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5. Research Design and Methodology

5.1 The schools

Three primary schools with a significant intake of immigrant and refugee children from different areas of Glasgow were involved: Highmont Primary ( HP), Sir James Kelvin Primary ( SJK) and St. Margaret's Roman Catholic Primary ( STM) ⁹. The first two are housed in similarly large, rather run-down Victorian buildings; both are set to merge with other schools from the area in new buildings within the next couple of years. The third school dates from the 1920s and 1930s expansion of denominational education in Glasgow and is a large building in the middle of a large estate.

5.1.1 Highmont Primary ( HP)

Highmont Primary is one of four primary schools for children in the West End of Glasgow. This is a prosperous area which includes Glasgow University, and this means that many parents are linked to the University in some way, including some who are research scholars or students from other countries. The school has approximately 350 pupils (although the school roll, in common with other Glasgow schools, is falling), with the number of pupils with English as an additional language ( EAL) being significantly above the national average. There are about 120 bilingual pupils in the school and 23 community languages are spoken. The HMIE report in 2003, just after the appointment of a new Headteacher, found that despite problems with the poor state of the accommodation, the school had created a welcoming environment for pupils and parents and most parents were satisfied with the work of the school. There were also good links with the wider community, although specific links with ethnic minority groups was not mentioned. A follow-through inspection report from 2005 found continous improvement in all areas, with some increase in attainment in reading, writing and maths.

Welcome signs in various languages can be found in the entrance hall and pupil work decorates the walls. In 2004, the school organised a sponsored run to support the Asian Tsunami Appeal and at the time of this research project held a successful 'International Evening' which included food, music, books and storytelling from different countries and aimed to involve parents from different cultural backgrounds.

5.1.2 Sir James Kelvin Primary ( SJK)

Sir James Kelvin Primary is on the South side of Glasgow, some two miles beyond the River Clyde that divides the city. It is an imposing red sandstone building, overshadowed by three decrepit-looking high-rise buildings. An old factory across the street is now a library and exercise centre. Nearby shops offer a mixture of traditional Scottish, Chinese and Indian names and food. Some newer council houses and flats also surround the school. This has always been a predominantly working-class area of the city, the 'Shawlands' where immigrants have been settling for at least 100 years.

'The queer folk o' the Shaws' was a nickname for the inhabitants in the mid-19th century and it has been suggested that the name originated from Flemish weavers who came to live in Pollokshaws: they were called queer because no one could understand them. ( www.theglasgowstory.com)

The school has a falling roll and indeed it is only the presence of asylum-seeking families that keeps Sir James Kelvin viable. The school roll is 190, more than half of whom are from refugee or asylum-seeking families. Nineteen languages are spoken and 85.1% of the pupils are on free school meals (the average for Glasgow primaries is 41.4%). The multicultural character of the school is reflected in the environment: the main hall is hung with large flags from different countries, there are wall displays on world religions and in a corner there is a prize-winning sculpture of a kind of palm surrounded by masks of different colours, named 'Family Tree'.

The HMIE Report from 2005 stressed that the school 'was not a stimulating learning environment' with major problems in the fabric, structure and layout of the building and that 'the quality of books in class libraries was not of a sufficiently high standard'. However, it identified key strengths in support for bilingual pupils and good links with community groups. Events to increase the understanding of racial equality and discrimination were frequent. Teachers were found to provide 'high quality support' for bilingual pupils, using strategies and resources to ensure they understood the new language. The bilingual pupils themselves were found to be motivated and were 'used to taking responsibility for aspects of their own learning' even though they 'did not always have sufficient opportunities to work together with pupils in mainstream classrooms'. EAL pupils were also found to be making good progress with the development of reading and writing. In general, parents were satisfied with the work of the school.

5.1.3 St. Margaret's RC Primary ( STM)

St Margaret's RC Primary is in another working class area, with a reputation for social problems, also dominated by high rise flats which were quickly given a face lift to house dispersed asylum-seekers coming from London. This led to initial tension, widely reported in the media, between refugee families and existing Scottish residents whose flats and furniture had not been similarly upgraded - an unfortunate introduction to Scottish society. St Margaret's has a school role of 325, and approximately 20% of pupils are from refugee or asylum-seeking families. At least fifteen languages are spoken and 58.7% of pupils are on free school meals. The school has not had an inspection for the last seven years, but since the arrival of the new Headteacher attainment has been raised in the areas of English (20%) and Maths (18%).

This school also offers support and builds upon the skills of bilingual pupils as well as developing links with the community. The new Headteacher is aware of the socio-economic problems of the area and is therefore very concerned to create a positive and welcoming ethos within the school, so that it is felt to be a 'safe' and enjoyable place for all the children, no matter what their background. This is evident in the many posters that adorn the school, created by the pupils and representing multicultural images, many of them in several languages. During the period of our research, the upper school had just completed an Asylum Positive Images Project with Oxfam, in which asylum-seeking children filmed their peers answering the question 'What do you think of asylum seekers and refugees?' They found that children from 7 to 12 see them mainly as friends and playmates.

5.2 The pupils

Because our project ran from November to November, the pupils, originally in P6, had moved on to P7 during the second half of the research. Some of the sessions were carried out with the whole class, others with smaller groups of between 3 to 6 pupils from ethnic minorities. Within the total group of 14 pupils (7 girls and 7 boys) with whom we worked most closely, all were first generation immigrants with the exception of one Pakistani boy who had been born in Scotland. The countries of origin of these bilingual pupils and/or their parents were as follows: Pakistan (4 boys - this represents the higher population of Pakistanis compared to other ethnic minorities in Glasgow), Latvia, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Turkey (2 girls), Rwanda, Congo, Algeria and Somalia. Their heritage languages included Urdu, Panjabi, Farsi, Latvian, Hungarian, French, English, Dutch, Turkish, Rwandan, Kurdish, Congolese, Arabic and Somali, among others.

These pupils were selected by the teachers either because they felt the pupils would be particularly able to help us in our research or because they felt it would increase the pupil's confidence to be selected to participate in a project with the University. In the event, with only one exception, ¹⁰ all pupils seemed happy to participate and to enjoy reading the texts, answering our questions and generally discussing their reading, their home languages, their language lessons and other issues related to literacy. Although the cohort did not fully represent our original intention of sampling the experiences of children from recently arrived and more settled migrant families, we were content to be guided by the teachers' knowledge of their pupils. It was also important to the researchers to develop a model of whole-class and small group engagement that was inclusive of the comments and experiences of children from Scottish and immigrant backgrounds. It may have also helped that the researchers introduced themselves as also being from different cultures: in this case, Scots-Irish and Mexican.

The following list gives a brief description of the origin and languages of each of the pupils involved in our study. Their ages were all between 10 and 11 years.

1. Jamal Pakistani origin. His family was in Scotland for a year while his mother did a university degree. His first language was Urdu.
2. Rafiq Pakistani origin. His family had been in Scotland for eight years. He spoke some Urdu and was learning Arabic. At school he was also beginning to learn French.
3. Tomaj Hungarian origin. His family arrived in Scotland nine months before the project. He had been in a bilingual unit for about six months of this time during which he had made very good progress with English. He spoke Hungarian at home and 'a bit' of Polish.
4. Hashid Second generation Pakistani/Glaswegian. He spoke English and Urdu confidently but couldn't read much Urdu. He was learning Arabic and to read the Qu'ran at the madrasa. His parents wanted him to become an imam.
5. Usman Pakistani origin. He spoke Urdu but couldn't read it. He enjoyed reading and often went to the library.
6. Gabriel Congolese origin. His family arrived about four years ago. His first language was French but he also spoke a bit of Lingala.7. Abdul Algerian origin. He had been in Glasgow for about five years. He spoke Arabic and some French.
8. Rasha Iranian origin. She had been in Scotland for less than a year before the project began. She was fluent in Farsi, and could write and read in Arabic.
9. Datse Latvian/Romany origin. She had lived in many different countries before coming to Scotland a year ago. She spoke Latvian, French, Dutch and a bit of Russian.
10. Precious Rwandan origin. She has been in Glasgow three years. She spoke some French.
11. Maisha Somalian origin. She had been in Glasgow for three years. She spoke Somali and some Arabic.
12. Neylan Turkish origin. She had been in Glasgow about 4 years. She spoke some Turkish, some Kurdish and was learning French.
13. Umay Turkish origin. She had been in Glasgow about 5 years. She spoke some Turkish, some Kurdish and was learning French.
14. Sirwa Iraqi origin. She had been in Glasgow about two years. She spoke Surani, 'a wee bit' of Farsi and was learning French.

5.3 The selected texts

Because the aim of this research was to find out how ethnic minority pupils (and recent immigrants in particular) made sense of their new culture, we selected Scottish texts to read and discuss with them. Finding Scottish texts (either written by Scots, set in Scotland or using Scots language) which would appeal to 10 year olds but which

would also offer relatively few difficulties to those new to English was not easy. We wanted to use a variety of different literary forms such as picture books, stories, poems and comics. We also wanted to select texts written in a range of the varieties of Scottish language that migrant children will encounter, from Standard English to several kinds of Scottish-inflected English, including Gaelic English, Standard Scots and its Glaswegian and Central Lowland dialectal forms.

The following texts were chosen after considering the corpus of available Scottish children's books. They allowed us to make creative use of a range of genres and narrative structures such as folktales, myths, humorous poems, science fiction, cartoons, and two first person narratives by a child narrator (both using dialect). All except two of the texts contain illustrations.

Each of the selected texts is briefly described below ( see Appendix for images).

5.3.1 Janet Reachfar and the Kelpie by Jane Duncan (2002)

This is a picture book originally published in 1976. Jane Duncan was the pseudonym of the novelist Elizabeth Jane Cameron (1910-1976). Its setting on Reachfar farm is based on her grandparents' croft on the Black Isle, Easter Ross, so the context is Highland Scotland. The illustrations to the new edition are by Mairi Hedderwick and are similar to those of her well-known Katie Morag series (which we did not use because we felt these might be too familiar to some pupils), in that they depict a rural Scottish island scene.

The story is about Janet, a young girl who lives on Reachfar farm and is often told stories by two farmhands about fantastical creatures that live around the area, especially 'Black Rory', the monster in the old quarry; the Whigmaleerie in the bog; and the Kelpie in the well (a well which she has been forbidden to approach). This kelpie or water spirit has 'long wobbly arms and wobbly fingers all slippery like seaweed, and queer spiky horns on his head, and if you go near that fence he will reach out and pull you into the Well and drown you' (Duncan 1976/2002).

Janet, who cannot believe there really is a Kelpie in the well, disobeys her mother and grandmother and creeps under the barbed wire fence to look over the edge. There she sees the horrible face of the monster staring up at her. That night, after having a nightmare she tells the whole family the story. Her stern grandmother makes them all go out to the well in the light summer evening and forces Janet to look again. What she sees is 'her own face with the pigtails sticking out like horns on either side and the bows of ribbon looking like spikes', and, as her mother says, 'the ugly face of a girl who has done something that all her family asked her not to do' (Duncan 1976/2002).

The book was originally published thirty years ago and although its didactic intent comes through quite strongly we felt it provided opportunities for discussion about Scottish legends and storytelling as well as about moral issues such as obedience and lying, and about relationships and duty across different generations.

5.3.2. 'Hauntit Park' by Hamish MacDonald (2004)

To continue the theme of myths and monsters, we chose a poem from Blethertoun Braes (edited by Fitt and Robertson, 2004), an anthology of Scots poems about an imaginary Scottish town. 'Hauntit Park' describes the mythical creatures that come out after dark, such as 'ghaists', 'banshees' and 'carlins' and who play on the swings and roundabouts in the public park. It is written in a broad and energetic Scots, and the rhyme depends on pronouncing the words in Scots. The illustration shows two dancing 'bogles' come back from the grave, with red worms coming out of their bodies, but the tone is playful throughout.

5.3.3 The Mean Team from Mars by Scoular Anderson (2003)

This book is one of a series of 'easy readers'. Although it is divided into chapters, most of it is illustrated in comic book form and includes speech bubbles. The story is about young Rory, a fan of Arden United and a football player himself, although he often gets red cards. When he unwittingly buys a magic duvet that takes him forward in time, he makes friends with Skrekie, an alien, and plays and scores in a match against Mars North School Under-eights. When Rory goes back to his own time, Skrekie comes with him, and takes his place in the Arden Under-eights match, Rory having been slightly injured in the match with the aliens. Rory wants to continue his friendship but after Skrekie goes back, his mother washes the duvet, causing the colours to run and ending its magical powers.

We felt this book would be of particular interest for the boys and that the illustrations would be an aid for those with limited English. Another reason for selecting it was that the story could lead to discussions about football and sectarianism, friendship and being an 'alien'.

5.3.4 'Blethertoun Rovers' by Matthew Fitt (2004)

We followed this with a poem that continues the football theme, 'Blethertoun Rovers' (also from the Blethertoun Braes anthology), which describes each member of the town's hopeless football team in amusing detail. We felt the football theme would sustain their interest and the illustration would help them grasp the unfamiliar Scots language. There is a humorous illustration (by Bob Dewar) showing the decidedly unsporting looking team members and the coach with his head in his hands.

5.3.5 'My Mum's a Punk' by Brian Johnstone (2002)

Three further texts were selected from an anthology of Scottish writing which contains both stories and poems (multiple copies of the anthology were donated to the classroom library): My Mum's a Punk (edited by Breslin, McGonigal and Whyte, 2002). In the poem, 'My Mum's a Punk' by Brian Johnstone, we see the 'punk' mum from the

perspective of her son who, despite pointing out the differences from other mums (pins through her nose, skull tattoos and black lipstick, among other things) concludes that 'She's something special and she's all the mum I want'. This poem was used as a starting point to talk about issues of difference and identity. The book cover

illustration, which clearly relates to this poem, shows a female doll-like figure dressed as a punk with the word 'Mother' on her T-shirt. She is set against a brick wall with the book's title written as graffitti on it.

5.3.6 'Wee Grantie' by Iain Mills (2002)

The story, 'Wee Grantie', was also chosen for reading with the whole class. A young boy narrates an episode involving 'Wee Grantie', a rather annoying classmate who is always tagging along and talking 'rubbish'. When Wee Grantie follows a group of friends to a swing tree over a pool, the boys trick him into swimming while they hide his clothes. A group of girls turns up and he is forced to stay in the cold water until they leave. The author subtly point out that the reason for Grantie's attention-seeking behaviour may well be that his little sister who has spina bifida thus demands their parents' full attention. The young narrator is sympathetic up to a point, but still cannot resist teasing him.

This story raises the issues of friendship, teasing and bullying. Because it is written mainly in Glaswegian dialect and incorporates children's language, it also provides opportunities for discussing language and 'slang'.

5.3.7 'Tigger' by Anne Donovan (2002)

The other story we selected from this anthology was 'Tigger' by Anne Donovan. It is a story that poses a moral dilemma to a boy who is being asked by his parents to give up his 'best pal', his cat Tigger, because of his younger brother's severe allergies. This story led to discussions about pets and making difficult choices, as well as about parenting.

5.3.8 Oor Wullie and The Broons

The last texts were various episodes from two Scottish comics, Oor Wullie and The Broons, published around the 1950s. They were chosen because it was felt that they provided a space for asking questions about Scots language and culture, in the past as well as in the present. Despite the very marked cultural setting, the visual and sequential features as well as the humour made the texts easier to understand. Some of the topics raised by the texts were food, schooling (including punishments) and reading choices (the reading of comic books themselves).

5.4 The sessions

Whole class sessions and group discussions were the main sites for observation and for gathering data. We tried to use the same texts in all three schools but this was not always feasible given tight school schedules. However, we did use each text at least twice.

The whole class sessions were held in the P6/P7 classrooms with the teacher usually present. Pupils were seated in rows in the large rooms. These were decorated with pupil's work and with teaching posters for maths, geography, English and French. The classrooms had a small library with mainly fiction books on display. The Catholic nature of STM was present through prayers and a statue of the Virgin. The sessions with the smaller group were held in different rooms, according to what space was available. This provided these sessions with a special atmosphere, which became more relaxed as the pupils got used to the researchers and felt they could answer our questions.

The texts used with the whole class were taken from the anthology My Mum's a Punk as there were enough individual books for the pupils to follow the reading. The Scottish researcher gave a brief introduction to the text, then read the text aloud to the whole class, stopping only to explain difficult words or concepts. Pupils either followed in their books or listened to the reading. After the reading, the researcher asked questions related to the text to the whole class. Although Scottish children tended to dominate the discussion, some of the ethnic minority children who participated in our project also intervened in the discussion, particularly those with a higher level of English, such as Hashid, Datse, Neylan and Abdul. Clearly they were following the discussion and felt confident enough to voice their opinions.

On three occasions the class did further work on the text by drawing in response to two of the stories: Wee Grantie and Tigger. For the first story they were asked to draw a picture and write a short description of the main character, 'as if he had just moved school and walked into their classroom'. For the second, they were to draw a picture of their parents' or carers' reaction if they were asked about getting a new pet. Pupils were encouraged to add speech bubbles to their drawings.

The group sessions usually followed the whole class sessions and began with a brief discussion or comments on the text read in class. A new text was distributed and read by the Scottish researcher who also clarified unfamiliar vocabulary and then the other researcher led the discussion. Additional questions about literacy, such as favourite books, home languages and reading and writing were included in these group sessions. For one session, the male researcher took the boys and the female researcher took the girls. This was because it was felt that the children might feel more comfortable talking to a researcher of the same sex and it also allowed the researchers to get to know the individual pupils better. ¹¹

The following table shows the texts which were used in different sessions in each school:

The semi-structured interview schedules for the small group sessions were based on questions that related to the text but also to personal experience. Open-ended questions were formulated using question structures from previous research on reader response such as Arizpe and Styles (2003).

5.5 The teacher interviews

Semi-structured interviews were also held with the bilingual support teachers from one of the schools. Two teachers were interviewed in SJK: one worked in the bilingual base, the other had worked there previously and was now Principal Teacher of English. These interviews were very helpful as they served to raise issues about bilingual pupils, to confirm the researchers' observations and therefore to triangulate the data. Unfortunately we were unable to interview any of the teachers in STM or HP.

5.6 Strategies for engaging with text and culture

The groups were told that we were carrying out research about Scottish books for children, and looking for 'Scottish clues' that make these particular books Scottish, and we asked them to help us 'be detectives' in this search (a similar strategy was successfully carried out in Canada by Pantaleo 2000). ¹² We used a variety of creative approaches to help the ethnic minority pupils to begin to think about their understanding of their new culture:

1. A card game with a series of cards with words written on them such as 'places', 'food', 'weather', 'parents', 'games', to which pupils were to respond instantaneously with a Scottish impression.
2. A 'contrast' list of things they liked and disliked about living in Scotland in order to create a 'poster' which would encourage others to come to Scotland (tourists as well as immigrants).
3. A 'detective' notebook for them to write down any Scottish 'clues', i.e. thoughts, words, comments related to Scotland and being Scottish that they observed in the school or neighbourhood.
4. Discussion about visual images and pictures and the Scottish 'clues' within them.
5. Drawing and writing in response to the two stories (as mentioned above).
6. Filling in a speech bubble in an 'Oor Wullie' cartoon sequence.

All of these strategies proved successful and could be applied to other texts. They helped the pupils think of their experience in their new culture as well as inviting them to interact with the text through images and language. They also served as a starting point for discussing various issues linked to Scottishness, to literacy at home and at school and to personal experiences.

5.7 Data analysis and framework

The data from observations and memos, interview transcriptions, drawings and other documents were recorded and then analysed using qualitative methods based on a descriptive framework and codes that arose from the data itself. The framework can be seen overleaf.

This framework contains most of the categories that were indicated by the data and allowed the researchers to form a better picture of the interaction between literacy practices at home and at school and their relationship to pupils' experiences and their sense of identity.

As the data was coded, links began to emerge not only between pupils in the different schools participating in the project but also to the teachers' perspectives. The data also revealed similar patterns and findings to those found in previous research on literacy and ethnic minority pupils mentioned in the literature review section of this report. These links provided the data analysis with a solid base and a coherence which resulted in the findings that will be discussed in the next section.

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