CHICAM

Visions across cultures:
migrant children using visual images to communicate

Research Findings

Media production is an important chance to integrate verbal, emotional and non-verbal forms of communication and expression. The process of making media productions in the clubs, which were a quasi-leisure space, allowed the children to explore a more varied approach to representing their experiences of migration than is normally possible in more formal educational settings. Nevertheless, how they chose to portray their experiences of migration was subtle, often requiring reading between the lines and interpreting their productions as they drew on experiences they were still processing and on individual, local, national and global symbol-systems that were not always immediately apparent.

The use that children and families made of media is directly related to their purpose and social context. Three different categories were identified:

Diaspora - where media products from the home country or region are used to maintain cultural, emotional and linguistic links with both the past and current changes occurring in countries of origin
National - where the emphasis may be on using media products to facilitate integration, make friends, negotiate new identities or acquire a new language;
Global - which was particularly important for accessing global youth culture as well as news.

There was a marked difference in home computer and Internet access across the clubs. This reflected a north/south European divide, but also an economic divide within countries. It was particularly marked that the refugee children had less access than any other group.

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