Child Language Brokering in School: Final Research Report

The primary aim of the project was to provide an evidence basis for more sensitive and effective practice and more carefully articulated school policies on the use of pupils as language brokers for their own parents and others in school. To this end we investigated and triangulated the views and experiences of two groups who we expected to bring distinctive and complementary perspectives to the topic - teachers in schools in multilingual areas and young adults who had acted as language brokers in the course of their own school career (ex-CLBs ). The study addressed the following research questions in relation to both groups: 1. How often and for what purposes are CLBs used in schools? 2. To what degree are CLBs used in routine contacts with parents (their own & those of others), in more sensitive discussions about vulnerable pupils (e.g. about SEN) and in discussions when crucial matters are being resolved (e.g. planning for subject choices in Year 10)? 3. What are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of school language brokering arrangements? 4. How do teachers and ex-CLBs perceive CLBs in terms of their alignment with family or personal interests as against detached, independent values of translation and interpreting? 5. What views do ex-CLBs now have of their experience of the process, their own agency, competence and effectiveness and how the process was facilitated or obstructed by the actions and attitudes of their teachers? 6. What differences of view and understanding are there between teachers who are themselves bilingual or multilingual, teachers who are monolingual and ex-CLBs? 7. What recommendations would current teachers and ex-CLBs make on how to improve schools? policies and practices on CLB activity

Young peoples’ reflections on what teachers think about family obligations that conflict with school: A focus on the non-normative roles of young caring and language brokering

In “Western” contexts school attendance is central for an ‘ideal’ childhood. However, many young people engage with home roles that conflict with school expectations. This paper explores perceptions of that process in relation two home activities - language brokering and young caring. We interviewed 46 young people and asked them to reflect on what the teacher would think when a child had to miss school to help a family member. This paper discusses the young people’s overall need to keep their out-of-school lives private from their teachers

Precarious Care and (Dis)Connections

Adult stakeholders who work with separated child migrants (SCMs) face a substantial challenge to their capacity or remit to care amid increasingly hostile immigration environments. This paper explores a diverse range of adult stakeholders' understandings of the care of SCMs, filling an important gap in understanding how care is conceptualized by those working in often complex and contradictory positions. Drawing on the care literature, this study focuses on 15 qualitative semistructured interviews with state and nonstate adult stakeholders in England (e.g., social work, law, police, and NGO workers). We argue that stringent immigration practices, policies, and bureaucratic and structural challenges undoubtedly present personal tensions and professional constraints for those whose role is meant to foreground “care.” Importantly, when taking into account a range of different perspectives, roles, and responsibilities across professions and sectors, our respondents were constrained in varying ways or had varying room to maneuver within their institutional contexts. Our analysis suggests that amid a hostile immigration environment, care connections with and between SCMs are treated with mistrust and are unstable over space and time. We argue that how care is conceptualized and experienced is mutually constituted by hostile policies and procedures, adult stakeholders' roles within or out-with those systems, and their personal values and perspectives. It is within this space where constraints, enablers, and resistances play out. Care is subjectively experienced, and care relationships are open to potential (dis)connection across space and time

Child Language Brokering in School: Final Research Report

The primary aim of the project was to provide an evidence basis for more sensitive and effective practice and more carefully articulated school policies on the use of pupils as language brokers for their own parents and others in school. To this end we investigated and triangulated the views and experiences of two groups who we expected to bring distinctive and complementary perspectives to the topic - teachers in schools in multilingual areas and young adults who had acted as language brokers in the course of their own school career (ex-CLBs ). The study addressed the following research questions in relation to both groups: 1. How often and for what purposes are CLBs used in schools? 2. To what degree are CLBs used in routine contacts with parents (their own & those of others), in more sensitive discussions about vulnerable pupils (e.g. about SEN) and in discussions when crucial matters are being resolved (e.g. planning for subject choices in Year 10)? 3. What are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of school language brokering arrangements? 4. How do teachers and ex-CLBs perceive CLBs in terms of their alignment with family or personal interests as against detached, independent values of translation and interpreting? 5. What views do ex-CLBs now have of their experience of the process, their own agency, competence and effectiveness and how the process was facilitated or obstructed by the actions and attitudes of their teachers? 6. What differences of view and understanding are there between teachers who are themselves bilingual or multilingual, teachers who are monolingual and ex-CLBs? 7. What recommendations would current teachers and ex-CLBs make on how to improve schools? policies and practices on CLB activity

Young people's representations of 'atypical' work in English society

In this paper, we explore young peoples' normative representations of work. In particular, we are interested in the ways young people view work roles which could be considered 'atypical' such as young caring or language brokering. Interviewed were 46 young people (15?18 years) some who did, and some who did not engage in the 'atypical' work roles of language brokering or young caring. Findings indicated that young people have a strong representation of what a 'normal' childhood comprises and that friends, teachers and parents play a mediational role in cementing this contextually. However, respondents presented two alternative representations around engagement in 'atypical' roles, with some individuals holding both views at the same time. On the one hand, they felt that engagement in 'atypical' activities would be experienced as a loss of 'normal' childhood. On the other hand, a more positive representation of 'atypical' childhoods was also drawn on, in which engagement in 'atypical' activities was seen as a source of pride and a contributor of additional skills to a child's development. This opinion was evidenced by both those who had, and those who had not engaged in 'atypical' work

Dermoscopic evaluation of nodular melanoma

Importance: Nodular melanoma (NM) is a rapidly progressing potentially lethal skin tumor for which early diagnosis is critical

Cultural Psychology and Deconstructing Developmental Psychology

This paper looks at points of convergence and divergence between the different branches of cultural psychology and Burman's ideas in Deconstructing Developmental Psychology (DDP). The paper discusses the relationship between the developing ideas in cultural psychology over time and some of the shared theoretical and conceptual criticisms put forward in DDP. This takes into account some of the differences between symbolic approach, activity theory and an individualistic approach to cultural psychology. In turn, some of the bigger themes within the book are discussed such as the role of 'normalisation' and demarcation of age, and studying the child in context and how these relate to the different account of cultural psychology and the influence these themes have had on the author's own work. Since this paper details a personal research journey, examples are taken from work on home-school mathematics education, child language brokering and young caring. Using these examples, the paper examines how cultural psychology is interested in the mediation between culture and the person, whilst DDP asks us to question the stories and assumptions embedded within developmental psychology

An absent presence: Separated child migrants’ caring practices and the fortified neoliberal state

This paper explores the ambivalent positioning of separated child migrants in the UK with a focus on the care that they provide for each other. Drawing on interview data with state and non-state adult stakeholders involved in the immigration-welfare nexus, we consider how children’s care practices are viewed and represented. We argue that separated children’s caring practices assume an absent presence in the discourses mobilised by these actors: either difficult to articulate or represented in negative and morally-laden terms, reflective of the UK’s 'hostile environment' towards migrants and advanced capitalist constructions of childhood. Such an examination sheds light on the complex state attempts to manage the care and migration regimes, and the way that care can serve as a way of making and marking inclusions and exclusions. Here we emphasise the political consequences for separated child migrants in an age of neoliberal state retrenchment from public provision of care and rising xenophobic nationalism