Parenting,family functioning and lifestyle in a new culture: the case of African migrants in Melbourne,Victoria, Australia

This study documented the parenting styles among African migrants now living in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and assessed how intergenerational issues related to parenting in a new culture impact on family functioning and the modification of lifestyles. A total of 10 focus group discussions (five with parents and five with 13–17‐year‐old children; N = 85 participants) of 1.5–2 hours duration were conducted with Sudanese, Somali and Ethiopian migrant families. The analysis identified three discrete themes: (i) parenting‐related issues; (ii) family functioning and family relations; and (iii) lifestyle changes and health. African migrant parents were restrictive in their parenting; controlled children's behaviours and social development through strict boundary‐setting and close monitoring of interests, activities, and friends; and adopted a hierarchical approach to decision‐making while discouraging autonomy among their offspring. Programmes seeking to improve the health and welfare of African migrants in their host countries need to accommodate the cultural and social dimensions that shape their lives. Such programmes may need to be so broad as to apply an acculturation lens to planning, and to assist young people, parents and families in addressing intergenerational issues related to raising children and growing up in a different social and cultural milieu.     

Spare the rod and spoil the child: Samoan perspectives on responsible parenting

Abstract

Cultural groups hold different beliefs, values and understandings that shape the way people parent. From a Samoan perspective, raising children as good citizens involves ensuring that children know how to behave appropriately. If necessary, there is a place for reasonable physical discipline. Moreover, many believe that the way western parents and teachers relate to children is socially irresponsible. This paper explores Samoan understandings of responsible parenting. It argues the case for cultural difference in approaches to parenting, and for the emergence of a ‘third space’ in which cultural groups negotiate the globalizing pressures of Western values. The paper draws on an emerging research literature and interviews with students, teachers and parents in Samoa. The study has implications for educators, social workers and policy makers in New Zealand and other Pacific Rim countries where Samoans form a significant proportion of a rapidly growing Pacific population.     

Facilitating the professional transition of migrants in Australia: does gender matter?

This article explores the provision and effects of a program devised to facilitate the professional transition of skilled migrants from non‐English‐speaking backgrounds (NESB) arriving in Australia on permanent visas. The program (‘Skilled Professional Migrants Program’—SPMP) was delivered by AMES Australia and internally evaluated through a telephone survey of 337 past participants. A report of survey results, primarily gauging short‐term post‐program employment outcomes, presented a very positive picture. In this paper we take a fresh look at the quantitative and qualitative survey data in order to analyse the success of the program from the perspective of gender. The paper focuses on gender differences in professional employment transition post‐program in the context of the structural impact of the gendered labour market. We found a significant difference between NESB men and women in their post‐program labour market incorporation into professional jobs that matched their skills. The gendered structures also influenced the ‘networking effect’ of the professional transition program.     

The concept of a child within sub‐Saharan African migrant homes: Reconciling culture and child rights

As international migration increases, the Australian socio‐cultural and political context in which sub‐Saharan African migrant families are settling is causing tension between traditional sub‐Saharan African migrant definitions of child and childhood experiences and host nation definitions particularly when compared with the child protection system. This paper seeks to explore and highlight the fundamental values and differences that determine perceptions and treatment of children within traditional sub‐Saharan African communities. Using a qualitative design, this study was influenced by acculturation theory. Four major themes emerged from the analysis: (a) culture and the sub‐Saharan African child, (b) moulding good children, (c) family functioning and relationships, and (d) host context: perceptions of Australian mainstream parenting. The study found that in order to successfully make decisions that are in the best interest of sub‐Saharan African migrant children that come to the attention of the child protection system, discussions about children rights can only yield good outcomes when the child's socio‐cultural environment is considered.     

‘Modern’ parenting and the uses of childcare advice in post-war England

In the post-war English media, ‘modern’ parenting referred to psychologically inspired styles of parenting drawn from professionals. Drawing on archived social-science interviews with over 600 families, this article considers what ‘modern’ parenting meant in the vernacular. It explores the emergence of a group of working-class parents who felt ‘modern’ because they had adopted whichever style of parenting they felt ‘right’ for their child, whatever its source. These parents personalized ‘modern’ ideas found in the mass media, using them to justify choices which they had already made. They came to identify as flexible, adaptive, parents, rather than as people who unquestioningly implemented someone else’s ideas. Using reflexive models of selfhood, they produced a syncretic amalgamation of ideas about parenting, which were drawn, simultaneously, from childcare professionals, members of their communities and their own intuitions. This allowed them to fashion unique styles of parenting, tailored to their children. Rethinking what was ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ let them reconceive parenting as a personal matter, not as something which professionals or kin should dictate. The post-war fixation on the self was therefore consonant with the ‘reworking’ of class, rather than with its declining salience in English society.     

‘Undeserving’ mothers? Practitioners’ experiences working with young mothers in/from care

Although teen pregnancy is on the rise in Canada, and while adolescent mothering in general has received considerable recent attention from researchers, there is a paucity of information about the particular experiences of young women who become mothers while in government care. Emerging out of a study guided by a grounded theory methodology to address this knowledge gap, this paper examines the experiences and perspectives of government‐based social workers who work with young mothers in/from care. Our findings indicated that social workers reflect prevailing middle class values, including norms about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parenting, and centred around the belief that adolescent pregnancy is, in and of itself, bad. One of the most significant ramifications of workers’ values was their belief about the inevitability of ‘the cycle’: of children in care begetting children who ultimately came into care. Ironically, though workers and young mothers were both preoccupied by the concept of ‘the cycle’, and each were determined to break it, the two groups had very different ideas about what the cycle was all about and what perpetuated it. Unfortunately, this disjunction in perspectives, along with major recent shifts in the direction of child welfare policy and practice and related constraints in the resources at workers’ disposal, conjoined to create significant barriers to what workers and young women both recognized as supportive practice with youth in care.     

Ping‐pong poms: emotional reflexivity in contemporary return migration from Australia to the United Kingdom

About 20,000 people from the United Kingdom emigrate to Australia each year. Of these, a significant number return to the United Kingdom, and some return again to Australia. Studies of such patterns of migration and return (and return again) were quite common a few decades ago, but are now rare. This paper makes use of a contemporary data source – an Internet‐mediated discussion forum – to explore the experiences of modern ‘ping‐pong poms’. A picture emerges of these migrants as exercising emotional reflexivity in dealing with the pull of family left behind, ‘homesickness’, the lack of a sense of belonging and their often‐disappointed dreams of a ‘better life’. By understanding the importance of emotions in people's decisions about return migration, policy can better attend to the realities of more mobile lives.     

A Rationale for Teaching Communication Skills to the Culturally Deprived

This paper presents a theoretical rationale for explaining the learning and achievement weaknesses noted in ‘culturally deprived’ children. Based on a theory of social competence which reveals schools as denying the validity of such children's experiences and ignoring the different competences they bring with them to the learning situation, the model suggests new teaching strategies which develop ‘first-order’ communication outputs as a prerequisite to ‘higher-order’ cognitive outputs. Research evidence of the applicability of the model is examined and an attempt to apply the teaching strategies in Australia is described.     

Colorful Disclosures: Identifying Identity-Based Differences and Enhancing Critical Consciousness in Supervision

ABSTRACT

Managing microaggressions and marginalizing experiences while negotiating the ongoing oppression that occurs in micro, mezzo, and macro settings can be particularly challenging for clinicians of color. Thus, supervision with clinicians of color must include affirmation, empowerment, and exploration of the intracultural/intercultural dynamics inherent in the treatment-providing process and clinical supervision. Through case studies, autoethnographic studies of our supervision experiences, and interviews with supervisors and supervisees, we reflect on how axes of identity, including race, power, and privilege, inform practitioners’ clinical lenses and affect their vulnerability in treatment and the clinical supervision dyad. Special attention is placed on the clinical supervisor–clinician–client triad (the triple process) and the interpersonal dynamics of cultural sensitivity, cultural humility, and authentic responsiveness that supervisors aim to model and cultivate in the supervisory relationship. In addition to sustaining clinical growth for clinicians of color, adding this level of complexity to supervision supports equity in direct clinical practice, enhancing efficacy outcomes for clients and communities. Recommendations and pedagogical strategies are offered to support supervisors in initiating difficult dialogues and shifting the paradigm to promote this transformational perspective.     

A qualitative exploration of parenting representations amongst mothers with young children on the edge of care

Mothers who are at risk of losing custody of their children represent a vulnerable population whose voices are seldom heard. Exploring their perspectives of parenting, their child and the relationship with their child—their ‘parenting representations’—can improve our understanding of their struggles and inform interventions. Research in this area so far has been predominantly quantitative, meaning valuable information about subjective experiences is often lost. The present study sought to address this gap by thematically analysing interviews with eight mothers with under-3-year-olds on the edge of Local Authority care, completed at the beginning of a therapeutic intervention. Results are reported around five themes: ‘Idealistic portrayal of the child and the relationship’, ‘Struggling as a parent’, ‘Shadows of the past’, ‘The child and motherhood as comfort’ and ‘Anxiety about loss and fighting for the child’. The parenting struggles of mothers in this population are complex and multi-faceted, fuelled by unresolved relational trauma, fears of further pain, adversity and difficulties in accessing and trusting support. Successful interventions are likely to require comprehensive, long-term approaches that holistically address mothers' unmet physical and emotional needs and begin with building relational trust.     

HINE-TITAMA: MAORI CONTRIBUTIONS TO FEMINIST DISCOURSES AND IDENTITY POLITICS

‘Post-colonial criticism bears witness to the unequal and uneven forces of cultural representation involved in the contest for political and social authority within the modern world order’. (Homi Bhabha 1994, p. 171) Feminist discourses attend to the experiences of women in many social spheres, including that of the artworld. In this paper I, as a Maori woman, offer an outline of Postcolonial Maori Feminism that complies with the cultural theorist Homi Bhabha's notion of ‘Post-colonial criticism’. The connection between feminist discourse and the accomplished Maori artist Robyn Kahukiwa has not been strongly emphasised in current published literature. The cultural context that Robyn Kahukiwa refers to in her art is, primarily, that of Maori women. I argue, by using one exemplary picture entitled Hine-Titama, that Robyn Kahukiwa and her artwork align with the work of some other Maori feminists. I also posit an association between Kahukiwa and some examples of ‘non-Maori’ feminist writing that furthers our understanding of cultural identities based on gender and race. I refer to those cultural identities as they relate to Maori women in New Zealand.     

Social work in a conflict context: Challenges facing social workers with indigenous inhabitants of unrecognised villages in Israel

This qualitative study presents the experiences of social workers whose clients are the inhabitants of unrecognised Bedouin Arab villages in Israel. It used in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 25 participants, recruited by the snowball method. These social workers reported that they are caught between their personal and professional values, on the one hand, and employer regulations, government policy and government law, on the other – which greatly limits their ability to fulfil their professional role. The social workers also comment that they are working in a ‘grey area’ in which the government’s policy is unclear. This adds another layer of complexity to their work and reveals the differential implementation of critical social work principles by social workers with different cultural identities.     

A small‐scale qualitative scoping study into the experiences of looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales

This paper presents the findings of a scoping study into looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales. Eight parents engaged in a qualitative interview. Thirty‐one pregnancies were discussed during the interviews: 16 live births, two ongoing pregnancies, one stillbirth, one termination and 11 miscarriages. At the point of interview, two parents continued to care for their children, but six had experienced the permanent removal of their child/ren as a result of social services intervention. Twelve of the 16 children discussed in the interviews were ‘looked after’ or adopted. Despite its small‐scale nature, the study highlights important considerations before, during and after participants became parents. Broadly categorized, these relate to the influence of parents' childhood experiences on their capacity to be parents, the availability and adequacy of support during parenting and the ensuing impact of parenting ‘success’ or ‘failure’. For parents who had experienced the loss of a child, some were resigned to having no further children, some continued to hope for a family in the future, while others had experienced cycles of repeated pregnancies and compulsory removals. The findings are considered in the context of related literature and suggest that increased attention is required in this under‐researched but highly emotive area.     

TWO WAVES OF CROATIAN MIGRANTS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA: CLASS AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

This paper examines the ways in which two waves of Croatian migrants in Western Australia have constructed their ethnic/national identity following migration. These two waves – the first took place during the 1960s and the early 1970s and the second in the late 1980s/early 1990s – are considerably different in terms of their socio-economic background. The earlier wave came from rural areas of Croatia and can be described as typically working class, while the recent wave came from the cities and predominantly consists of professional people. Migrants from the 1960s wave express a strong identification with their place (village, town, island) of origin and form a rather close-knit ethnic ‘community of place’. There is a strong link between territory, ethnicity and identity in this group of migrants. Recent developments in Croatia (the war for independence) have helped to ‘enlarge’ this local-ethnic focus into an ‘imagined’ national identity. Ethno-national belonging and identification is not emphasised in the recent group of Croatian migrants. Their ‘Croatianness’ is secondary in the re-construction of their identity following migration. It is their professional identification that seems to be central in this process. They consider the Croatian ‘ethnic community’ to be irrelevant to their life in Australia and seek to integrate into the broader Australian community primarily through their professional work.     

Strengths of caregivers raising a child with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder

Birth, foster and adoptive parents raising a child with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder know their children best and are well positioned to inform professionals how to help alcohol‐affected children. Telephone interviews with 32 parents were conducted to explore strengths of caregivers raising a child with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and responses analyzed using concept mapping methodology. Four themes emerged from 74 unique responses: ‘change parenting strategy for different children’, ‘use non‐verbal, sensory and physical strategies’, ‘stay patient and understanding’ and ‘locate and maintain external supports’. Results were compared and contrasted with the existing literature. Although many responses were consistent with the literature, strengths previously unreported by caregivers in the literature included cultural practices, communication, generalizability of skills, soothing music and use of a service dog.     

Child safety in policy: Who is being kept safe and from what?

Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life-long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires close attention to how ‘child safe’ is conceptualised and operationalised in different organisational contexts. Drawing on an analysis of policy in Australia and other international jurisdictions, namely New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland, this article engages critically with the notion of ‘child safe’ in policy, to explore who is to be safe, from what and how, in organisational settings. The findings suggest emergent discourses of ‘child safe’ are bound up with particular constructions of both children and safety, reflect current social and political understandings and agendas, and have implications for organisations' approaches to safety. Ensuring the safety of children in Australia and other jurisdictions requires continuing scrutiny of policy implementation to make sure current policy efforts are not reduced to compliance-based imperatives that protect organisations, but fail to create the cultural conditions that enhance children's wellbeing and safety.     

Aren't they just black kids? Biracial children in the child welfare system

In the USA, African‐American children are overrepresented in the child welfare system. However, little is known about the child welfare system experiences of biracial children, who are predominately both White and African‐American. To better understand this population, data from public child welfare in a US county were used to examine biracial children in the child welfare system. Results showed significant racial differences between children in the child welfare system. Despite the common belief that biracial children will have experiences similar to African‐American children, the child welfare system seems to view them differently. Biracial children are more likely to be referred, rated as high risk and investigated compared with White or African‐American children. Their mothers were younger, and were more often assessed as having physical, intellectual or emotional problems. These caregivers were also considered to have lower parenting skills and knowledge compared with White or African‐American caregivers. Although the disproportionate representation of African‐American children in the system has been well documented, this study provides evidence that biracial children are also overrepresented. Despite the fact that this is a rapidly growing population in the USA, there is little research available about biracial children and their families.     

Parenting challenges of African immigrants in Alberta,Canada

African immigrant children and youth have some of the poorest social and mental health outcomes in Canada. Although parenting challenges have been widely documented as a key driver of these outcomes, limited systematic research has investigated this phenomenon. In this paper, we report the results of a study examining parenting challenges among a sample of African immigrant parents in Alberta, Canada. We relied on the theoretical lens of transnationalism to collect and analyse data from a purposive sample of African community leaders (n = 14), African immigrant parents (n = 32), and a range of stakeholders (n = 30). Our thematic data analysis revealed several intricately intertwined parenting challenges, organized around six overarching themes, namely, cultural incompatibility, family tension, state interference, limited social supports, poor access to services, and low socioeconomic status. We present these themes and the policy and service implications of our findings.     

The impact of ‘being assessed’ by a disabled children's team: a personal reflective account

The body of ‘service user’ literature confirms the value of parental perceptions of child and family social work and the insight parents and others can offer. This paper lends my voice to the literature regarding parental perceptions, inspired by the work of Pamela Davies, who provided a personal account of the impact of a child protection investigation. This paper draws upon my experiences of being a father of two ‘disabled children’ and undergoing an assessment of need. This paper seeks to draw attention to issues of choice, power imbalances and the role of expertise. My personal experience of undergoing an assessment was that it was an emotionally fraught process, for the duration of the assessment, our family stress increased and we had a sense of having to ‘battle’ for the support we needed. As such, my personal experience fits well with the wider body of literature, which highlights the increased stress of caring for children with additional needs, the challenges of ‘fitting’ disabled children into the frameworks used to assess all children and the difficulty for parents and professionals in distinguishing between ‘normal’ parenting responsibilities and the additional responsibilities of caring for a disabled child.     

Race From the Inside: An Emerging Heterogeneous Race Model

Race matters, influencing life experiences. Race is not a simple concept, and it is not a single category. Racial identity theories, however, typically handle race as a simple Black-White dichotomy that overlooks within-group heterogeneity, substituting a subgroup—young, low socioeconomic status, darker skinned men—for all African Americans. The centrality of this subgroup image reifies what it means to be Black but excludes African Americans who are women, middle class, and so on. We provide an overview of the situation of African Americans, high-lighting within-group diversity in everyday experiences related to gender, socioeconomic status, and physical attributes, including skin tone. Understanding the implications of race from an insider's perspective requires that we view it as a heterogeneous category.