ABSTRACT

This paper uses a framing derived from refugee and child rights conventions to analyse the positioning of young refugee children and their families in Aotearoa New Zealand’s resettlement policies, early childhood curriculum and early childhood education (ECE) funding policies. It also analyses data from interviews with participants from ECE settings who are working with refugee children and families, to discuss how policy is experienced in ECE practice, and makes recommendations about future policy directions. Main findings are that the Refugee Resettlement Strategy has critically important goals for refugee resettlement, but outcomes are narrowly defined and future-focused. While the ECE curriculum, Te Whariki, offers a strong basis for refugee families and children to come to belong and participate in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to have their own culture upheld, the rights of the young refugee child have no visibility within resettlement and ECE funding policies. We argue that a rights-based framework, focused on the young refugee child within their wider family, offers a productive lens through which to analyse refugee resettlement and ECE policies.

摘要

本文使用源自难民和儿童权利公约的框架来分析年轻的难民儿童及其家庭在新西兰的重新安置政策、幼儿课程和幼儿教育 (ECE) 资助政策中的定位。它还分析了与来自 ECE 环境的与难民儿童和家庭一起工作的参与者的访谈数据，以讨论如何在 ECE 实践中体验政策，并就未来的政策方向提出建议。主要调查结果是，难民重新安置战略对难民重新安置具有至关重要的目标，但结果的定义狭隘且着眼于未来。在 ECE 课程中，Te Whariki，为难民家庭和儿童加入并参与新西兰的 Aotearoa，并维护他们自己的文化提供了坚实的基础，难民儿童的权利在重新安置和 ECE 资助政策中不可见。我们认为，一个以权利为基础的框架，专注于他们更广泛的家庭中的年轻难民儿童，为分析难民重新安置和 ECE 政策提供了一个富有成效的视角。