Cross-Cultural Challenges for Migrant Children in Australian STEM

This report investigates the cross-cultural challenges faced by migrant children in adapting to the Australian STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum. The research addresses the problem statement that migrant children encounter various difficulties stemming from cultural differences, impacting their performance in STEM. The objectives include analyzing literature on these challenges and evaluating recommendations for improvement. The study's rationale emphasizes the importance of understanding these obstacles to enhance migrant children's academic learning. The literature review highlights issues like racism, cultural conflicts, communication barriers, and the potential of STEM to mitigate these challenges by promoting visual communication and cultural understanding. The methodology employs a quantitative research design and literature review, utilizing secondary data from various sources. The report aims to identify and analyze the cross-cultural challenges and their potential solutions to improve the academic performance of migrant children in the STEM curriculum. The report concludes by suggesting ways to tackle these challenges and make children aware of the issues to promote social equality.

Running Head: CROSS-CULTURE CHALLENGE
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Early Childhood Education and Care
Student Details:

CROSS-CULTURE CHALLENGE 1
Cross-Cultural Challenge of migrated children adapting Australian STEM (science,
technology, engineering and math) curriculum
Introduction
STEM model is planned, designed and implemented for supporting the knowledge
and skills of children and improving the professional skills and attitudes of teachers (Martin
& Gaffney, 2016). This report will conduct research on understanding the cross-cultural
challenges faced by the migrated children in Australian STEM curriculum.
Problem Statement
The problem statement is that in adaption of STEM curriculum, migrant children face
many challenges due to differences in cultural background. This research will analyse how
the issue of cross-culture challenges affects the ability of migrant children to perform better
in STEM curriculum.
Objectives
Following are the research objectives:
 Analysis of literatures to understand the cross-cultural challenges faced by migrants’
children in Australia during STEM curriculum.
 Evaluate different recommendations to help migrant children in performing better in
STEM curriculum.
Rationale of the Study
This study is significant because it helps in understanding the obstacles relating to
differences in cultural backgrounds of migrant children in Australia which they face relating
to STEM curriculum. This research will understand these cross-cultural challenges and find
potential solutions to these issues that will improve academic learning of migrant children.
Literature Review
According to Aldemir & Kermani (2017), in education sector of Australia, migrant
children face racism and cultural conflicts between migrated and Australian children where it
is essential to give them knowledge for understanding the value systems by giving respect
and acceptance of differences. Ng & Metz (2015) provided that migrant children face the

CROSS-CULTURE CHALLENGE 2
issue of communication with individuals already living in Australia where they are not able to
open up and ask about something due to individuals’ differences in STEM model. The key
gap between both these studies is that they conduct anonymous surveys and collected data
from unreliable sources.
As per Spring (2017), STEM is valued for helping migrated children by giving special
attention within discipline to use and create visuals for achieving the instruction through
practice communities using strategies; STEM curriculum will help the children to interact and
communicate with each other visually where they will not deal with any sort of racism or
discrimination based on their nationality or origin. Ming-xiang (2018) recommended that
there can be continuous development to tackle these challenges by providing training to
teachers and making children aware regarding these issues. Code of conduct will also help
teachers in dealing with such challenges in relation to migrated children where these children
feel free to ask and open up in front without any fear of discrimination or racism (Chan,
2011). This adaption will also help in bringing social equality and understanding ethnicities
in relation to pre-schooling of children.
Research Methodology
Research design
In this research, quantitative research design will be used by the researcher to evaluate
how previous studies have highlighted cross-culture challenges and their potential solutions.
Research Strategy
In this research, literature review will be used by the researcher in order to evaluate
different secondary sources including both offline and online sources such as websites,
journal articles and books.
Data collection method
Secondary data will be used in this research which will be collected from a wide
range of sources such as websites, academic publications, journal articles and text books.
Sampling Procedure
Random sampling method is suitable for this research to avoid any biases and
increase reliability of this research.

CROSS-CULTURE CHALLENGE 3
Data Analysis
The data will be analysed by evaluating different secondary resources and their
findings to use the most appropriate data.

CROSS-CULTURE CHALLENGE 4
References
Aldemir, J., & Kermani, H. (2017). Integrated STEM curriculum: improving educational
outcomes for Head Start children. EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE,
187(11), 1694-1706.
Chan, A. (2011). Critical multiculturalism: Supporting early childhood teachers to work with
diverse immigrant families. International Research in Early Childhood Education,
2(1), 63-75.
Martin, K., & Gaffney, A. (2016). INSIGHT Telling and Showing: The Intersection of Visual
Communication Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Strategies in STEM. Visual
Communication Quarterly, 23(2), 108-121.
Ming-xiang, L. (2018). Cultural Identities of the Well-Educated Chinese Immigrant Children
in the UK. Sino-US English Teaching, 15(3), 147-162.
Ng, E., & Metz, I. (2015). Multiculturalism as a strategy for national competitiveness: The
case for Canada and Australia. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(2), 253-266.
Spring, J. (2017). The Intersection of Cultures: Multicultural Education in the United States
and the Global Economy. New York: Routledge.