Annotated Bibliography of New Zealand Literature on Migrant and Refugee Youth
RESEARCH TOOLS USED IN COMPILING THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Drawing on the settlement goals, broadly understood, and discussion with the Department of Labour, the following criteria were established for inclusion and exclusion in the bibliography.
Inclusion criteria: Content
- 'Settlement and social inclusion' includes
issues pertaining to:
- family
- education and learning English
- social networks
- cultural integration and maintenance of one's own culture
- physical and mental health needs
- employment/training
- experience of agencies providing services to refugees and migrants.
- 'Youth' includes young people aged 12-24 years.
- 'Refugees' includes quota, convention and family reunion refugees.
- 'Migrant youth' includes young people (whether born overseas or in New Zealand) from all categories of migrants.[16]
Inclusion criteria: Characteristics of literature
Literature was included that reports on research that:
- is evidence based
- involves a recognisable method meeting reasonable validity and reliability criteria. This means that the research has followed a method in which validity checks could be made (e.g. by member checking, expert informant interviews, and more formal methods of triangulation) and in which the way the research was done is set out clearly enough that it could be reliably repeated in some form.
- is published in some form that is publicly accessible (e.g. as a discussion paper, report, thesis, journal article, book chapter, book).
- The following have been excluded from the bibliography:
- Non-evidence based literature. Opinion pieces have been excluded, but some articles have been included that are based on an individual's reflections on his or her own professional practice, on the grounds that this is a form of evidence built up over time.
- Research that clearly fails reasonable reliability and validity criteria.
- Material relating solely to migrants/refugees who fall outside the age range 12-24 years.
- Material relating to international students (unless the research also relates to migrant students with, or considering, long-term residency).
- Material that is not publicly accessible.
Annotations
The annotations generally include the following:
- Research focus/aims
- Participants: If the research has distinguished the ethnicities and/or nationalities of its participants, this has been stated in the annotation. Often however, the research deals only in very broad categories: 'Pacific' or 'Asian'. Similarly, where the research states whether participants are New Zealand born or overseas born, this has been included in the annotation, but often no such distinction has been made. Finally, where possible, numbers of participants have been included. Sometimes these numbers are not given and so cannot be stated. In some cases of theses, only access to the abstract was available, in which numbers of participants may not have been stated. This is noted where this is the case.
- Key findings/outcomes: In keeping with the aim of identifying evidence relating to factors that facilitate or act as barriers to successful settlement and social inclusion, the key findings in each annotation include reference not only to research findings about difficulties faced, but also (where given) recommendations arising from findings that may point to ways to address these difficulties.
- Scope: There is a wide range of methods in play in research in this field in New Zealand. Therefore, the types of methods used and the range of the research (small scale/large scale) are indicated, so that the reader can consider findings and recommendations in the light of the reach of each piece of research.
A note on language
In the annotations, the language is that used by the authors of the literature. Readers will see, for example, diverse uses of the term applied to migrants from the Pacific: Pacific Islanders, Pacific, Pacific peoples, Pacific nations, Pasifika, Pasefika. Researchers writing for international audiences have tended to use 'European' rather than Pakeha, so this term has been used as the researchers have used it.
Nationalities (country of origin) and ethnicities (e.g. Chinese) are also used as these have been used by the authors. At times (particularly in older research), these are used interchangeably; in recent times, as researchers have become more aware of diversity within ethnic groups, these distinctions have been more clearly made.
Keywords
The first keywords in each sequence contain reference to broad categories of research content: education, employment, health, family, identity, crime, research methods. Generally these are broken down into subcategories e.g. 'education' may be followed by a number of qualifying categories such as ESOL, learning styles, secondary, tertiary.
Each keyword sequence also contains reference to ethnic group, and where specified, to nationality, e.g. Chinese - Hong Kong, or Pacific - Tongan or a country of origin. Often, however, the research is not specific on this and the keywords 'Pacific' or 'Asian' are used without further elaboration.
Migrants/refugees: One or both of these terms have been included in every keyword sequence. Sometimes the research has not been specific about whether it relates to migrants or refugees, for example, research on ESOL in schools. In these cases, both words have been included because the research could be relevant to both groups.
Overseas born/New Zealand born: As with the migrants/refugees keywords, one or both of these have been included in almost every sequence, and where the research has not been specific but could have applied to both, both have been included.
The final keyword in each sequence relates to the main research method used. Note that 'interviews' includes group interviews and focus groups as well as individual interviews; 'surveys' refers to questionnaires filled out by respondents or by interviewers; 'ethnography' is used to refer to a multi-method approach that includes discussion, observation and general involvement in activities with the participant groups; 'case study' refers to an investigation of a particular case where often methods are either multiple (as in ethnography) or are not stated; 'review' refers to a review of literature or other research; 'test' refers to a recognised test of some kind, generally relating to literacy or psychology.
Grouping references together
On occasion, particularly in the case of theses or large research projects, a number of articles, book chapters and reports have emerged from a single project exploring different aspects of the research question posed. In these cases, the relevant references have been grouped together. This has been done for two reasons. The first is, simply to avoid repetition of the research focus, characteristics of participants, and scope of the project each time. Secondly, the grouping is made to indicate that these research outputs were part of the same project. This can be useful when, as often happens, the order of authors in a research team is changed for different publications so these references would otherwise be scattered alphabetically through the bibliography. It is also intended to help readers cross-reference publications that have emerged from the same project in order to gain a sense of the project as a whole.
Sometimes, additional references are cited at the end of an annotation, before the keywords. This is done to assist with cross-referencing to related projects. Some of the references listed in this way are present elsewhere in the bibliography and some are not because they could not be found or accessed in the timeframe for compiling the bibliography (but they nevertheless look as though they may be useful). Where an additional reference cited in this way is listed elsewhere in the bibliography, it has been given an identification code. If no code is listed, the reference does not appear elsewhere in the bibliography.
[16] This includes those who have come to New Zealand in any of the three permanent residence streams: Business/Skilled, Family Sponsored, International/Humanitarian or temporary work permits (see Migration Trends 2005/06, Department of Labour, available on the Department of Labour website, www.dol.govt.nz).
