Description
This paper provides insights into school-stakeholder communication, a long-neglected sector in the field of public relations. It focuses on the perspectives of caregivers from multilingual and multicultural backgrounds, reporting on a multilingual survey and interview data from caregivers who have a child studying at a public, independent, or religious primary school in Sydney. The study provides insights into a range of online and offline communication tools and approaches used by schools as well as caregivers’ experiences of engaging with schools and other carers around their child’s education. The study reveals insights into stakeholders’ perspectives of the education system, the degree to which they feel it embraces multiculturalism, how they feel about the approaches schools are taking to be inclusive, as well as what they feel could be improved to make schools more inclusive for parents and carers from multicultural and multilingual backgrounds. Based on this data, it draws out a set of best practice principles for schools to consider when assessing their stakeholder communication strategies. Many of these practices may also be considered in relation to other Australian organisations that cater to and serve multicultural communities.This study is particularly significant in the context of Sydney, Australia’s major immigrant-receiving city. According to the NSW Department of Education’s Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (2019), over 55% of students across Sydney’s government schools in March 2019 were from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE). Almost 70% of the 90,045 students enrolled at public schools in the Sydney West area came from LBOTE backgrounds, the highest concentration in the state. While 240 different languages were spoken in the homes of students across NSW overall, Indian, Arabic or Chinese language backgrounds were the most populous. Based on annual census data conducted in June 2018, over 8800 students were ‘new arrivals’ meaning they had been in Australia for less than 6 months, speaking 137 different languages. From these figures there is clearly a need to assess the effectiveness of schools’ strategies of engagement with new migrants and stakeholders from a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Caregivers, who include parents, grandparents, siblings, relatives, homestay families and others who care for children from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds, play a significant role in children’s education and engagement with schools. It is therefore critically important for caregivers to understand the school system and have access to important information affecting their children’s education. Many migrants, however, face challenges navigating the system due to limited English as well cultural differences and expectations compared with education systems in their home countries (Yang et al., 2020). Most significantly, for many new migrants, schools act as the strongest link to their new community (Premier and Parr, 2019). Thus, the building of positive relationships between schools and caregivers is important for helping new migrants feel a sense of belonging, including to Australian society more broadly. It is these topics which we explore in this study by asking the stakeholders themselves about their own perspectives and feelings about communications with schools, giving them a voice on the matter.
To analyse the data we draw on theories focused on the politics of listening and voice (e.g. Dreher, 2009; Edwards, 2018; Flew and Panjaitan, 2019; Macnamara, 2013, 2016; Muscat, 2019) and focus on the potential for online and social media to provide a more democratic way include marginalised groups (see, e.g. Bruns, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2003). This study may serve as a benchmark through which to compare to other global jurisdictions with highly diverse populations.
References:
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Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (2019) Schools: language diversity in NSW, 2019, NSW Government, 26 Feb 2020. Available at: https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/publications-filter/schools-language-diversity-in-nsw-2019 (accessed 25 October 2020).
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| Period | 7 Dec 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | PRIA Research Symposium: Futuristic Public Relations: The impact emerging technological developments on the communication industry |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | AustraliaShow on map |