New Migrants Initiative
Status
Completed: 13 June 2010
Project Details
A project completed in 2010, undertaken by Massey University (Albany Campus), to enhance levels of pastoral support for migrant students studying humanities and arts subjects, engage migrant communities regarding their learning needs, and develop responsiveness to the learning needs of migrant students.
Aims:
The main aims of the project were to:
- provide enhanced levels of academic support – pastoral care and the enhancement of university processes for providing assistance
- engage with North Shore new migrant communities whose members were not yet identifying with the university
- develop a set of teaching protocols for use by lecturers of new migrant students.
Methodology:
The project methodology involved:
- specially tailored tutorial assistance in semester one
- developing teaching protocols for use by lecturers
- consultation with the new migrant communities including focus groups
- delivering a revised package of tutorial support in semester two
- evaluation of impact of project on learners
- face-to-face interviews with 22 returning migrant students.
Team
Dr Warwick Tie
Project Leader
Massey University
Associate Professor Peter Lineham
Massey University
Dr Judy Hunter
Massey University
Associate Professor Ann Dupuis
Massey UniversityStatus
Funding
$8,413.00 (excl GST)
Key Findings
The key findings from the project included:
- The findings revealed that the issues primarily affecting the migrant students on the Albany campus concern diminished levels of access to the material resources needed for sustained high-quality learning. These matters relate to issues such as household income, familial underemployment, irregularity in study routines because of employment demands, and so on. To this end, the project found itself needing to attend, in the first instance, to on-campus administrative and pastoral support for migrant students.
- Development of cross-sector cooperation with project funding being used to employ, on a part-time basis, a member of staff with considerable prior experience working across cultural contexts (in Asia), for the task of working with the Settling in Albany Social Services Project on behalf of the university’s new migrant project.
- A good practice guide that emerged from the project reflects this focus on the material conditions of study. The guide indicates a series of critical transition points in the career track of migrant students at which timely practical assistance might assuage the effects of the conditions under which many such students learn.
Key Recommendations
The project brought about three significant outcomes and a suggestion for future research:
An integrated system of pastoral and academic support | The existence on the Albany campus of an integrated system of pastoral and academic support for migrant students that has the ability to provide both specialist and peer-related forms of support to migrant students.
Embedding of an academic presence | Embedding of an academic presence within the local migrant communities.
Clarification of critical transition points | Clarification of critical transition points within the academic careers of migrant students at which timely support needs be given.
Future research | A low uptake of a specialised tutorial programme for migrant students corresponded with findings of migrant students’ experiences in London (Cooke 2008), in which students actively resisted being positioned as ‘migrants’ by the educational programmes in which they were participating. Further research into this issue would appear useful, concerning the terms upon which members of migrant communities come to identify with university life.
