People are increasingly moving across national borders, with 258 million international migrants worldwide in 2017. This trend is exemplified in Australian statistics, where approximately one-third of the population was identified as foreign-born in the 2016 Census. This number is high, even as compared to similar countries, and Australia is identified as having one of the largest proportions of migrants in the world. The growing diversity of the Australian population warrants increased research focused on culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) populations; however, these populations remain severely under-represented in Australian health research.
The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC; also called Footprints in Time) is the only longitudinal study of developmental outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children globally. Footprints in Time follows the development of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to understand what Indigenous children need to grow up strong. LSIC involves annual waves of data collection (commenced in 2008) and follows approximately 1,700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in urban, regional, and remote locations. This LSIC Primary School report has been produced following the release of the twelfth wave of data collection, with the majority of LSIC children having completed primary school (Preparatory [aged ~5 years] to Year 6 [aged ~12 years]). Primary schools play a central role in supporting student learning, wellbeing, and connectedness, and the Footprints in Time study provides a platform for centring Indigenous voices, connecting stories, and exploring emerging themes related to the experience of Indigenous children and families in the Australian education system. This report uses a mixed-methods approach, analysing both quantitative and qualitative data shared by LSIC participants, to explore primary school experiences from the perspective of children, parents and teachers. Analyses are framed using a strengths-based approach and are underpinned by the understanding that all aspects of life are related. The report documents a range of topics including teacher cultural competence, racism, school-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education activities, parental involvement, engagement, attendance, and academic achievement.
This study investigates the measurement invariance of a brief self-report measure of childhood social-emotional competencies, the Middle Childhood Survey: Social-Emotional Learning (MCS-SEL), across demographic subgroups. Invariance was tested simultaneously among subgroups of children aged 11–12 years that were differentiated by sex (male, female) and main language spoken at home (English, not English). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis evaluated structural and item-level invariance using two random, independent samples of 2,000 students (500 per demographic strata) selected by disproportionate sampling from the New South Wales Child Development Study (NSW-CDS) population cohort. The measure achieved full configural, metric, scalar, and residual invariance across all demographic subgroups, validating its utility for assessing middle childhood social-emotional competencies at a population-level.
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