IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pmed00/1003512.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychological distress, resettlement stress, and lower school engagement among Arabic-speaking refugee parents in Sydney, Australia: A cross-sectional cohort study

Author

Listed:
  • Jess R Baker
  • Derrick Silove
  • Deserae Horswood
  • Afaf Al-Shammari
  • Mohammed Mohsin
  • Susan Rees
  • Valsamma Eapen

Abstract

Background: Schools play a key role in supporting the well-being and resettlement of refugee children, and parental engagement with the school may be a critical factor in the process. Many resettlement countries have policies in place to support refugee parents’ engagement with their children’s school. However, the impact of these programs lacks systematic evaluation. This study first aimed to validate self-report measures of parental school engagement developed specifically for the refugee context, and second, to identify parent characteristics associated with school engagement, so as to help tailor support to families most in need. Methods and findings: The report utilises 2016 baseline data of a cohort study of 233 Arabic-speaking parents (77% response rate) of 10- to 12-year-old schoolchildren from refugee backgrounds across 5 schools in Sydney, Australia. Most participants were born in Iraq (81%) or Syria (11%), and only 25% spoke English well to very well. Participants’ mean age was 40 years old, and 83% were female. Confirmatory factor analyses were run on provisional item sets identified from a literature review and separate qualitative study. The findings informed the development of 4 self-report tools assessing parent engagement with the school and school community, school belonging, and quality of the relationship with the schools’ bilingual cultural broker. Cronbach alpha and Pearson correlations with an established Teacher–Home Communication subscale demonstrated adequate reliability (α = 0.67 to 0.80) and construct and convergent validity of the measures (p

Suggested Citation

  • Jess R Baker & Derrick Silove & Deserae Horswood & Afaf Al-Shammari & Mohammed Mohsin & Susan Rees & Valsamma Eapen, 2021. "Psychological distress, resettlement stress, and lower school engagement among Arabic-speaking refugee parents in Sydney, Australia: A cross-sectional cohort study," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-22, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:1003512
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003512
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003512&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003512?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O'Toole Thommessen, Sara Amalie & Todd, Brenda K., 2018. "How do refugee children experience their new situation in England and Denmark? Implications for educational policy and practice," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 228-238.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ioanna Katsounari & Phivos Phylactou & Helena Heracleous, 2021. "Determinants of Non-Performing Loans in Greece: the intricate role of fiscal expansion," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 161, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    2. Abdullah, Alhassan & Mbamba, Crispin R. & Amponsah, Enoch B. & Frederico, Margarita & Cudjoe, Ebenezer & Bentum, Hajara & Emery, Clifton R., 2023. "Safeguarding the welfare of refugee children in Ghana: Perspectives of practitioners in refugee camps," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Sabine Andresen & Sascha Neumann & Ulrich Schneekloth, 2021. "How Children in Germany Experience Refugees: A Contribution From Childhood Studies," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(5), pages 2045-2064, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:1003512. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosmedicine (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.