Giving voice to mothers from refugee backgrounds: their agentic roles in children’s learning

Melissa Barnes, Katrina Tour

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (Book)Researchpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

There is significant interest in the role of parents in children's learning. While parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their children's learning (Hollingworth et al., 2011), there is limited research exploring how parents, from refugee backgrounds, position themselves as active agents in their child's learning within their new country. Women from refugee backgrounds, in particular, often remain voiceless in how they engage in their child's learning due to a lack of linguistic capital and their differing sociocultural, religious and educational backgrounds. Drawing upon Bourdieu's thinking tools of habitus, field and capital and a (socio)linguistic citizenship approach (Stroud, 2018a), this qualitative case study employed participatory art-based research methods to examine how 24 Afghani mothers, newly arrived in Australia, view their role in supporting their child's learning. The data were collected through group discussions in Dari and participant-generated multimodal artefacts, captured through photographs. The findings reveal that the participating mothers acknowledged the barriers that made supporting their children's learning at home difficult, including limited English language skills and/or knowledge of the Australian education system, but actively responded by drawing upon their strengths-including their mother tongue-to mediate opportunities for learning at home for both their children and themselves.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Power of Voice in Transforming Multilingual Societies
Editors Julia Gspandl, Christina Korb, Angelika Heiling, Elizabeth J. Erling
Place of PublicationBristol UK
PublisherMultilingual Matters
Chapter5
Pages96-112
Number of pages17
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9781800412040, 9781800412057
ISBN (Print)9781800412033, 9781800412026
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Publication series

NameCritical Language and Literacy Studies
Volume29

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