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6. Findings

There was a great deal of data arising from the research which we have attempted to cluster within the main aspects of our framework: personal experience and literacy practices at home and at school. . We then consider some issues of Scots language teaching which emerged in the reactions of both immigrant and native Scottish pupils to the texts that we had chosen. Scottish stories, themes and images are then examined, particularly as these intersect with the ethnic minority children's own 'stories of origin'. Finally, we consider the role of the school in creating and also sustaining a positive educational experience for these children in their new country. Except when we make explicit reference to Scottish pupils within the project, who were involved in the whole-class sessions, the findings below refer mainly to the ethnic minority children in our study (listed in the Methodology section).

6.1 Personal Experience

The way in which children from any culture make sense of text is rooted in their personal experiences which, during the primary stage of their life, broadly occur within the two main spaces of their life: home and school. These are usually located within local communities which, in the case of this research, are part of the city of Glasgow. While Scottish children in general probably would not find that the concepts of 'country' or 'nation' have much impact on their daily lives, they are made aware of them through particular cultural events, the mass media and education. These concepts are more present in the case of immigrant children, however, through the contrast between their 'old' and 'new' countries, particularly through the new language and customs they and their families must learn. The national culture provides the contextual background for their personal experiences both at home and at school, and during the research we tried to find out what impact this background had actually had, through questions, activities and discussion about Scotland, Scottish people and Scots language.

6.1.1 Understanding the Experience of Home and School

To begin with, we tried to form some idea about the general home life and local community of the ethnic minority pupils in our study as well as about their experiences at school. Because these were not meant to be case studies, the same information was not methodically obtained for each pupil, nor were we interested in probing deeply into family structures. Our data, obtained from observation, the comments of teachers and the children's own responses, was enough to provide a better understanding of what sort of roles immigrant children played, or were expected to play, in their family and community.

Most of the fourteen children we interviewed lived with their families within the catchment area served by the school. Several of them seemed to live only with their mothers. Precious sometimes lived with a Scottish carer when her mother was unwell. This carer had clearly had an influence on her views about her new country:

I had to stay with a carer and she was Scottish but she told me that not all Scottish are really bad, some are really kind.

None of them mentioned having grandparents in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK, although aunts, uncles and cousins living in the UK did come up in the conversations. Some of their parents worked, though not in the same jobs they had had in their countries of origin. Rasha's father, for example, had been a bookseller in Iran and now worked in a corner shop. Several parents, particularly mothers, struggled with English. The children often acted as interpreters in the community or whenever their parents came to talk with school staff. Most of their families included siblings, particularly younger ones.

The eldest children were expected to help younger ones with homework and in the case of some of the girls, the housework:

My Mum like sometimes she goes to bed, she comes from work she's tired and we have to clean and my Mum says to my brother he has to help not only me to do all the work, but she goes to sleep and my brother will just sit there and watch TV like this and I have to do everything, I don't like to do housecleaning! Datse ¹³

With the exception of Hashid, who was born in Scotland, most families had arrived in the UK between one and eight years ago. This meant that some of the children had been only a few years old at the time, had not yet been to school and perhaps did not remember much about their country or why they left. We did not ask about their family's reasons for leaving and none of them volunteered this information; however, none of the children in the study showed signs of not wanting to talk about their countries. If their experiences there had been negative, there was no reference to this except perhaps in one rather unclear (and possibly imaginary) anecdote told by Precious to do with running from one house to another in Rwanda because of being chased by some sort of monsters or wolves.

Some ethnic minority communities are more established in Glasgow than others, such as the Pakistani, Somali or Turkish communities. Other pupils' families seemed to find a community through shared religion (Pentecostal Gabriel, in the case of Datse and Precious) as there were fewer families from their countries. ¹⁴ As we shall see below, many families kept in touch with their families in their country of origin or in other countries by phone, letters, email and MSN.

Although none of the children mentioned this fact, most of their families were waiting for permission to stay in the UK. Their futures were uncertain, not only because they might forcefully be deported without warning (as were the cases of a few families, reported in the news during the time of our study) but because if they did receive their papers, their families might decide to move to England where there were other family members or larger minority ethnic communities. Although we did not gather any evidence for this, this uncertainty must have had an impact on the pupils' lives; however, being children, they fortunately also seemed to have the ability to absorb themselves in the present, particularly in their school activities.

All the pupils seemed to show understanding and sympathy for the others in the group, especially when referring to personal experience of difficulties in language learning, fear, violence and/or racisim, or difficulties with parents. However, it was mainly the girls who were more likely to mention feelings and emotions as well as to talk about their home situation. This was made evident when the pupils were interviewed in separate gender groups. The fact that in these interviews the researcher was of the same gender as the pupils probably also contributed to this.

6.1.2 A new country: perceptions of Scotland and the UK

One of the aims of our research was to discover how our cohort of ethnic minority pupils perceived their new country, Scotland, and what they had learnt about its culture and language in the time they had lived here. This included knowledge of Scots and English as well as accents and other languages. It also included knowledge about geography, flora, fauna, food, customs, festivals and sports, among other things. Some of their views came as direct responses to our questions about these aspects, others were revealed through their responses to the texts we read and discussed.

Perceptions and knowledge of Scots language will be discussed below in more detail, but it was clear that the pupils were aware, if not of Scots as a distinct language, of the differences between words used by their Scottish peers in the playground and words used by the teachers in the classrooms. They were also aware of the differences in accents, not only in these two spaces but also in different cities like London, or countries like the United States. When Neylan wrote a list of 'Scottish' words, she prefaced it by writing 'You need Scottish accent to talk like that'. They were also aware of the multitude of different languages spoken by other ethnic minority pupils in school.

Knowledge of Scottish geography and culture came as a result of their trips around the country, mainly to Edinburgh, to Loch Lomond, to Skye and to see some historical landmarks such as the Wallace Monument. However, knowledge about culture seemed very much based on stereotypes, probably garnered from the popular media and from school (Highmont, for example, had had a 'Scottish Concert' where pupils dressed in Highland costume, sang popular Scottish songs and dramatized an episode of Oor Wullie). Below are some of their immediate answers to our prompts about what these various aspects of Scotland were like. Although most of them are fairly stereotypical, some are also rather surprising:

• buildings and houses: Edinburgh castle, high flats, old buildings, old folks home, 'all stuck together', many have chimneys
• scenery or countryside: Highlands, Skye, animals, beach, sea
• customs or festivals: Easter, Burn's Night, Carnival, Christmas, New Year, Good Friday, Irn Bru Festival, Hogmanay
• food: fish and chips, tatties, hot dog, potatoes, black pudding, cabbage, haggis, sweets, crisps, curry (Datse pointed out that there is food from many other countries as well, like Italian spaghetti)
• manners and habits: swearing, helping people, such as a blind man to cross the road, murders, drinking, pubs, stay out late, parties, dressing up like punks
• weather: always horrible, windy, stormy, always raining, gales, 'mixed up', 'you never know what kind of day it's going to be'
• clothes: kilt
• games: football

Perceptions of Scottish people were quite clearly divided according to their age. 'Older' people were regarded as very kind and helpful:

Mostly the Scottish people when they talk they always swear [and] tell bad words. But I am not trying to say all of the peoples are like that. There are some families and old people that is very helpful [and] kind. (Neylan)

Younger people, however, came across as threatening and aggressive, from the way they dressed and the way they acted. Teenagers were variously described as having

'weird clothes, hoodies, black, rings on your lip, chains, long trouser bottoms, loose T-shirts'.

They were also described as smoking, swearing, spitting and spray painting. They were associated with the general violence which was very evident in the not so good things about living in Scotland: ' swearing, shouting, drunkenness, fights, killings, murders, abuse'. ¹⁵ Much of this was probably a result of media reporting which tends to dwell on the negative stories. Some of the violence was felt to be directed at the immigrants: 'when you are in bus they [are] smoking and shouting they [are?] kicking you' (Rasha) and 'some of the people are bad because we are from a different country' (Umay). Gabriel recounted an experience in which he had walked past a group of men drinking beer and when he glanced at them they tried to pick a fight by saying 'Who are you looking at, wee man?'

However, Neylan made the following important point, distinguishing between a national stereotype and family customs:

See the way people act it depends on the family because you know, most of the Scottish people use bad words when they talk [and] if they have a child they do that [but] some people like James' family they are very polite, very kind and all that, they never use bad words at all, but it depends on the family.

It is worth mentioning that Scottish pupils also considered the 'punk' mum from the poem (and the image on the front cover) as someone 'different'; not aggressive or threatening, but 'weird' from their point of view: 'they dress in black, they like rock and roll', 'they tend to be different from other people, they hang out in groups', 'they wear black lipstick'. ¹⁶ However, one of the Scottish girls pointed out that there was 'nothing wrong with the Mum inside, she's only different on the outside'. They were more concerned with the embarrassment her son might feel than with judging her on her appearance.

Media influences from current stories covering some of those issues also seemed to be at the back of the children's minds. One not so good thing about living in Scotland mentioned by several was litter, a topic often mentioned in the news and probably at school as well. One of the Scottish girls who drew a 'Scottish monster' gave it 'a rubbish tail' [i.e. a tail made of cans, bottles etc]. Underneath, she wrote:

I made my monster by thinking of all the things that represent Scotland and what it's famous for, [he] has a Loch Ness head and neck, Porridge body, Thistle legs and a Rubbish tail.

The story of Scotland's addiction to 'fat food' and the healthy eating campaign which were headlines during the period of the research may have led to several comments on how Scots eat 'lots, lots of fat things'. Precious was concerned that one of the football players in the Blethertoun Braes illustration was eating 'too much fat food'. Gabriel remarked that Scottish people don't look at the labels, ' they just look at the pictures [and say] "Mmm that looks nice" and just take it' whereas his mother 'could take like 5 hours inside a shop just taking vegetables'. It was also noted that Scottish children ate a lot of sweets and chocolate and these were often given to them by their parents.

Child-parent relationships and stories concerning these are a frequent media focus and opinions about how parents treat children revealed the contradictions that our group of pupils had observed. On one hand, Scottish parents were perceived as being 'kind', 'spoiling their children rotten' by giving them 'everything they want', including expensive play stations. However, they also thought parents let them get away with bad behaviour. Umay said:

See in my country if children don't listen, Turkish people they put them into trouble but I think here, Scottish people, they don't really shout at their children or put them into trouble.

However, Neylan again argued that it had to do with the family and not the country:

I think in Scotland and in other countries it doesn't really depend on the country it depends on the person and the people who have been born in there, like if my mum taught me how to do, and her mum taught her how to do and her mum taught her it goes like that […] it depends on your family actually, not the country.

On the other hand, Scots were seen to not pay them enough attention to their children and even slap them and treat them 'badly':

Precious: Sometimes […] they kick them, like I watched that this wee baby got kicked out of the house
Others: Oh!
Precious: because their parents were smoking and fights
Datse: Oh that's bad to have parents like that is very bad, you feel sorry…

The discussion about 'Tigger' also led to comments about discipline and the relationship between parents and children. Rafiq thought that the way Joe talks to his parents (and maybe also to the readers) about his feelings was very 'Scottish':

like he lets out what he wants to say, he doesn't keep it inside bottled up.

He then seemed to suggest that in some other cultures (he didn't specify which), children tend to agree with their parents because, unlike in Scotland, parents are allowed to hit their children. Although Neylan and Umay thought it was good that Turkish parents were stricter and that they 'take loads of care over their children', Umay complained that her parents didn't allow her to go out because she was a girl, while her brother was allowed out even at night. Both girls agreed that Scottish girls had more freedom.

Sport and sectarianism arose when football provided the setting for one of the texts we read. This led to some discussion about the sectarianism that usually accompanies the sport in the case of 'The Old Firm', Rangers versus Celtic. In the separate interviews, two boys were asked what this meant to them:

Hashid: Like they try to brainwash you, especially when it's football, they are always like fighting [?] if somebody's got a football top on like a Ranger's man a Celtic guy sees him he beats the hell out of him.

Usman: I like Celtic, I don't like Rangers but I don't say anything I just keep it in my thoughts.

In their class, one boy's family were members of the Orange Lodge, but the teacher noted that he was quite happy to be friends with a boy who wore a Celtic top. She said that staff had recently done quite a lot of work on sectarianism in the school and that the children were well aware of the issues, including the ethnic minority pupils:

I think [to them] it's just another danger and sadly straight away they know about the Celtic-Rangers thing in the city, they learn that very quickly.

Good things about living in Scotland listed by the ethnic minority children were associated either with things to see and do or to consume: hills and mountains, wildlife, parks, swimming pools, museums, funfairs, cinemas, riding bikes in the street, and shops. They thought it was good that there was 'free medicine for kids' and that 'the city council is very good, they fix things that are broken'. In terms of welcoming immigrants, Precious said the council had been very helpful:

they put me in a flat and every Saturday I got a carer and me and my brother went out for the whole day to parks and shopping malls.

One of the Scottish pupils mentioned that one of the good things about Scotland was that 'they let people in from different countries'. He may well have been thinking of the recent Oxfam video made in their school and this comment reveals how important it is for schools to emphasize the message that Scotland is a welcoming country.

Comparisons with their country of origin emerged in several ways. Several characteristics of Scotland and of the Scots were mentioned because they did not exist or were difficult to do in their home countries. Some of these reveal the immigrant children as keen observers of their surroundings, such as Rafiq's comment that Oor Wullie was being very Scottish in that he wanted to feed the animals 'because here a lot of people do that'. The pupils made some comparisons with their countries of origin, and given that not all of them had been back, some were probably based on information they had heard from their relatives. In general, their view of their home country was positive and they took on what we have described as an 'ambassador role' with pride, even when talking about the weather,

Precious: There is no rain or wind in my country.
Datse: It's all upside down weather here, when winter it's so hot, there is no snow like in Latvia.
Hashid: In my country, Pakistan, [it's] always hot there, its not rainy.
Rasha: In my country every single day when I wake up it's so hot!

or about customs and architecture:

Usman: In my country, people keep tigers and lions as pets […]
Hashid: Because, you see, in our country you get massive big houses [with courtyards].

They also made comparisons between schooling in Scotland and in their heritage country which will be described below in section 6.7. When speaking of Scottish people and customs, most pupils referred to a collective 'they' and it was clear the pupils did not see themselves as part of this group. Their comments revealed a distance from 'being Scottish', such as the boys not identifying themselves as supporters of either Rangers or Celtic football teams or from wanting to dress or act as Scottish teenagers. This will be discussed further, in section 6.6 on identity.

Popular culture provides most of the images and information immigrants receive about Scotland. More research on the different expressions of popular culture would be needed in order to see how they shape perceptions and influence decisions to stay and integrate or to try to keep a distance and/or leave.

6.2 Home Literacy Practices

The area of home literacy practices provided an important context for our investigation, although it was not possible to explore this context in any great depth, partly because of time and partly because we relied upon the pupils themselves to describe the situation at home. While the ethnic minority pupils tried to tell us what they and their families read at home, what languages they used and when etc., their description was often hampered by language difficulties. In order to form an accurate picture of what is happening there, it would be necessary to extend our research into the home and to document in detail the textual and visual material as well as the literacy events there, as some researchers such as Gregory and Williams (2000), Kenner (2000) and Pahl (2004, 2005) have already done in England. However, we were still able to obtain some information about the sorts of textual and visual materials each family interacted with, and thus allow ourselves to better understand how the children in our sample viewed and made sense of text.

6.2.1 Home languages

All of the children spoke with pride about the languages they were fluent in or could understand apart from English. This was perhaps due to the fact that now schools and teachers are more positive about bilingualism and pupils are told that they are 'clever' to have more than one language. Datse even spoke of the economic benefits of being bilingual:

Actually it's best when you learn different kinds of language […] you can work as a interpreter […] and they do you pay you loads!

At the same time, they were also keen to show their increasing command of English, even though at times they struggled to express themselves.

In class they enjoyed showing letters, the alphabet and examples of writing in their language to teachers and to their peers. They were able to make comparisons between languages, talking about their particularities and difficulties. Usman, for example, commented on the difficulty of reading Urdu because you start reading on the other side and 'it's very hard to see what it says because it's all joined up'. He described an occasion in which some of his friends were reading a translation into Urdu of The Enormous Turnip, and they had started the wrong way round. Rasha commented that you had to be careful writing in Arabic, making sure all the dots were in place or it wouldn't make sense. Umay said that Turkish was easy because 'if you know the alphabet you'll learn to read very quickly [as] there's only a few letters that's different that you don't have in English.'

They were keen to talk about their family's language(s) and how they interacted with family members over these languages. Some of the pupils in the sample spoke more than one foreign language at home. One of the most impressive cases was that of Datse, whose Latvian Romany family had picked up the languages of the various countries they had lived in. According to Datse, the family spoke different languages on different days: Latvian, French, Dutch and Russian. However, she added (not surprisingly!) that this was very hard and sometimes they got them all mixed up. Gabriel told us that his mother, a Francophone from Congo, stressed he had to learn English at school but had to speak French at home. Like Datse and Gabriel's parents, Rasha's mother seems to be anxious for her children to maintain their heritage language, by making them speak it at home and teaching them themselves:

Rasha: […] in house we have to speak in Farsi because my Mum wants to.
Researcher: You have to speak it so you don't forget it, and you read books in Farsi…
Rasha: Yeah. Sometimes my Mum she reads me some homework of my country, my language, so I have to write it.
Researcher: Does she have textbooks in Farsi?
Rasha: Yeah.

Hashid's father gave his sons words to copy out in order to improve their handwriting and Usman's father 'always made him work' doing writing to get his spelling right, but it was not clear whether this was in Urdu or English. According to the teachers in SJK, parents usually struggled to teach their children to read and write in their heritage language and were not always successful. As we shall see below, this also evidently has to do with parental levels of education.

Their role as teachers and interpreters of English for their families was something that the children also spoke about. Teachers in SJK confirmed that many children had to take time off to accompany their parents to doctors or meetings with government officials in order to act as interpreters. Datse was aware of her mother's needs in terms of both writing and speaking in English for her work in a coffee shop, probably taking orders and interacting with customers:

… sometimes we have English lessons and I teach my Mum sometimes how to spell things cause she has a job and not, you know, not just cleaning things, [but] where she has to talk. She works in a coffee shop and she has to talk so that is more harder.

Precious was 'forgetting' the language her mother speaks and as her mother, a Francophone Rwandan, didn't speak English fluently, communication was difficult:

My mother doesn't understand English properly so if I say something like I told her 'Where are you going?' she says 'What, what what did you say?' So I have to explain. Anyway I've forgotten my language so I have to tell her [slowly, word by word] 'where/are/you/going?' [and what] it means. She speaks in my country [sic] , when I speak to her she speaks back, she doesn't speak back in English, she speaks back in my country, I always go, 'What are you saying?' My brother a little bit understands her, he says, 'She says this and that.'

Precious's mother was keen to promote French through getting satellite television channels and by having visiting friends speak to Precious in this language.

Like Precious's mother, Gabriel's mother spoke little English on arrival and her son acted as interpreter. At school he has also acted as an interpreter for other younger Francophone immigrants, and mentioned this in his Powerpoint presentation about his experience at STM as one of the things he enjoyed most: 'I was picked to watch the new primary ones because I could speak French' (pairing same-language pupils so they can help each other was common practice in the schools). The interpreter role can also work the other way around, as the children become teachers of their native language to younger family members, as Rasha said:

Rasha: My cousin he don't know what the word [is in] Farsi even [though] he know[s] so much English; when I'm telling a story about my country he don't know what it means, he just says, 'What it means that?!' And I have to learn him it means that.
Researcher: So when you tell him the story in Farsi you have to explain some of the words?
Rasha: Yeah.

Most parents, however, seemed to be making an effort to learn English. Neylan told us

I talk with my big brother in English and my Mum and Dad used to not understand when we're talking but not now cos my mum and dad's goes to College proper to learn English'.

Umay's mother was also attending English lessons in her Church.

Modern European languages begin to be taught generally in Primary 6 and Primary 7, so in addition to their home languages and English some of the pupils were beginning to learn French. Umay complained that she found this hard because it was her fourth language, 'It's hard because […] I can't talk my language that good as well'. As her comment shows, not only was she finding this frustrating, but sometimes ethnic minority children end up without knowing any language properly. French was in a sense also 'imposed' on Abdul ( 'you see, France had a war with my country…') and he admitted that his family used a mixture of words in different languages in the home.

Maintaining and developing heritage languages can sometimes take place through out-of-school language lessons, although most pupils in the sample did not attend them, either because they did not exist or they were too far from home. One of the bilingual teachers had heard of French classes which were always full and on the other side of the city, and also of an attempt to set up an Albanian weekend school. It was the Muslim boys in our sample who attended the 'madrasah' where their studies of Arabic and Urdu were closely linked to religion. Maisha, the only Muslim girl, attended classes in her native Somali every day for two hours in the evening with other children. She also communicated in Somali with relatives through MSN. Neylan wished she could go to a Turkish school but unlike London where her cousin went to one, she said there weren't any in Glasgow.

With the exception of the Muslim pupils, most children seemed to pick up or maintain their home language through their parents, electronic communications with family in other countries and various media rather than through organized community lessons.

6.2.2 Home texts

One of the questions we asked was what texts they read at home and in what language. Most of the answers were rather vague and in general there were not many books or texts they could name. Most of them seemed to prefer watching television or playing on the computer. However, throughout the sessions, some information emerged about their reading preferences and habits as well as about what sorts of reading material could also be found in the home. The list below reveals a variety of texts (fiction, non-fiction, religious and popular), mostly in English, which are not dissimilar to what other children their age would be reading (see for example Hall and Coles' report on reading habits, 1999):

• Jamal: ' Lots of books' in English like the Famous Five. He read more books in English than in Urdu because he only lived for three years in Pakistan.
• Rafiq: Books and the jokes in Urdu newspapers.
• Tomaj: Harry Potter in Hungarian.
• Datse: Had a few books in Latvian but read mostly in English.
• Rasha: Had children's books in Farsi and from her description, some of them seemed to be bilingual. Her favourite book was Cinderella but she also mentioned 'Scooby Doo' and 'Caspar the Ghost' which she could also watch on television.
• Hashid: Read the Holy Book at the mosque in Arabic. He liked pirate books and 'Scottish books' as well (though this last may have been an attempt to please the reseachers) and comics like Spiderman.
• Usman: Liked mainly non-fiction books, about cars, 'instructions', guns and soldiers rather than stories. He also liked a book that taught how to draw cartoons, an activity he enjoyed. His mother read him and his brother books in Urdu from the library. When we asked if it made any difference to him whether the book was in English or Urdu. Usman replied, 'I just take any book. I heard on tv you shouldn't judge a book by its cover'!
• Umay: She remembered she had read Tom Sawyer 'I liked it because it's a boy about 11 or 12 who likes adventures and it's nice'.
• Neylan: She couldn't remember the title of her favourite book but she had made a book cover for it and won a prize; it was a funny story about aliens coming to earth. Although she said she didn't like to read very much, she was interested in reading about 'war things' and she had asked her mother to buy her The Diary of Anne Frank (her mother said she would if Neylan promised to read it).
• Gabriel: He mentioned the most titles and clearly enjoyed books, especially 'histories' (he may have been using the French word histoires). He mentioned he had liked Oliver Twist, Robin Hood and 'Mowgli' ( The Jungle Book). He read comics, usually several times, before throwing them away. His favourite magazine was Jackie Chan.
• Abdul: He liked comedy and history books as well as non-fiction like 'world records'. His favourite book was Horrid Henry: 'that was the best book ever'. He mentioned he sometimes got books 'for free' from a cousin who loves books and 'buys like a lot of books that are like that thick and she couldn't read them, so she gives me them'.
• Sirwa: Her favourite book was from the library but she liked it so much she bought it, was a non-fiction book about inventions 'and you know everything in the world'.
• Maisha: Liked books that 'gave you like education or information' but couldn't mention any specific title.

Humour, adventure and non-fiction were some of the main reasons they liked books. History was also a popular genre. Most of the girls did not read comics, either in their language or in English, although both Umay and Neylan mentioned a Turkish graphic novel which they had both enjoyed although it was rather sad (rather than 'funny' like a comic) because it was about a girl nobody liked. The boys read The Simpsons and Gabriel and Abdul were familiar with the Asterix and Tintin books.

Most of the books they did not own were either borrowed from friends or from the library. All pupils seemed to enjoy visiting the library, although Hashid commented that most Saturdays he just watches television and 'can't be bothered to go'. Gabriel went to the library whenever he went swimming: 'First I go to the library to read because when you read your brain's working and so after when I finished I just go to the swimming pool to relax'. One of their main objectives in going, however, seemed to be to use the computers.

A few did mention they had bought books in bookshops, but these seemed rather exceptional occasions. Neylan, for example won £5 in a competition to design her favourite book cover; she spent it on 'a French dictionary' and 'a wee cat book' for her brother. Maisha remembered that once her mother had bought her a book in Tesco. As for bookshops in their heritage countries, Umay mentioned a shop in Turkey that sold books and stationery and Rasha eagerly described the bookshop her father used to own in Iran:

Rasha: My Dad used to have a shop with MANY books so I don't [have to] pay money for it […] it was bookshop so everyday I used to go there/
Datse: I wish I could get there and get everything!
Researcher: What kind of books?
Rasha: Like drama, excited, so nice, books and dvds and pencils and sharpeners.
Researcher: And did lots of people come to buy books?
Rasha: Yeah but my Dad when I'm going to his shop I'm just telling him, 'Dad I want this book, bye!'

When we asked what sort of books they chose at the library, both Rasha and Precious said they liked 'exciting' books. Rasha also mentioned 'scary' ones and Precious summed it up very nicely:

Precious: I don't know, some exciting books, funny books, drama and I like books with pictures and a lot of words and good adjectives and verbs and a great story.
Researcher: Do you mind if it's fiction or non fiction?
Precious: Not at all.

However, Datse clearly preferred non-fiction and remarked on several occasions that she only liked 'true' stories:

Datse: I would better like the stories are true cause I like to read stories like about the earth and universe, about the human body, and science, technology, all this stuff I like, I don't like the stories like just made up like with the cartoon stuff.
Researcher: Why? Most children like fantasy, like Harry Potter…
Datse: Yeah, but it's just story, it's not really true.

The teacher said Datse carried an encyclopaedia around with her and read from it whenever she had the opportunity. Perhaps her insistence on reading 'true' stories (which came up several times during the sessions) was based not only on increasing her knowledge but also in finding some 'answers' in the uncertainties of immigrant situation:

Datse: My favourite story - I've got the book - it's called Question and Answers and there is the universe, the air, technology, science and the human body all of that in one and it has questions and answers.

Parental literacy could sometimes be glimpsed through the children's responses about books and other reading material at home. Most parents were too busy with housekeeping or work to read or do homework with the children and some lacked the language skills in English to do so. Datse said that when her mother finally has time to read, she'll read the Bible in Latvian and Usman commented that although his Mum was 'always cooking and working in the house, try and keep it clean', in her spare time she read the Qur'Än.

However, even some busy parents were able to do some reading or enjoy language games in their spare time. Hashid's comment gives an idea of the multimodal literacy events going on in his home:

Researcher: What do other people in the house read?
Hashid: My brother practises his [reading book], my wee small brother watches dvds, my Mum brings magazines and she reads them whenever she's got spare time […] I don't think [my Dad] likes reading, but he loves doing wordsearches, whenever I've got wordsearches or my Mum in a magazine she's got a wordsearch […] I'll say, 'Dad I can't do this can you do it?' and he loves it […]

Another finding, which will be discussed further in 6.2.3 below, was that there seemed to be a regular exchange of books and other reading material, as well as photographs and videos, between families and friends in different countries.

6.2.3 Literacy practices

Literacy events in the heritage language at home, mainly included story-telling, reading texts, both religious and secular, writing letters to relatives and/or 'chatting' to them online (which also involved writing). The stories were both traditional stories from the parent's or grandparent's culture but also 'family' stories, about life and relatives 'back home'. Following from the 'stories' told by George and Tom in Janet Reachfar, we asked the pupils if anyone told stories at home and what kind. Most of them described 'scary' stories, like those in this picture book. Sirwa's grandfather told her stories in Kurdish from Iraq; Maisha's big sister told her the stories in Somali of the scary films she watched at night; Hashid's grandfather told him stories about his life in Pakistan and so on. When we asked about poetry in their home language, Hashid and Rasha said they knew some, or had known some. However, Datse (sadly) mentioned that her mother never had time to tell her any stories or poems and Precious said her mother never told her stories from Rwanda, so it is important to be aware that difficult circumstances may also affect an activity which one easily assumes takes place in all families.

The purposes of reading in the heritage language were usually either religious or pedagogic, although a few pupils mentioned receiving and reading 'comics' in their first language. Biblical stories were read in Datse's and Precious's Sunday Schools. Hashid read the Qur'Än at home: 'I learn five six lines by heart. I read it for my Dad, Gran and Grandpa and have to read it properly and go over it.' He also had a translation of the Qur'Än in English, Urdu and French. The purposes of writing were mainly to communicate with relatives or friends. Rasha said she wrote a letter for a friend in Arabic and sometimes wrote (with her Mum's help) and received letters in Farsi. However, several pupils commented they enjoyed writing stories during their leisure time. Datse bought stationery and jotters to write stories; Precious liked to write stories on the computer, then print and photocopy them and Usman mentioned that he loved reading and writing stories. Neylan told us her Dad didn't approve of her using the computer to play as 'it's no good for your brain' and urged her instead to read a book, do her homework or write a story.

New media and technology in the homes of immigrant families, as Gregory and Kenner (2003) have observed, have made a difference in both maintaining their heritage languages and culture and also continuing communication with their country of origin (or with family who have emigrated to other countries). There seems to be a continuous traffic of books, photographs, videos, magazines and educational material between families and friends helped by better forms of transportation and by digital communication systems. Depending on the political and economic situation of families, cheaper travel has also made it possible for some families to travel back to their original country or to visit other family and during some of these extended visits children may attend school.

This use of modern technology to learn and keep up with heritage languages was something that was also mentioned by Datse:

You see I told you that some of my Dad's sisters […] they have Sky and you can see different countries' programmes, that's why always we go there and watch like Russian programmes and stuff.

As well as helping each other learn Turkish, Umay and Neylan, referred to the satellite Turkish channel which they watched for both pleasure and language learning, as Neylan said: 'I don't go [to lessons in Turkish]. I learned to write and read in the Turkish channel, so I don't need to.' Several of them watched DVDs or played computer games (some online) in their language. Umay added that she used MSN and video to chat to her friends in Turkey and her French-speaking cousins in Canada (in Turkish), while Abdul used MSN in English to communicate with cousins in Spain, but used Arabic to speak to them on the phone. Hashid and Rafiq 'chat' to cousins in Pakistan and Sirwa's mother used the computer and the video to communicate with her parents in Iraq. Their comments illustrate the importance of global communications in a time of global migration.

All pupils had access to computers either at home or through the library. They were used for playing, homework and writing and communicating with friends and relatives. For some families, these new technologies mean that there are more possibilities of maintaining the heritage language, of keeping up to date on news and political events. However, it is often difficult to get hold of those in other languages and the dominant language of these technologies and of the media in general is still English and it is even more important to learn English if one is to be able to master the technology and understand and enjoy films, music and computer games. As Rafiq said, when he played online computer games 'where there are lots of people playing, [you] do lots of stuff with people, talk to them, communicate […] all you do is just write in English'. There is still very little research in this area, into how these new forms of communication and technology affect immigrant family literacy.

6.2.4 English as a second language at home

The teachers at SJK commented that immigrant parents were usually anxious for their children to learn English even to the extent that some were prepared to neglect their own language and even cultural values:

W: […] The parents don't seem to realize that they can learn to speak the two languages in tandem […] and we often say to them please keep speaking Turkish at home and they say no, no, English, English, English is important!
D: […] Children who decide they don't want to speak their first language and do just speak English at home they are going to fall behind and they are not going to be fluent in either language.
[…]
W: They don't understand how the language structure in another language structure works, they don't, and we do try to say it to parents a lot but it's difficult, culturally the educational ideals are just so different, a lot of them say 'No, they have to learn English' and trying to explain to them they need to be solid in their own language first and then their English would be better, they just seem to think 'No, now we're here, this is what we have to do'.

The impact on children's learning of their parents' English language competence was also discussed. Given that some parents had limited English, we asked the children what happened with English homework at home, if anyone helped them when they had difficulties. They immediately described different strategies for dealing with unknown words:

Datse: You look in a dictionary!
Precious: Also in an A-Z in eight different languages.
Hashid: You take it back to your teacher and then she can tell you, then you can tell your mum […]
Rasha: My mum […?] she know a little bit English and when I don't know something in English I say, 'Mum what does mean that?' She tell me, 'I don't know, I will see the dictionary'.
Researcher: Is she able to do that and then explain to you?
Rasha: Yeah.

As the case of Rasha's mother - who was attending college - makes clear, parental levels of education have an impact on the amount of help children receive at home. Teachers at SJK explained that the Turkish parents in their school, for example, came from peasant backgrounds and had had very little formal education. Datse described her particular situation:

You see sometimes when I get like maths work I can do it but sometimes if I'm just stuck a wee bit my mum wants to help me but she can't cause you see my mum never passed her own school when she was small cause she had a bad life, her mother died and it was bad for her, so that's why she never passed all her school, she had to go [to work].

Datse's family's cultural perceptions of education and gender were having an impact on her education. On one hand, the ambition to become a lawyer and her eagerness to learn may have been a result of her mother's desire to have a different future for her daughter. Datse said she wanted to grow up in the UK because, like her mother, she thought it was a 'nice' place and 'my Mum says that English and French are the most important languages cause nearly all the countries can speak some […] and English is the most important language to know.' On the other hand, the teachers in her school mentioned that the Romany families 'don't seem to value education' and have a high absence rate. They said Datse often missed school because when her younger brother did not want to come to school she had to stay and look after him. Interestingly, however, the teachers said her brother was often taken out of school to go with his Dad and 'the men' while Datse was 'given the freedom to choose to go to school'. This brief glimpse into one particular case shows how gender, culture and education issues can be very complex and need to be looked at carefully in each ethnic minority family situation.

Sibling assistance with language learning was also an issue. Approximately half of the immigrant children in the study were the eldest children in the family and helped their younger siblings. The others, if they had older siblings, sometimes received help from them. This was not only due to their parent's knowledge of English but because they were too busy doing housework or working to help. However, Precious pointed out that although her younger brother had forgotten his heritage language, his English was very good because he spoke it all the time. This was also the case with some of the other younger siblings who, having come to the UK at an earlier age, not only spoke English better than their older brothers and sisters but had stronger Scottish accents.

When they did help their younger siblings, their comments suggested that they used similar 'scaffolding' and syncretic practices to those used by siblings in the research by Gregory et al. (Gregory, Long and Volk, 2004):

Researcher: Do you help [your younger brothers] with their school work?
Hashid: Yeah, like when he's got a division or something, like [when] he says, 'What's this?' I don't tell him the answer or anything, I give him a clue or a different sum […] like with apples or something […]
Researcher: So you help them with maths, do you help them with language at all?
Hashid: Yeah, like for example, making sentences, I give him a different sentence with the same word so he gets a kind of a clue from it.
Researcher: And then he can make up his own […] Do you want to be a teacher when you grow up?
Hashid: I'm going to be a Muslim teacher.

Hashid comments illustrate how, consciously or unconsciously, he was applying the school's pedagogical methods at home, giving him clues and similar examples.

6.3 Making Sense of School Texts

The previous section on home literacies and language, including English language at home, provides a context for the ways in which ethnic minority children interpret texts. However, school literacies also have an impact on this process of interpretation, particularly on those pupils who have been in British education longest. In school they have encountered particular texts (mainly in reading schemes), approaches and attitudes to reading and, in the case of Scotland, language which is distinct from English and occasionally some literature which reflects Scottish culture.

6.3.1 Previous knowledge and experience

When immigrant pupils arrive in the three schools in our study, they are provided with language support teachers and easy texts. When pupils are considered to be able to join their assigned class, they are expected to deal with the same texts as their peers, although they may get some additional help as well. The texts the ethnic minority children in our sample encountered in the classroom were similar in all three schools: as well as the textbooks and workbooks, there were many posters and signs on the classroom walls with information about language (sometimes in French), geography, mathematics or prayers in the case of STM. There was also a small classroom library, with books displayed or kept on shelves. These books were mainly children's literature: fiction, non-fiction and some poetry. There was little evidence of Scottish texts in the classroom, although there must have been some poems by Robert Burns which emerge shortly before Burns' Night. The teachers at SJK and STM said the pupils had had very little contact with texts in Scots; the texts we brought for our project were, in most cases, the first time pupils had seen Scots written down.

Pupils were therefore using their understanding of texts and reading both from home and from school to approach the texts in the project. However, as shown in other research (Arizpe 1994), among the first responses to the texts were those based on previous personal experience. Empathy is one of the first ways in which children make contact with a text. They refer to similar situations, experiences and knowledge to begin to make sense of what is happening in the text. This occurred in the whole class sessions, particularly during the discussion of 'Tigger' when several children said they knew of some child who also had bad allergies or who had had to get rid of their pets for some reason. When talking about Janet Reachfar, several pupils talked about wells and other dangerous places similar to those in the story:

Neylan: Like when I went to the farm, my aunts and my gran she was in a farm and there was a well and she sometimes closed just in case somebody falls in it but she opened it when she needed water from it.
Umay: This once happened to me, I was in a picnic for my birthday, all of my family was there and there was a place to get water, but it was covered with stones […]

6.3.2 Intertextuality

Stories from their families and heritage countries were also frequently brought by pupils to the discussion. They were very keen to tell these stories, even if it meant struggling to find the right words in English. The discussion around Janet Reachfar and the Scottish monsters in general led to pupils telling 'scary' stories heard from members of their family. All the pupils had had experiences of stories used by their parents to illustrate a moral or, as in Janet Reachfar, to warn children about particular dangers or about the consequences of misbehaving.

Abdul: When I was in my country I had to sleep with my sisters […] and when my sisters' friends all came over she says 'Did you know that if you listen to our stories you'll have ears like a donkey' [laughter from the others] and you will be so ugly that nobody will marry you and then I would just go out of the room, but I still listened through the door.
Precious: A long time ago when I was five and my brother was little this girl […] told this because my brother likes sucking his thumb and she said Tomaj [cutthroat?] will come and cut your thumb off […]

The comment from Precious sounds similar to one of the stories in the German author Heinrich Hoffmann's Shock-headed Peter. It may be an instance of her 'fusing' African and European stories, as she sometimes seemed to do. In general, it was clear the children enjoyed sharing their own stories and reacted to others' stories with laughter and expressions of empathy.

Pupils' previous experience of texts and narrative were often drawn upon in order to understand the texts. Neylan, for example, when looking at the picture of the farm, said it was probably about a big family because 'there are always more than six people in the family' in the books she had read about farms. We tried to find out more about what texts they were reminded of as they read but most of them found it hard to find any specific reference. Datse thought of Red Riding Hood when reading Janet Reachfar, probably because it is about a little girl who disobeys her mother and there is also a grandmother in the story. Based on the illustrations, Umay made the surprising but accurate comment that Janet reminded her of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz because of her dress, her pigtails, 'her wee dog and she lives on a farm as well'. The monsters in Janet Reachfar reminded some of the children of the legend of the Loch Ness Monster which they had heard of, seen in a film or a read about in a book.

Neylan also referred to a cartoon from the Turkish channel and a book in her class (whose title she couldn't remember) about children who tell lies and are punished in some way. Talking about stories about children who misbehave, Rafiq and Jamal commented that they liked the Horrid Henry series and Rafiq described one of the stories in detail. Unlike Janet, however, Henry tends to get away with his mischief, at least to some extent, and never seems to learn his 'lesson'. Precious did mention a book similar to Janet Reachfar which seemed to be one of the Katie Morag series, however, none of the other children were familiar with the Katie Morag books. Datse mentioned Hans Gabriel Ander sen when we asked if anyone had read books by Scoular Ander son. Although it was not relevant to the interpretation of the story in this particular case, the pupil's knowledge about books as objects was also revealed. For example, as we looked at Janet Reachfar, Sirwa pointed out that this book could be bought in another country because it had a price in dollars on the back cover.

6.3.3 Setting and landscape

All the texts used in the project were set in Scotland (with the possible exception of the 'neutral' settings of The Mean Team, although even here the Earth team name is that of a Glasgow amateur league football team). But it was Janet Reachfar, in particular, which led to discussion of Scottish landscape because of its illustrations. Pupils in the small groups identified the landscape as Scottish because of the mountains, hills, cottages and the sheep dog, loch or sea. They referred to Loch Lomond and the hills around it where they had seen horses and sheep. They liked the landscape, with its 'nice flowers' and 'high hills', aware that it was in the countryside and they were clear that this could not have happened in the city because the monsters could only be found in the country. The 'Blethertoun Rovers' poem was part of an anthology of poems set in an imaginary Scottish town, however, the poem and the illustration did not refer to this setting so there were no comments about this aspect. Several of the pupils in the whole class drew pictures of the particular well-described scene in 'Wee Grantie' where he is swimming and the boys hide his clothes, but there were no 'Scottish' elements involved in these pictures apart from the language.

There were no comments about the setting in 'Tigger' but Oor Wullie and The Broons led to some discussion about the time in which the comics had first been written, 'the olden days' as one boy put it. Pupils pointed out that people wore old-fashioned clothes (and noted that children don't pass on outgrown clothes to their cousins now), used certain words ( 'no one says puggled' or 'chinwag'), played certain games and, in the case of the Broons family going haggis hunting, 'men don't wear kilts and you need a licence for guns'. Another boy said that, in those days, 'they were poorer, didn't have tv, they would sit and talk and be friends on the street'.

6.3.4 Characters, identity and empathy

Pupils' understanding and interpretation of characters and their actions and roles were clearly brought out in discussion. Abdul described Janet's mum as 'always nice' and Gabriel added that 'she never shout too much at Janet, she always speak gent ly' while 'the gran always shout'. Abdul then pointed out that Janet went to the well 'because she thought her Mum was going to be gentle' whereas she wouldn't have gone if her stricter Gran had told her not too. Precious also described Janet's mum as gentle and Datse seemed to be thinking of her own experiences when she added, 'mothers are always like that, sometimes you done something bad and they hit you but it's not because they hate you forever, it's not that…'

Gabriel also picked up on George and Tom's teasing relationship with Janet: 'maybe Tom and George are just joking so they can scare her'. He was also able to judge the role of the characters in the story as shown by his answer to our question about why the Dad and the Grandad in the story never say anything:

Gabriel: I think the grandfather and the dad are not very important in the story because the grandfather is just married the grandmother […] the grandma she's more important because the grandmother shouts, she's very strict with the kid and they don't show really the dad because maybe, because in the story they said the dad was working too much.
Researcher: In the fields or something/
Gabriel: That's why, because maybe the Dad work too much he don't have time to speak in the story.

Usman also tried to express that these two characters 'don't really need a part' because the story is more about the characters of the mother, the grandmother and Janet, thus showing an understanding of the roles of major and minor characters.

Abdul made the following accurate comment about the relationship between 'Wee Grantie' and his peers during the whole class discussion: 'he talks rubbish all the time, they accept him as a pal even though they don't always like him or let him come'. Neylan then articulated what motivated Grantie to act the way he did, 'I think he was like that because his sister was ill, he acts like that so that some people might listen to him.' Understanding motivations shows that they had picked up clues to each character and his or her particular personality and situation.

Pupils identified and empathized with characters to different extents. Clearly, they were more drawn to boys and girls of their own ages (Janet, Rory, Joe, Wee Grantie) than to the Blethertoun Rover players, for example. Rafiq mentioned that it would be 'cool' if he had the same time travel experience as Rory, the protagonist of The Mean Team and Jamal said that if it had happened to him, he would write a diary about the future and call it 'The Diary of Jamal'. Usman thought it would be 'quite weird' playing with aliens. Hashid thought it would be fun, experiencing 'the magic' but Datse was, as usual, more realistic: 'If I was Rory I would be a wee bit scared because how could you go inside a duvet, you will be scared the first time but no[t] the second because you know what will happen.'

One of our reasons for using The Mean Team was the theme of 'aliens', of being in a 'different' place. However, apart from Usman's comment, none of the children either noticed or chose to discuss this issue. Another reason was that we thought it might lead to comments about the Ranger/Celtic situation in Glasgow, football colours and loyalites, but again, the pupils themselves didn't raise this issue until specifically asked.

During the discussion about the story 'Tigger', it was clear that both the indigenous Scots and the ethnic minority children empathised with the boy who had to get rid of his cat. Many of them had some experience with pets (some had had to leave them behind when they moved to Scotland) and came up with a range of alternatives for not getting rid of the cat. They agreed that it was a difficult choice, as pets 'make you happy'. Tomaj remarked that the boy 'really needs' his pet and Precious perceptively added that '[pets] want someone to love them and you want someone to love you back'.

The role of the fictional parents in 'Tigger' reveals much about their relationship to their son, Joe. While discussing this role with the researchers, Tomaj and Rafiq speculated on why it was the mother who broke the bad news to Joe. Rafiq thought it was because Joe 'would listen more to her' as the dad was always away at work. Tomaj, however, suggested it was because recently the boy and the dad had begun to do more things together and '[dad] wants to make him happy, so he tells the mother to do it [because] if he says it then it's going to break Joe's heart'. This exchange also involved the boys talking about who made decisions in their own families. It shows how their home experiences are brought into their understanding of the character's actions and also an awareness of the story characters relationships. ¹⁷

The only human character in the texts that was not 'white' was Mr Mint (there were a few varicoloured aliens). When we asked where they thought he was from, there seemed to be a general vagueness or a reluctance to identify him as black:

Datse: Africa?
Precious: From a hot place.
Several: Yes.
Hashid: Maybe from Australia or somewhere or Canada because he's got curly hair and his skin colour.
Usman: [in a whisper] Pakistan
EResearcher: His name could be from anywhere, couldn't it?
Hashid: Mr Mint, like a bar of chocolate [general laughter].

The 'Scots' group who also read this book suggested he was from Jamaica, Mexico or Africa. When asked if he was Scottish, opinions were divided.

One character that did not seem to create the same sort of empathy as Rory, Joe or Wee Grantie (even if they did laugh at him, they could understand and sympathise with his situation) was Oor Wullie. This may have had to do with his being seen as a simply a 'comic' character, as the stereotype that he is meant to be, and also with the 'old-fashioned' setting. His 'problems' were to be laughed at, not really to be taken to heart. To the ethnic minority pupils he seemed to come across as even more remote. They did laugh but did not relate emotionally in any way. His character was the subject of one of the most insightful comments in the research on differences between child-rearing and education in the Scottish culture and the Muslim culture. This will be discussed in the last section of these findings.

6.3.5 Interpretation and negotiation

Pupils were able to make inferences from the texts, based on previous knowledge and experiences - both of text and of life - but also from their attention to the texts themselves. For example, although the author does tell us that Janet didn't believe there was a kelpie in the well because the horse didn't mind drinking the water that came from it, Gabriel went a bit further: 'If there was a monster the horse will never drink and will die'. Maisha had more trouble following the various texts, but when allowed to take her time, and probably aided by the others' discussion and the questions, she was able to understand the narrative and the consequences of the character's actions. For example, at the end of the interview she suddenly made her first comment on the text: 'Her mother told her to not go there and she just looked […?] anyway to see that face, so if she [hadn't gone] there she wouldn't have that dream.'

Their interpretation of particular events in some cases reflected knowledge of certain common narrative strategies, such as dreams as a device for explaining a fantastic occurrence. For example, when asked what happened to the stall that sold Rory the magic duvet and then disappeared in The Mean Team, Rafiq suggested: 'maybe it was just a dream, the story might have been a dream'. His response also shows an ability to use tentative language to express a possible interpretation. In their research on response to visual texts, Arizpe and Styles (2003) found that children responding to visual texts began to use more and more tentative language (such as, 'they might be' or 'perhaps' as they undertook their explorations rather than expressing inflexible opinions (this also reflects findings specifically related to ethnic minority groups from Mines 2000). This opens the text not only for the reader but for the other participants in the group.

They also engaged with each other and often negotiated meanings with others in the group. As pupils struggled to make sense of the texts during the small group sessions, they also expressed their opinions and doubts. What follows is an example of the way in which the group interacted, exchanging ideas and opinions and referring to the text and others for evidence:

Hashid: I don't think there really is a kelpie.
Usman: It's her face.
Rasha: She's scare[d].
Hashid: Yes, she's scared of her own reflection.
Datse: But she went and saw him with her eyes, a ghost!
[they all go back to first picture of kelpie]
Datse: Oh yes, it's her, maybe she's never seen herself in the mirror.
Researcher: But a mirror is clear, you know it's yourself, but this is a dark pool and the men had said there was a ghost.
Precious: Yes, if someone says something you think it's going to happen.
Datse: Oh!
[Researcher continues reading to the end of the story]
[laughter]
Datse: Yeah.
Hashid: That's a nice story.
Rasha: She no want to listen to her mum.
Datse: This is what happens if you don't listen to your mum, you get bad things.
Precious: You get something bad coming to you.

The researcher's input was minimal, to clarify what the text had said. It led the children to express their own conclusions by the end of the story, adding to what the others had said to arrive at a satisfying explanation and, in this case, a moral.

It is interesting to note that the children seemed to be looking for 'morals' when interpreting what the texts were about. For example, during the discussion about The Mean Team, we asked what they thought the author was trying to tell us. Rather than referring to the friendship with an 'alien', they referred to Rory's bad habits of committing fouls 'don't play so rough'. However, Precious was also able to make a joke of it: 'never buy magic duvets'.

6.3.6 Questioning the text

Pupils freely asked questions when they did not understand a word or when they found that something did not make sense, either in the text or the illustrations. This is significant not only because it means that they were not afraid to reveal they hadn't understood but also because they did not hesitate to challenge the text if they felt there was something wrong with it. For example, Gabriel revealed a concern with what seems to be a small detail but is actually a detail which determines the reader's believing or not that the kelpie was really Janet. He wondered why, if Janet's skin was not white, it looked white in the reflection in the well. His comments also revealed an understanding of how to use English language for asking questions and speculating about answers, using terms such as 'I wonder why', 'I think I know why' and 'maybe'.

The pupils also questioned the text when characters did not act according to their expectations. For example, speaking about the grandmother taking Janet back to the well, Abdul asks, reflects and then finds an answer to his doubts:

Abdul: I found this kind of strange because like her family tells her not to go there and like when she goes she saw her ugly face, but they told her not to go there and then they took her there.
Researcher: Why do you think they took her there again?
Abdul: I think they took her there again to prove her wrong.

Later, he puts these words into Janet's mouth, thus showing an understanding of the way the character would speak and contributing to the dialogue: when Neylan wonders why she went back to the well on her own, Abdul answered, 'She went there to say "I proved you wrong, there you are!"'.

Questions about the texts led to discussion and in many cases it was the other pupils in the group who helped answer them, rather than waiting for the researchers to do so. For example, Jamal asked why The Mean Team for Mars had been given this title rather than "The Duvet Cover that Takes You into the Future" and Rafiq replied that it was because 'they don't want to tell you so much… you'd know everything… there'd be no point'. This shows his understanding of the way titles work, giving a hint but not giving away the whole story. Datse also wondered whether the man who sold Rory the duvet knew it was magic. Usman said he did because he foretold that Rory would score three goals. Datse then made the practical point that in that case, the duvet would have cost more than £9!

6.3.7 Humour and comedy

Loud laughter accompanied the reading of the story of 'Wee Grantie' and the comic texts in class, both from the Scottish and the ethnic minority pupils (with the exception of Maisha who found the language too difficult to follow). In the other texts as well, the pupils were able to understand the comic elements, particularly in The Mean Team, 'Blethertoun Rovers', 'Wee Grantie' and, of course, in the Oor Wullie and The Broons episodes. They mentioned they enjoyed 'funny' texts, such as the Simpsons, Asterix and other comics and cartoons. Precious, for example, described The Mean Team as a 'good' book 'because it was funny' and there was general laughter during the reading, such as when the author mentions Rory's 'Arden United ' underpants and when he dives into the duvet.

Perhaps following the cue from one of the researchers that 'Blethertoun Rovers' was meant to be a 'funny' poem, the groups of ethnic minority children laughed as the poem was read even though they did not understand many of the Scots words. The researcher's explanations helped, but it was mainly the illustration that aided their understanding. They pointed out the comic elements in the illustration of each player, debating which was 'the funniest' and wondering how such an ill-assorted lot could play football at all. However, when the researcher asked 'But do you think maybe some Scottish people would find it funny?' opinions were divided and some said they thought they'd be annoyed, sad or upset. Precious said they might 'go to the author and say "how dare you say this about Scottish football, it's not true!"'. None of them mentioned the word 'stereotype' but Precious then continued, trying to express her thoughts about this when she said:

when somebody read this poem about something like about other, like about say if you read a poem about someone who's fat, they might say like every Scottish person is too thin or too fat or something, that wouldn't be true because we all have different personalities and different kinds of weight.

6.3.8 Illustrations

The illustrations were crucial to the readers who found English and Scots difficult to understand. Through them they were able to enter the text and talk about it. Most of their inferences and deductions were made through the illustrations, when these were present. The Scottish pupils also used the illustrations when making their comments: for example, when discussing why the 'punk' mum dresses like that, one Scottish girls said, 'When you look at the front cover, Mum looks young; young people like differet styles'.

The images for the texts in Blethertoun Braes were also carefully observed by the small group participants. Without being asked, they began to point out the different football players to each other and comment on their appearance:

Datse: [This is] very bad, look at this yellow guy.
Rasha: Look at him!
Datse: They look unhealthy!
[…]
Rasha: How can he run for football?
Hashid: I think it's him who can't hit the door.
[…]
Usman: He's the funniest, see.
Rasha: He's got the chicken pox.
[…]
Hashid: This guy's face is like a ghost.

The texts in the My Mum's a Punk anthology did not have illustrations, yet some of the images were so vibrant that, with some help, most ethnic minority pupils were able to understand them. In the case of 'Wee Grantie', the researcher asked the whole class which picture they could see most clearly in their minds, some of the replies were the following: 'Jaz in the bushes laughing', 'Grantie skidding on the bike', 'getting dropped head first'. Some of their drawings revealed just how clearly they had seen these images in their heads.

Once we had drawn the pupils' attention to Mairi Hedderwick as the illustrator of Janet Reachfar, there was a discussion about the pictures:

Researcher: Yes. She does both the words and the pictures. What do you think of the pictures in this one, did you like them?
Datse: They're good.
Several: Yeah [all speaking at once about what they liked]
Datse: This picture where is it, see the people from the farm they look like real things, like the grass made of shapes/
Precious: […?] like shiny water/
Datse: When some people draw in books they look like real persons, sometimes, they look like real.
[…]
Researcher: What was your favourite picture?
Datse: I like this one, I like to draw things that are outside, make up things you know sky and woods/
[…]
Researcher: How does this one make you feel?
Hashid: This one is scary and spooky [referring to Black Rory].

In general, the pictures generated many excited comments. They enjoyed the fact that some of the books had illustrations and they appreciated that the 'comic book' style in The Mean Team made it easier for them. The discussion led to comments about their own creative attempts at drawing and they began to notice how the illustrator had helped create the atmosphere through the pictures.

6.3.9 Awareness of the author/illustrator

The pupils made very few comments about the authors and illustrators of the texts. We introduced each book with a short comment on the author, particularly about the fact that they were Scottish and from a certain part of Scotland. In general, pupils tended to find the idea of authors and illustrators rather vague. There had been no comments or questions about authors or illustrators until we mentioned the fact that Mairi Hedderwick had also illustrated the Katie Morag series:

Researcher: […] and the person who illustrated this book, Mairi Hedderwick, she wrote the Katie Morag stories so she paints in this style so although she didn't write this story she did do the pictures.
Datse: Who is illustrator? Who is the illustrator? [looking at cover]
Researcher: The illustrator is the person who draws the pictures, the author writes the story and the illustrator draws the pictures.
Precious: Can you be an illustrator and [an] author?
Researcher: Yes you can and Mairi Hedderwick does that for the Katie Morag stories.
Precious: That's a hard job to do.

This finding signals a need for more work to be done with authors and illustrators to make them more 'real' for their audience and to point out to children that they are people who work hard to produce their books but that it is also possible for them to write or draw creatively.

6.3.10 Audience awareness and critical judgements

Judgements were expressed by both Scottish and ethnic minoritychildren, who were quick to demonstrate their enjoyment of the texts. When we asked what they thought of 'Wee Grantie', for example, a dozen hands went up and responses included 'brilliant', 'excellent', 'funny' and 'exciting'. The pupils told us which bits they had liked the best, most of them being the comic situations such as when Grantie was desperately trying to keep up with the others on his bike or kicking up the mud in the water. Surprisingly, not only did Maisha also volunteer to answer but her favourite bit was not one we expected to hear: 'I liked the bit when he talks about girls wanted to see his body'. This made us realize that she was following and understanding the text more than we had thought she could and that she was able to appreciate the humour as much as her classmates. When the researcher asked what made 'Wee Grantie' a good story, there were also a lot of hands and the following answers reveal the criteria that are important for these young readers:

Boy: It was dead funny.
Abdul: Just like a true story.
Boy: It was written in the first person.
Girl: It was a good story because of the way he talked.

Although there were fewer more critical observations about the texts among the ethnic minority pupils, they demonstrated their enjoyment and some of them vocalized it. Speaking of The Mean Team, we asked the small groups what they had noticed about the way the story is written. The responses showed they appreciated the way Anderson had made the story more accessible for child readers:

Hashid: His language… like he writes in kid's language, you know, like he doesn't speak like adults.
Researcher: Does it help that it had the speech bubbles?
Hashid: That made it clearer.
[Precious?]: Children can read it better, when adults are reading it to children you have to make sure […] that kids understand and […?] not use long words.
Datse: I like the speech bubbles the most [when] you read all the story.
[Usman?]: It's like a comic.

Precious was able to think about the text in terms of other readers: 'It's really good that it's got aliens in it, kids will like it but some kids would like, I don't know […?] like more people and make it funnier'. She also used both the terms 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' in an attempt to describe the story's move from the 'real' world to the 'alien' world. The ability to make judgements that are sustained by the text and to be aware of possible audience responses is a skill that develops with reading extensively and through work with texts in school. It is an essential skill for children if they are to become critical readers of the multiple texts and images that surround them.

6.4 Scots Language Issues

The texts using Scots language were a novelty in all the schools, both in the whole class and in the groups. In the first place, both the indigenous Scots and the ethnic minority pupils thought the language of the stories was 'slang'. Like Tomaj, talking about 'Tigger', the pupils thought the authors writing in Scots had 'catched the language well', but to them, it reflected the 'slang' that most people used outside the classroom. This perception of Scots as 'slang' is not surprising, given the complex cultural and political history of Scotland. It has also been noted by Matthew Fitt, editor of the Itchy Coo series of Scottish texts for children, on his many in-service visits to primary and secondary schools. This is currently being explored by him in the context of raising the literacy performance and motivation of disaffected P7 boys (in particular) in a current Scots language project at Letham Primary, Livingston (see www.literatureinlearning.org for an outline of this work). Recent academic studies of the issue include the Scottish CILT survey Language and Literacy Policy in Scotland by J. Lo Bianco (2001), and J. Corbett's chapter on 'Language Planning and Modern Scots' in The Edinburgh Companion to Scots (2003), both of whom emphasise status building as a key focus in maintenance of minority languages such as Scots.

The teachers in STJ commented that although they had occasionally read nursery rhymes and fairy tales in Scots, Robert Burn's poems, and songs by a Glaswegian folksinger, Matt McGinn, it was the first time most of the children had encountered written 'Scots'. When talking to the teachers about children's perceptions of Scots they said that

D: […] even in conversation they notice right away what is Scottish and what is not Scottish. Yes they are very clear on Scottish accents, the way people in Scotland speak and the words we use and how different it is from the rest of the country.
W: They are very aware as well, a lot of the children, of the difference between how we speak Scottish and how the people here in Pollokshaws speak Scottish because it's […] broader and peppered with lots of interesting expletives all the time!

Teacher and pupil attitudes to Scots language were also explored. When we asked what they thought the children made of the texts with Scots words, one of the teachers said that 'they would enjoy it, it would make sense to them to see the words written on the page and connect the words with what they hear, it would make sense to them'. She thought the children had responded positively to the materials the researcher's had brought in and thought 'it would be good to use it more with them'. However, both she and the other teacher were cautious:

D: I think we need to give them a grounding in English first and then Scots so maybe it's something for P7s who are maybe stage 3 or stage 4 learners of English but not for children who are like Rasha. She's only been here for under a year, she's still very much getting to grips with English so maybe it's better to get a good grasp of English then they'll be interested in similarities and differences as well and they'll get more into it.

W: I think if you've been here long enough to have a grasp of spoken English and you've been around to hear Scots spoken then to see this stuff written down like when they've got more word attack skills that would make more sense to them, but for even say kids in English who have a fairly good grasp of spoken English to come up here and be confronted with a text like that without having something to connect it to I don't think it would [be a good thing].

The pupils also had something to say about this, particularly Rasha who reflected her mother's attitude to Scots, one perhaps shared by other immigrant parents who want their children to learn 'proper English':

Researcher: […] What about Scottish?
Rasha: Scottish no, it's not good […] because the language, when somebody tell and the Scottish is different word, I tell 'WHAT?', then I can't/
Researcher: You get confused.
Rasha Yes.
[…]
Rasha: See my Mum she don't want to I learn from Scottish you know why because is so bad you want to say 'silly' you have to say in Scottish 'daft' […].

One of the teachers also thought the parents might wonder what point there was in learning Scots.

The pupils, however, showed some keenness to explore Scots language. When we gave them notebooks to write down anything 'Scottish' they observed or heard or read in the time between our visits, Rasha, with the help of a Scottish classmate, made a list of Scottish words (and some not so Scottish slang) and their English equivalent. Overleaf is part of her list:

Neylan, who herself had a strong Scottish accent, also put together a long list of words, 'translating' them and commenting how often Scots used these terms, for example:

This list reveals not only a keen ear for the different sounds of Scottish words and what they mean but also careful observation of when and how often they are used. She mentioned that she liked watching videos, including Scottish films. She said that even if she didn't understand some of the words, she'd ask what they meant or try to imagine what they meant (she couldn't name any film in particular). Several pupils mentioned they watched the television soap River City, and the teachers suggested some may have picked up their accents from this programme.

The boys in Highmont also discussed and tried to imitate Scottish sounds. Tomaj pointed out that some words sounded German and that Scottish speakers miss out the 'g' in 'ing' endings. Rafiq was able to identify 'kelpie' (a word he had never come across before) as a Scottish word because 'it sounds like one', which suggests that immigrant children develop and ear for the sounds used in Scots. Umay had a few on her list, phonetically written, like Rasha above. She also included a translation in brackets: 'wid' (would), 'ryt' (ok), 'yiz' (youz) and 'jist' (just). The children enjoyed discussing the way Scottish people spoke and offered many oral examples such as 'cannae dae it', 'no a wisnae' and 'wan'.

Immigrant children need to learn to distinguish between 'Scots' language, popular 'slang' and 'bad words', something many Scottish children themselves find difficult to do. For example, referring to Rory's accident in The Mean Team, we asked what Scottish people would say when something went wrong. Instead of the expected 'och', Rafiq suggested 'oh man!' Several of the immigrant children remarked that Scottish people swear a lot. As Neylan wrote in her notebook: 'Mostly the Scottish people when they talk they always swear tell bad words.'

The teacher at SJK thought that although the spelling was unfamiliar, most of the pupils, both Scots and ethnic minority, had enjoyed 'Wee Grantie'

W: […] because of the language the boys used, especially the boys, in the Pollock region, I think they identified […] the phrases that were used, they picked up on them really quickly and identified them as something that they would use.

After reading this story we asked the class to either describe what would happen if 'Wee Grantie' came in through the door of their classroom or to draw a picture of him. In their texts and pictures the ethnic minority children incorporated Scottish words and spelling as well as showing and understanding of the plot and sympathy for the boy, for example:

If wee Grantie was joining us in our school he will be a wee bit silly and anoying to other children But I will not treat him like the children in the book. Datse

Hello I'm Grantie. See yesterday when I came to school I saw a lovely girl called Karen Aitchison. The people always think Im a pain in the neck when I talk two much. I've got lots of Pals. Some times ma Pals wind me up. One day I was swimming in the pool and ma Pals took ma claes a way.
Hashid

Scots was also included in many of the other drawings the pupils in all three schools made for us. ¹⁹

Classroom activities can help to clarify language usage in Scots and English. The researchers asked the ethnic minority pupils to fill in one of the final (blanked out) speech bubbles in an Oor Wullie episode where Wullie, having been given extra homework as a punishment for reading the Beano in school instead of his textbook, is caught by his pals reading his history book in the gang hut instead of the Beano. The pupils had to imagine, in Scots, what his pals were saying to him as they kicked him out of their shed. At first, Rafiq and Gabriel used English 'How dare you read a history book!' and 'Get out of here, you are banned forever'. After thinking about it, though, Rafiq came up with 'Go away, you wee lassie!', explaining that this was because 'girls always work' (an interesting gender comment which we did not at the time pursue). After hearing the others, Gabriel also changed his suggestion to 'Get oot o' here you wee TP [teacher's pet]!' Neylan's suggestion was expressed in a perfect Scottish accent: 'Och you get out of here, you've brought shame to the Fat Boab's shed. Get oot o' here, yi bring shame tae us!'

It was clear that indigenous Scottish pupils were very much aware of the difference between their usual language and how they were expected to talk at school. As one girl said: 'It's different at school, you're not supposed to talk like this but we do in the interval.' Therefore, reading a text in Scots was both enjoyable and a recognition of 'their language' in print - in other words, if it was in a book, it was not just 'slang'. However, they did mention that they sometimes found it difficult to understand the words because of the way they were 'spelled' because it made them look different from the way they sounded. This seemed to happen even if the dialect words used were not exactly the same ones they used themselves or they heard from their families.

During one session, the researcher tried to 'translate' a bit of a poem from the Blethertoun Braes anthology into English and asked what difference it would make if these poems were written in English. Most pupils thought it did make a difference; the reasons they gave for it was better in Scottish were that 'it's more entertaining', 'it's funny', 'it rhymes better', 'it sounds better', 'more special', 'more individual', 'it makes a challenge to read' and tellingly, 'it makes it more exciting cause it's in our language'. Referring to the language in 'Wee Grantie', one boy said it made the story 'funnier' and more 'believable'. Echoing the teacher at SJK, the teacher at STM said she thought the boys in particular 'identified' with the language and context of the texts, and she was surprised that we had kept the attention of even the more disruptive Scottish boys during the whole class sessions with the texts. Again, this links with Matthew Fitt's research referred to at the start of this section.

Despite the difficulties of sounds and spelling, we found that even the ethnic minority pupils were interested in understanding the Scots words and were happy to have a go at working out meanings and at pronouncing some of the words they encountered. They were also able to identify some words as 'Scottish', as opposed to English, even though they did not always know what they meant.

6.5 Scottish Stories, Themes and Images

Living in Scotland means coming into contact with Scots language, but also hearing, interpreting and assimilating both English and Scottish 'stories', from oral, written and media sources. Even pupils who had been here for less than a year were already making references to these stories, some of which were coming from school. Rasha, for example, told us she had told her brother a bedtime story about Biff and Chip, the characters in her school reading book.

Our data points to the significant consequences of reading and discussing Scottish children's literature with children in Scottish schools. It is not because these texts are better written than any other British children's literature or because they contain Scots language rather than English, but because they provide a very specific site for pupils to explore issues of identity and culture: an enjoyable path into the stories of the country in which they now live and a 'safe' space to talk about their own stories. For example, these Scottish texts we chose did provoke discussion about how and when we use particular local language forms, about codes of behaviour and relationships, about the values inherent in arguments or the consequences that follow from the decisions we make.

Although we have said that there is nothing essentially 'better' about the use of Scottish texts, of course there is a sense in which only Scottish texts will do. For this is the non-Standard English of the playground and the street - subversive, quick-witted, rough and ready - that immigrant children have to learn in order to 'belong', and that native-born Scottish children of whatever ethnic origin also speak or understand

If we imagine a Venn diagram with the child at the centre of interlocking circles of Standard English (the language of power and learning), Home language (the language of roots and ethnic identity), and Scots language (the language of new or potential identity and local culture), then it is plain that Scots texts and language can achieve effects that other texts cannot, since they touch the complex actualities and tensions of the refugee's present linguistic world, and, in the way of all creative texts, gather them into a temporary and pleasurable unity. It may be worth noting that both researchers were themselves working out of a migrant consciousness and sense of cultural difference, as well as an enjoyment and appreciation of Glasgow and its people. This was, we hoped, clear to all the children in the project.

As for the stories we read with the children, their responses show how they were able to both empathize and identify with the characters, but also to transpose the events and other elements to other cultures. For example, talking about Janet Reachfar, the children were asked:

Researcher: […] If this story took place in another country what else would be different about it, maybe words?
Precious: If it was in Asia or Pakistan it would be like hot, maybe they say it's a 'sun monster' or a 'hot monster', a 'fire monster' or something.

The supernatural or 'monster' theme was continued with two poems from Blethertoun Braes, 'Hauntit Park' and 'The Werewolf'. In STM, these poems were used with the whole class near Halloween which meant that they were easily set in context. A kelpie appears in the poem and in the discussion Neylan referred to the kelpie that appeared in Janet Reachfar. After reading and discussing the poems, we asked the pupils to draw their own 'Scottish monster', giving them the example of a 'porridge monster'. The responses were very creative and revealing of what some children felt were salient aspects of Scottish culture, such as the creature with the 'rubbish' tail mentioned above. One Scottish pupil drew 'Chipzilla' and 'Mr Tea'. The chip monster wears a tartan kilt, has 'super fried' eggs for ears, a sausage tongue, chip arms and legs, an Irn Bru bottle for a tail and wields a Kebab Club with which he 'wants to destroy all chipeys'. He is saying 'I'll batter yay!' Mr Tea has three spoonfuls of sugar inside and Nambarie tea boxes for feet. He has vicious eyes and teeth and says 'one lump ur twa'. There was also a 'Celtic porridge monster' wearing the green and white team colours and Neylan created a comic but rather aggressive 'Irn Bru Bottle' monster with a very 'big mouth' and long nails. ²⁰

Several monsters were thistles, interestingly, or included thistles. The symbolism of this plant had been discussed during the reading because it appears in one of the poems. It had also been discussed with some of the ethnic minority pupils when reading Janet Reachfar. Most pupils were aware there were many in Scotland, and Rafiq and Jamal described it a spiky dandelion or a cactus. When we asked why it was a 'Scottish clue' Rafiq said it was because many grew in Scotland and the country was quite famous for it.

The researcher suggested that the thistle might represent Scotland: 'maybe it just grows well here or Scottish people are prickly and lose their temper easily'. One fierce monster had a thistle for a head, wore a kilt and carried a ' peashooter bagpipe'. Sirwa drew a large, carefully detailed thistle with what she called 'creasy eyes' on the head of the thistle. The most impressive and skilfully drawn thistle monster, however, was drawn by a Scottish boy. The plant spreads over a whole page and seems to jump out from it, waving its spiky, leafy arms. The spikes are matched by a deep purple crown. On the stripy thistle head, yellow eyes with pointed red pupils glare above an open red mouth showing sharp white teeth. This aggressive portrait may be the result of the discussion which concluded that the thistle may be the national flower of Scotland because it is 'jaggy', 'hard' and 'tough' and has the potential to cause harm.

On the subject of monsters, an interesting response came from Datse who was so keen to learn and to assimilate into her new culture. As we mentioned above, from the beginning she was very concerned about the stories being true or not. She could not see 'the point of having Scotland monsters' like the Loch Ness Monster, if they were not true. In might be that in her attempts to assimilate she felt there was no point learning things that are not true about the country she was now living in. When I asked whether it helps to read stories about other countries, she insisted:

Datse: […] but things that are not true, like people read these stories, it's good when you read true stories but not about monsters, maybe people that have never been anywhere they go how can they go to Scotland there's monsters there! [laughter]

Datse may also be influenced by her mother's views on what was suitable reading at school. When she told her mother she had read the poem 'My Mum's a Punk', her mother wondered why she was reading about 'punks and people like this'. When Datse told her there were people coming to her school 'and teaching us about Scottish' her mother seemed happy with the explanation, or at least Datse did not report on any negative response to her learning 'about Scottish'.

How Scottish pupils regard their own Scottish identity was also revealed, perhaps, in some of the drawings we asked them to make in order to 'update' the Broon family. As mentioned above, first we discussed why The Broons and Oor Wullie were 'old-fashioned'. Then they drew and described what a Scottish family would look like today. Although some merely created a family and gave them names and ages, a few went a bit further such as one Scottish boy who drew the 'Nesbit family' (presumably linked to the Glaswegian television comedy series and its eponymous anti-hero, which was actually filmed partly in the neighbourhood of the school). There is no mother (maybe he ran out of time) but there is a father, Joe, with thick arms who is saying 'Ma sons are perfect'. The sons, 'Bobe Burne' and 'Alexandre' also have thick arms. Bobe is wearing what seems to be a Burberry cap and a shell suit with 'Lacoste' written in very large letters and the alligator logo. He's got a scar (a Glasgow smile?) and is saying 'Whit you lookin it'.

Another drawing shows a more cartoon style (similar to South Park figures) family 'The Macaroons'. Nine members sit above the name, just like the Broon family. In the centre of the page is Muncher who asks 'Have you got any cream cake?' Below are Coronel with a wide moustache and wearing military gear saying 'Ten hut!' and next to him is Coolick, a smaller boy, with a pronounced cow lick, who remarks 'Dude'. These and other drawings of the families reveal a remarkable mixture of stereotypes (all except one have two parents), fashion, popular culture, coming from both old (the Broons) and new texts (South Park, Simpsons), and language ('Coo lick'). Some of the 'perfect' families described also suggest some stereotypical American television families: modern, happy and beautiful. For example, one Scottish girl described 'The MacLeods' as follows:

Mum: Kirsty. 33, dyed blonde hair, light tan, blue eyes, designer glasses, pregnant. Works in an office as a manageress.
Dad: Dave, 34, dark, thick hair, really tanned, green eyes, contact lenses. Works [as] swimming coach.
Daughter: Lindsay, blonde hair, blue eyes, light tan, 13 years old, braces […]

If this family lives in Glasgow, either they have enough money to take frequent holidays to sunny places or they spend quite a lot of time in tanning parlours! ²¹

When we read The Mean Team we asked the children how they would make this text 'more Scottish'. They suggested having 'more Scottish words', using a real football team's name, like Dundee or Aberdeen United, or adding 'things you can get most in Scotland, like mountains and rivers and stuff'. Rafiq gave an example of using Scots: 'Mr Mint could have said to him "Rory, don't dae that"'. When asked why the author had not made it more Scottish their replies reflected an awareness of the difficulties for different audiences:

Rafiq: Maybe it's for small children and they wouldn't understand the Scottish words
Datse: To make it more interesting for maybe other people who came [from] other countries.
Usman: To make it more understanding, for some people it would be harder to understand.

All of these children agreed that reading a story about another culture helped them to understand that culture better, mainly through the language and 'the scene' of that particular country. However, Datse was concerned that the stories had to be 'true', otherwise the reader would get the wrong idea about a country (like there being monsters in Scotland). Her concern about the 'truth' also came up when the researcher explained that we were going to read a poem set in a town called 'Blethertoun Braes': she asked, 'Is that true? Is there really a town called this?'

Mostly, however, they said that reading a story in English was useful because it helps them learn English. According to Rasha, however, the same did not apply to Scottish stories because the language was just confusing, yet she did agree that reading a Scottish book would help the reader learn about Scotland. They could have added that through shared reading and discussion it can also introduce the readers to all kinds of 'stories' from other cultures, as the mixed group works together to make sense of the new story in the light of past reading or life experience.

6.6 Making Sense of Identity: Stories of Origin

We found that ethnic minority pupils' response to Scottish literature involves the story of their own identities and the interpretative practices they have acquired as well as their perceptions of their host culture. Books, through words and pictures, help construct bridges across cultural gaps but it is in the discussions with others about texts, particularly when there is a sense of empathy and support, that new levels of understanding can be reached.

Among the stories we are told and that we tell ourselves is the story of our own identity. When we have left our native country or community behind and have migrated to new ones, new twists and turns and new layers of meaning are added to these stories. Listening to the stories of others helps us understand our own better, and to make connections with those other storytellers. As Margaret Spencer Meek writes:

[…] we know that, whatever language we speak, any person with whom we can communicate is not an alien. Culture and history are part of our imagination; they constitute the Big Narrative, the story we are all part of.
(Spencer Meek 2002: 1)

Experiences at home and school, in both the heritage country and new country, affected the way in which these ethnic minority pupils imagined their identity. The children seemed to understand that all of them were affected by issues of 'belonging' even though they did not often voice them directly. This was clear in the way they not only offered linguistic support when someone in the group was talking about their experiences and backgrounds, but also contributed with encouraging nods and sympathetic interventions as they perhaps recognized bits of their own stories in those of others. They were aware of the presence of other ethnic minorities and that many refugees had come 'because there's lots of wars in their countries', as Precious bluntly put it. She also made a comment which suggests some of these pupils were also aware of the international political tensions and of their parent's views: 'See, my Mum says that the Americans, the president of America, he's the one that's causing all the wars, that's what she says'. On the other hand, Rasha remarked that she would like to go and live in America because her grandfather had told her 'many things are good in America'.

Many interventions began with the phrase: 'in my country…' regardless of how long the ethnic minority children had been in Scotland. These comments were usually about daily activities such as obtaining water or going to school and comparisons were made between 'here' and 'there'. However, we often sensed an underlying sadness and fear which were not made explicit. Datse spoke of having lived in Latvia, Belgium and England before coming to Scotland and of how she did not want to move anymore: 'I just want to grow up here'. At no point in the interviews did she volunteer any information about her family being Romany, perhaps due to fear of prejudice. Precious's story about her mother's life in Rwanda, for example, is not very clear and seems to have somehow become confusingly intertwined with stories she has heard in this country, pasting bits of British stories encountered in the classroom on to her own:

Precious: See, my Mum was a Victorian
Researcher: What?
Precious: Well not so long ago, she was alive in 1980 something […?]
Datse: She couldn't be/
Precious: Well she was three and you know that chimney sweep thing […] my mum's mum died as well and then my mum didn't have a mum so she had her cousins' mum and she had 5 children and she died as well.
Datse: Oh! [in sympathy]
Precious: So my mum had to look after the five children, her cousins, like that.

The fact that many of their families will actually be leaving Scotland as soon as they get their permission to stay in Britain was another factor which contributes to the complexity and instability of identity construction among these immigrant children, according to their teachers. Most of the asylum-seeking families were sent to Scotland as part of the dispersal programme. Most have neither family nor extended community networks here. As soon as they are allowed to stay, they go back to England, to London and other cities with large communities such as Manchester or Birmingham. In the meantime their time in Scotland is clouded by the possibility of deportation, of being forcefully removed from their houses and sent back to countries where they feel their lives are in danger.

If Scotland may be the country that sends them back, it is not surprising that they do not begin to feel 'Scottish' no matter how long they've been here; on the contrary, this may make them cling to their original identities and avoid integrating. Fear of racist attacks and violence is, of course, another motive, given that they are usually housed in socially problematic areas.

We asked the children whether they felt Scottish in any way and, if not, if they thought they ever would. The girls in particular said their mothers did not want them to become 'Scottish', citing the 'bad' behaviour of many Scottish young people - swearing, fighting, drinking, or taking drugs - as a reason. After writing that Scottish people often swear, Neylan continued:

But I am not trying to say all of the peoples are like that. There are some families and old people that is very helpful kind like the old people in my flat. The things I like about Glasgow is: I can be friends very easily, some people are very helpful kind too.

However, there was also a general feeling of resignation in the children. They seemed to be aware that they had little control over where they were going to live, that this was up to their families or even to circumstances beyond them. They seemed to know they had to adapt and make the best of their situation, learning the new language and the new culture.

In answer to the researcher's question about whether and when they thought the immigrant children began to see themselves as 'Scottish', the teachers at SJK were doubtful:

D: No I don't think they do.
W: I'm trying to think. Last week I was talking to X, 'Do you think you're African or do you think you're Scottish?' […] he actually had to think about it, I don't think he quite knew what to say, actually, I think he thought he'd been asked a right and wrong answer question, to be honest, he thought I've got to say the right answer here, he didn't think he'd been asked an opinion.

As for the Pakistani boys, Rafiq, who has been in Scotland for 8 of his 11 years, said that when people asked him where he was from, he usually answered 'Pakistan'. When we asked if he thought this might change as he lived here longer, he did not have an answer. It seemed it was the first time he had thought about it. His view of Pakistan was contradictory, he had left very young but had gone back about two years ago:

It's safe there. I remember when I was three I used to climb high walls with no fear, there's no fear of anyone kidnapping you cos […] the population was small so everyone knew everyone […] It was safe, there was no problem, but now the population's growing […]

He was also aware that while there was new technology, there were still many problems such as poverty. He pointed out that people still worked long hours and earned very little compared to Britain.

In our first interview with Hashid we asked him where he was from:

Hashid: My mum's from Pakistan but I'm not.
Researcher: So where are you from? When people ask you where you're from?
Hashid: [pause] I say Pakistan.
Researcher: Do you feel you are Scottish as well?
Hashid: I don't know.

During the second interview, Hashid said he preferred Pakistan to Scotland, but by the third interview he seemed to have had more time to think about his national identity:

Researcher: Both of you go back [to Pakistan for holidays], but if you stay here will you feel more Scottish and you'll say: this is my country?

Hashid: This is my country anyway!
Usman: That's where he was born.
Hashid: Like my Mum and my Dad were born there, my uncle, my grandpa […] I said to my Mum, 'I'm confused here, which country am I born in Pakistan or here?' and she says, 'Here you stupid fool'! [general laughter]
Researcher: So how Scottish do you feel? Equally Scottish and Pakistani or more Pakistani than Scottish?
Usman: You feel confused.
Hashid: I'm both.
Usman: I think half of my life I'll spend it here and half of my life I'll spend it there, so both.

Hashid's mixed feelings may be a result of clashesor discrepancies between parental expectations for him and the mainstream culture of the country he was born in. Not only was he training to be an imam, but he was not allowed to mix with his peers during lunch break. His mother would bring him and his siblings their food and they would all eat in the car outside the school. The teachers confirmed that other Muslim children were told by their parents not to play with non-Muslim classmates; however, they claimed that they did play with them anyhow.

An interesting moment was when the researcher, Hashid and Usman were talking about some of the stories in the Qur'Än. The boys commented that some of these stories were the same 'the world over', such as the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours. Usman said 'they' also believed in Jesus, although as a prophet, not as the son of God. This tolerant attitude coincides with remarks made by their teachers that the children loved to talk about the differences in religions. Hopefully this suggests that some of these children may become more tolerant and understanding of other beliefs than their parents might be.

6.7 The Role of the School

Positive experiences in primary schools were mentioned by allthe minority children we spoke to. As the headmaster of STM said, school provided a 'safe' place for them, away from the worries and problems of the home and the future (in fact, he also said it provided a safe and reliable place for some Scottish pupils whose family life at the weekends could be very disorderly). The fact that none of the pupils mentioned their status as refugees or asylum-seekers may have been because these were issues to be confronted out of school and they did not feel like bringing them into the classroom.

From their comments, the immigrant children seemed to find their schools welcoming, both in terms of teachers and peers. Precious remarked that 'at school, it's very good when you come from a different country, they give you extra classes, extra time to learn some English'. Neylan made a Powerpoint presentation with the help of one of her Scottish classmates:

When I came to St Margaret's at first I felt scared because I didn't know how to speak English. It was good that I had one friend called Umay […] My friend Umay and other children in my class helped me. Miss Rivers, Miss Yilmaz and Miss Barley helped me to settle in so I was not lonely. […] We had some parties in the language unit. I was chosen to be a buddy! There are three Turkish children that I help and three Scottish children. […] The teachers are very helpful. There is no racism. There are people I can trust.

Language support had been received initially or in an ongoing way from teachers in the bilingual units attached to the schools, and during language tasks we observed the support they also had from their Scottish and other minority classmates. In the schools there were welcome posters and antiracist posters in several languages. Publicly displayed photographs and the Oxfam video made in STM stressed integration and the positive feelings of the Scots children towards immigrants.

The teachers in SJK described the process in which children arriving from other countries are supported until they can be integrated into the classroom with their peers. With the younger children, this was done through stories and books. Pupils were now encouraged to 'bring' their languages into the classroom and, as we said above, being bilingual was seen in a very positive light. However, they did mention that pupils still required support during their normal lessons and that most of them struggled to keep up even if it appeared they were doing well:

… they might be able to read [a class text] if they've got good word attack skills but they won't be able to comprehend it because they don't know the vocabulary […] we often find ourselves teaching in the margins because you start off reading something and then someone will ask you a question and you end up putting the book aside and doing a big chat about whatever they've said which is very valuable but you get completely off what you're supposed to be doing.

Differences between schooling in their country of origin and in Scotland were also discussed with the children. Although not all of them had been in school before coming to the United Kingdom (or had been there very few years), they all seemed to enjoy comparing the education systems. It was the three Muslim boys who were most vocal about the differences between education in 'their' country and in Scotland. From the point of view of most pupils, school in their heritage country, especially Pakistan, was much 'harder': there were longer hours and fewer and shorter breaks; the curriculum was more advanced and it began when children were in their first years at school; learning was by rote; there was tougher discipline, physical punishment and there was more homework. A few also mentioned that if you didn't do enough work you did not move up at the end of the year. Neylan explained that children who come to Scotland from other countries work harder because 'in other countries the schools were much different. We were scared [of] the teachers'. Maisha added that when she came here at the age of 8 or 9, all the teachers were so nice to her that 'I just have to learn something […] and respect them'.

Rafiq's comments about his time in nursery in Pakistan make the difference in pedagogical approaches clear, even from the start of schooling:

Rafiq: But they don't let you play [in nursery]. You don't learn by playing there. They teach you by telling you […] cos sometimes you don't learn when you are playing, your mind is full on playing.
Researcher: Is that a better way?
Rafiq: It wasn't that hard.
Researcher: When you say that they told you things, how did they do that?
Rafiq: Just like school but in miniature […] like they tell you words […] and you have to repeat them.

Later, Rafiq commented that his mother told him that children in school in Pakistan learn more difficult subjects, such as Algebra and Chemistry earlier. He thought this was a good thing 'cos young age helps you develop more, it gives you more confidence'. Rafiq also referred to the punishment methods which were worse in Pakistan but was rather dismissive about the use of metal sticks: 'Well, no-one has ever died from that. Everyone gets used to it. Some people don't even cry, they just don't think about the pain.'

A particularly revealing comment on education was made by Rafiq in the session about Oor Wullie:

Researcher: What else is Scottish about [Wullie]?
Rafiq: The way he's not that educated because he's in the outdoor life. His life is the outdoor life, not the educated inside life […] You're inside working all day.

This distinction between the outdoors/indoors and uneducated/educated, together with the comments on 'playing to learn' rather than 'being taught', is relevant to the ways that literacy is perceived in the home or community culture and in school.

Learning styles and transition issues were also raised by the texts we chose. The Oor Wullie episode brought up the subject of 'swats', 'nerds' or ' TPs' (teacher's pets). The last two terms were used by the ethnic minority children. When the researcher asked if there was a difference between being a ' TP' and working hard, Abdul said that the best way to avoid being called a TP was to 'just do your work, do it very hard and then like hang about with the cool guys so you won't be called a TP and you'll be popular.' In contrast, Abdul said that in Algeria 'children will actually make fun of you if you're dumb […] like if you are a TP you'd be the cool guy […] it's just the opposite!'

Rafiq described 'nerds' as wearing glasses because they 'have stress in their eyes from working all the time' and 'always putting their head into a book'. Rafiq's comments throw up interesting contradictions, given his comments above on 'the educated life', especially as he went on to say that in Scotland children don't play outside because of the weather but in Pakistan no one stays inside playing on the computer because 'they're always outside playing cricket or football'. There are clearly many issues related to literacy and education to explore further, such as gender, which was the subject of another of Rafiq's comments, about girls working all the time as opposed to boys.

Issues about education and schooling are clearly very important to the ethnic minority children and require more exploration, as outlined in 6.8 below. The role of the school as a safe, welcoming place is also one that needs constant highlighting. In the case of the children in our project, they were soon about to go into secondary. From their comments, this was regarded as a rather scary step. Rafiq commented that that there would be 'neds' in the high school, who might cause trouble. He added that 'if any ned hits you then the Head Teacher can throw them out of school' but he was clearly worried that they could also cause trouble 'outside it'. Research that follows children like these into secondary could throw light on what happens after this transition and why particular groups emerge, how they interact and how stories of identity continue to be shaped.

6.8 Points Emerging for Consideration

Several issues have already been identified as worthy of further investigation. Here we list some of the salient issues that emerged relating to policy and practice in schools, and will return to some of these in the Conclusion section of the report.

1. Immigrant and even Scottish children tend to react to negative stereotypes of Scottish behaviour, sometimes influenced by media images as well as by personal experience. There should be a continuing emphasis on elements of kindness, welcome, and support towards non-native Scots and 'new Scots', with involvement from the pupils themselves in articulating this for others, where possible through the use of electronic technologies and the expressive arts.
2. Internet and other electronic literacies clearly figure in the home language development and language maintenance of these pupils. Skills and opportunities for using electronic resources for primary English learning should be further explored within schools.
3. Immigrant children's use of home texts, across several languages, is an under-researched area of literacy that is worth investigation. The role of libraries within this, with a particular focus on information texts and genres in literacy development, should also be explored.
4. Home and heritage stories should be encouraged in the classroom, and teaching opportunities devised through topics and themes to make this possible. Fables and folk tales, and illustrations of these, provide a useful starting point.
5. The children's roles as interpreters for their siblings and parents in home and school contexts should be recognised, praised and supported.
6. Teachers should be made aware of the quite subtle interpretation of narrative that is possible in children whose English is still quite limited, and of the role of interactive, teacher-led small-group discussion within that process, with a focus on character, consequence, motivation, moral/theme, textual illustration and overall impact or enjoyment of the chosen text.
7. Teachers should also continue to be aware of the possibly radically different parental or pupil views (deriving from earlier schooling experience) concerning teacher-pupil relationships, pedagogy and discipline/punishment in schools.
8. The study of carefully selected and confidently read and enacted Scots language texts appears to benefit both native Scottish and immigrant pupils, because of the contexts these provide for quite wide-ranging discussions of language, culture and heritage. Knowledge about language is enhanced, and issues of identity and social change in Scotland can be sensitively discussed. This appears to have a positive impact on many youngsters (not only immigrants) who experience disjuncture between the language codes of home/playground and classroom/literacy.
9. Consideration should be given to on-going and supportive small-group work on narrative fiction with immigrant pupils, in a separate room or open space, for fairly brief periods of 20-30 minutes, even after they have attained enough 'survival English' to benefit from mainstream class lessons. Group work may alternate 'all migrant' groups with 'all Scots' and 'mixed' groups, to allow emotional connections to be made with past experience, within the shared experience of story and character.
10. Staff development on the confident classroom use of Scottish resources, including Scots language texts, and in sustaining exploratory dialogue around fiction and poetry, should be encouraged.

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