Name of Author: Davida Aba Mensima Asante-Nimako                            

Supervisors: Dr Anne Thwaite; Dr Rozita Dass                                                                                                                              

Affiliation: ECU

Program of research: (PhD) Education within social settings

Research topic: West African families’ experiences and perspectives of the Australian education system: an ethnographic case study in WA.

Abstract

School experiences of migrants in host countries are crucial to their overall success in life. In Australia, most studies that explore the circumstances of African migrants are limited to North and South African people. Therefore, there is a lack of evidence on the unique experiences of West African migrants concerning the Australian Education system. Again, much of the research focusses on refugees only. This study explored West African families’ experiences and perspectives regarding the education system in Western Australia. The qualitative ethnographic case study approach, and constructivist and interpretivist paradigms guide the study, which is based on five West African families in Western Australia, including Nigerian, Ghanaian, Liberian, Togolese, and of different migrant categories (skilled migrant, international student, family stream and refugee). Conversations, interviews, participant observation, audio recording, photographs, and video recording are being used to explore the participants’ experiences and perspectives of the Australian education system.

Although the findings revealed diverse experiences across educational levels including being and belonging, racism and discrimination; linguistic repertoire and sociocultural issues, I present the linguistic experiences in this sociolinguistics symposium. The study recorded that rapid Australian speech impacted participants both in society and the classroom. The classroom context of unintelligible accents and indiscernible words affected participants’ spelling and performance. 

The research highlights the importance of cultural competence for all stakeholders and professional development for educators in the education system of Western Australian Department of Education, as well as those who engage with people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) backgrounds in Australian schools, and at tertiary level.