Educational inequities and migrant families

Jeslie; student

Kids here are not that bad. Some of them are very, say, a lot of very racist slurs. But I don't know. They're not saying it to me, but it's still very offensive. Like you don't just say it out of nowhere. Yeah. That's just one of the things about this school that yeah, I don't like. And some of the teachers don't really care too much. Because I remember I reported it to a teacher and she just looked at me and said, “well, they're saying other slurs as well”.

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I would have expected her to be a little bit more, like, aggressive with the rules, because the school doesn't have many rules, because they want everyone to, like, be accepted and all that. But I just feel like with that, you must understand that there are like dangers that come with that as well. And since because it's a very, like, multicultural, accepting school, so they should be like, more aggressive and be more like, “you shouldn't do this; you shouldn't do that”. You should be very strict with the type of things that some of the kids are saying. Yeah, that's what I feel like should change in the school.

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Rashida; teacher

I think in terms of preparedness for teachers, I wouldn't say there's unwillingness. I think teachers are very busy. And without some clear routines and strategies it becomes quite difficult because it just gets in the mix of all the diversity that we have in our classrooms. 

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I do feel that there is a lack of cultural knowledge within our teachers; and especially for students from smaller countries, or smaller cultural backgrounds. They're not understood, and teachers are a little bit mindful of doing the wrong thing. So a bit more awareness around: these are the students; this is what their cultural background is; where they're from; what languages they speak; what religion they might be; what their home life could look like. For some of these migrant students, they might have family back in their country that they've come from, and they're navigating different things. So having more of that information shared with teachers would be really beneficial for the students.

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Manal; student

Oh, I would like the schools to, like, introduce [us] to each other, instead of like, just putting us out of nowhere and placing us, which was kind of what I felt when I was there. At first there was a student to help me, but she didn't really help me. She just made me go to my class and then just put me in the middle of what they were doing, and I was so lost. I didn't know how to, like, approach the teacher as well. Since she wasn't focused at all on me.

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Rashida; teacher

I think the transitioning can be done a lot better. I think a lot of the students feel like they're enrolled; yep, come along, you're in school. Done. That's it. The support’s gone. But actually having people who are looking after these students and making sure the transition is smooth. And that the transition is happening quite smoothly, and it's not just a one-off, but across maybe 2 or 3 years of their first schooling life. [It] would be really beneficial to have some kind of positions where that happens. In many schools, you have an international student coordinator. So having a domestic student for recent migrants, somebody in charge of that would be great. 

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I think being mindful that we need to collect the background of these students; where they've come from, what their whānau looks like, what the structure of that is. We don't always know the responsibilities that these young people have in their own whānau.

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Nathan; student

One of the struggles I also faced was maybe a bit of racism, because people assume that I am smart, or people assume I can't speak English. But it’s the other way around and people just make assumptions. And if I fail to meet their expectations, I kind of become a disappointment. And it's kind of sad and it kind of, like, disappoints me as well. And because of my accent, people really thought like I was from a specific country, a general country. Like because I had features as well of an Asian, people assume that I'm from a specific area when I'm actually not, and it's kind of sad.

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Rashida; teacher

If I can just echo some student voice. I think one of the biggest things students find hard are the assumptions that are being made. I think there’s assumptions made that they're just going to cope; that they're bright. And I think that quite often makes them feel invisible. Especially from maybe students who come from smaller countries. You know, we have this stereotypical idea of a certain country, but they're a subset in that country.

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So from my own background, you know, I'm Indian, clearly. But I was born and brought up in England. My parents were from Uganda. And I was brought up a Muslim as well. And all of that. Nobody would look at me and go, oh, that's what that is. And I often get, “oh, Rashida is not an Indian name”. No it's not, it's an Arabic name. And I think a lot of students feel similar sort of contentions with this is not, you know, a stereotypical view of what they think [they] would be like. But you're not that because you're not; you're made up of lots of different things.