Interviews with creative techniques: research with Russian-speaking migrant pupils

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the use of creative techniques in a study of the experiences of Russian-speaking linguistic-minority migrant children in English state-funded primary schools at Key Stage Two (7-11 years old). The methodology is based on an interpretative paradigm using a qualitative research approach: a longitudinal multiple-case study with four embedded cases (each case representing one pupil). Focusing on specific examples from the research, the paper considers the benefits of using creative techniques within interviews to generate unique data with linguistic-minority pupils, the constraints of the techniques, and possible solutions for these. The cyclic (i.e. rounds of repeated interviews) research design, which focused on the processes of change, called for systematic alternation of the techniques. I demonstrate the unique integration of board games (the ‘interview-through-game’) and the ‘filling-in exercise’ in the interviews. This enabled a continuous adjustment of the techniques by me and by the children, retaining both the systematicity and flexibility (or constraint and emergence) of the creative techniques’ development and application. This design helped to reveal the experiences/issues of the participating children, which would otherwise be challenging to explore using other methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative techniques
• interviews in research with children
• migrant Russian-speaking pupils
• linguistic minority pupils

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The terms ‘EAL’ i.e. English as an Additional Language, or ‘migrant’, or language minority (Glenn and De Jong 1996) children are used interchangeably in this paper to broadly denote individuals younger than 18 years old who have migrated with their family and are immersed in a foreign-to-them country and school, emphasising that these children’s first/dominant language (L1) is different from the national/official language of the country (L2).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the University of Leeds School of Education Research Degree Study Scholarship.