Harmony or chaos? Beliefs and practices about conflicts among naturalized refugee children in Tanzania

Abstract

The current study explored beliefs and practices on the main types and common causes of conflicts among naturalized refugee pre-primary children in rural Tanzania. A region with highest number of naturalized refugees in Tanzania was purposively selected. A total of 12 children were involved in the focus group discussion; nine classroom teachers, and three school principals from three pre-primary schools were individually interviewed. To gain insights on home contexts, six parents who had children in pre-primary classes were visited at their homes and interviewed on individual sessions. A number of policy and practical documents were critically analyzed. Findings revealed that the main types of conflicts among naturalized refugee children were teacher-induced and pupil-induced. Further, it was found that the main causes of conflicts among children of this group were related to scarcity of resources and social issues. These findings highlight that in order to ensure that naturalized refugee children are developing to their fullest potentials and integrated into a host Tanzanian society, deliberate efforts are much needed to understand common types and main causes of conflicts. This will help in devising appropriate strategies to develop children’s constructive conflict-resolution skills.

Home learning environments and family socioeconomic status: Implications on early learning attainments in Tanzania

“…More specifically, parents from this sub-group consider education an important means to remove their children from intergenerational poverty and raise their social status. These findings are consistent with those by Han et al (2012) and the Ndijuye andRao (2018, 2019). Moreover, they contribute to the ongoing debate about the role of parental beliefs, expectations and home practices in children's early development and learning in a context with an acute shortage of educational resources (Ndijuye andTandika, 2022a, 2022b).…”

“…These findings are consistent with those by Han et al (2012) and the Ndijuye andRao (2018, 2019). Moreover, they contribute to the ongoing debate about the role of parental beliefs, expectations and home practices in children's early development and learning in a context with an acute shortage of educational resources (Ndijuye andTandika, 2022a, 2022b). The role of parental beliefs in influencing children's early math and reading could be the result of positive parental beliefs towards math (Mues et al, 2022), in a predominantly paternalistic communities, fathers' beliefs about the importance of mathematics or reading (Niklas et al, 2020).…”

“…Children from this group are registered in the public schools located in their respective settlement areas or along with local rural majorities. As a distinctive minority group, the early learning attainment of children from this group in Tanzania is not documented (MoEST, 2020) hence, least known (Ndijuye andRao, 2018, 2019).…”

“…In Tanzania, studies have been conducted on early literacy and reading (Ndijuye and Rao, 2019;Shukia, 2016;) and early numeracy or both (Mmasa and Anney, 2016;Ndijuye, 2020;Trako et al, 2019). Findings indicated tremendous challenges ranging from overcrowded classrooms (Shukia, 2016) and limited culturally and developmentally appropriate instructional materials (Ndijuye and Rao, 2019) to low parental participation in children's learning activities (Ndijuye and Tandika, 2022b).…”

“…The notion of learning attainment during the early years of schooling is attracting increasing attention from policymakers, researchers, practitioners, parents and standards-based agencies (National Examination Council of Tanzania; Ndijuye, 2020; Ndijuye and Rao, 2019; UIS, 2021). Improved early learning attainment has been found to correlate with quality early childhood education, hence improving children’s cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes (Brinkman et al, 2018; McCoy et al, 2017).…”