Teachers’ Perspectives on Acculturation and Wellbeing for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children from Refugee and Migrant Backgrounds

Abstract

Research has emphasised the importance of post-settlement factors in increasing the wellbeing outcomes of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children from refugee and migrant backgrounds when resettling in Australia, particularly in the school context. Berry’s acculturation framework (1997) proposes that the resettlement outcomes of refugee and migrant individuals – including their wellbeing outcomes – can be predicted based upon their valuing of cultural maintenance and/or cultural adaptation. This framework has been used extensively with adults and young people, but there is very little research considering acculturation – and the impact of cultural maintenance vs. cultural adaptation – for pre-adolescent children. As such, this study qualitatively explored teachers’ perspectives on acculturation and wellbeing for CALD children with the aim of increasing understandings of acculturation processes for children, and the impact of these processes on their wellbeing outcomes within the context of their schooling. Twelve teachers from South Australian primary schools and Intensive English Language Centres (IELCs) were interviewed, and thematic analysis was applied to the data within a critical-realist paradigm. Six themes were identified, with the major findings being that participants expressed endorsement for both cultural maintenance and adaptation – in particular, stating that maintenance was linked to wellbeing outcomes – but in a more practical sense participants appeared to orient towards helping CALD students to ‘become Australian’. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.