for inclusion in the research were recommended by key informants either because their voices had rarely, if ever, been heard, or because they came from communities that faced extra challenges settling in New Zealand. Within each community, local leaders or resource people recruited parents with pre-school children to participate in a focus group and explained the research and its intended outcomes. They arranged a suitable location and in some cases provided transport for participating parents to attend the focus group.

There were six focus groups:

•  seven pan-ethnic Muslim women who assembled at a community centre in Auckland for a regular Islamic playgroup
•  six (Mandarin-speaking) Chinese and Taiwanese mothers and one Japanese father from Hamilton
•  eight Russian mothers who take their children to an established, full-immersion Russian community kindergarten on Saturday mornings in Christchurch 
•  four mothers and one father of Eritrean families from across the Wellington region
•  eight Sudanese mothers from Lower Hutt
•  eight Assyrian (Christian Iraqi) mothers from Wellington.

At each focus group, participating parents were asked about:

• their family contexts and history of living and working in New Zealand
• their current ECE arrangements and needs (including what support they relied on from outside the home, including formal centres, playgroups, family members and friends)
• the impact of these arrangements on individual family members
• their experiences of and priorities for ECE
• their ideal ECE arrangements
• the reasons why their ideal arrangements are not possible now (where appropriate).

To facilitate in-depth discussion, a participatory diagramming method4 was employed in four of the six groups. In these cases, parents produced diagrams as a starting point for further discussion about their current situation, and their ideal scenario for the care and education of their pre-schoolers. This method supported the generation and documentation of parents’ realities in terms that were most relevant to them and their own cultural contexts. The method also enabled parents still learning to speak English to participate alongside more confident members of their communities.

There were two groups where the parents simply engaged in a focused discussion. In one case, this was because the group preferred to just talk. In the other, it was because the large number of small babies sitting on their mothers’ knees prevented the mothers from drawing. Parents were informed of the ethical procedures governing the research in terms of the collection, storage, attribution and dissemination of the information. Four of the six groups gave permission to tape-record their discussions, and in the other two groups, one of the researchers took detailed notes.

Parents in some groups also gave permission for their diagrams and for photographs of the focus groups to be used in this report, and other papers and publications. In one group, a professional interpreter supported the Families Commission researchers. In the other groups, either the organiser of the group (who happened to be a qualified interpreter on two occasions), or a person with whom the group felt comfortable, provided additional support as needed. Most participants chose to speak in English for the majority of their discussion. Refreshments and childcare (where needed) were provided for all groups, and parents received a koha as thanks for their involvement.

In addition to the focus groups, two key informants were interviewed: a representative of the Wellington Islamic Community, and the organiser of the pan-ethnic Muslim focus group in Auckland, both of whom were involved in efforts to establish Islamic ECE centres in their communities. Finally, a focus group was held with three Wellington-based ECE experts who had experience of the needs of migrant and refugee communities. This allowed a deeper probing of issues raised by parents and provided another means of interpreting focus group findings. They, too, were informed of the ethical procedures, and gave permission for their voices to be integrated into the report and associated documents. Once focus groups were completed, transcripts were made of the audio-recordings and key themes were analysed. Quotations from parents and ECE experts were then selected to illustrate the key themes and to provide insights into the similarities and differences within and between participating families and communities.