Australian Journal of Education, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2006, 227–241 227

Moving schools:Antecedents, impact on students and interventions Dr Reesa Sorin

James Cook UniversityRosemary Iloste

Education Queensland

IntroductionMobility in schools has been described as ‘patterns of family movement that involvestudents in relocating school, or periods of time when they do not attend school’and, further, a mobile student is described as ‘a student who moves school morethan twice in a three year period’ (Commonwealth Department of Education,Science & Training & Department of Defence, [DEST & Def ], 2000, p. 2). Studentmobility can be caused by families moving from city to city or state to state asemployment and housing situations change for them, but it can also be the resultof families moving their children from one school to another within the same areafor other, more personal reasons.

Australia has one of the most highly mobile populations in the western world(Settles, 1993, in Fields, 1997).The Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001, in DEST& Def, 2002) estimated that, within the overall Australian population, thirty percent of residents from households with children moved at least once over a threeyear period, with an increasing proportion of this relocation being movementbetween one state or territory and another. The average Australian moves morethan eleven times during his or her lifetime (Bell, 1995, in Fields, 1997). Regionalareas such as the one examined in this research record a slightly higher mobility

Mobility in education can be caused by families moving from city to city orstate to state as employment and housing changes for them; however, itcan also be the result of families moving their children from one school to

another within the same area, for other, more personal reasons. As the studentmobility rate rises, concerns about its impact on the young learner increase(Wright, 1999).This research investigated student mobility in a regional area in northern Queens-land where the mobility rate increases each year. Through interviews with schoolpersonnel and some parents, a number of issues surrounding student mobility wereexamined. These included antecedents to mobility, perceived impact of mobility onstudents and strategies to address issues of mobility.

rate (forty-two per cent) than urban areas (forty per cent) (Australian Bureau ofStatistics, 2000).

While a number of positive impacts of mobility have been cited in research(Whalen & Fried, 1973; Wyer, Danaher, Kindt & Moriarty, 1997), mobility oftencauses inconsistency or interruption in the educational experience of the student(Ligon & Paredes, 1992, in Fisher, Matthews, Stafford, Nakagawa & Durante, 2002).

Literature reviewAntecedents to mobility

Research in the area of mobility cites a number of factors that contribute to student mobility. According to Rumberger and Larson (1998) these factors areeither family based or school based. Family-based reasons for mobility are mainlydue to employment, lifestyle and housing changes, family changes (DEST & Def,2002; Fields, 1997) and income (Martin, 2002;Wright, 1999).With the impact thatglobal economic pressures have had on the labour market, employment moves havebecome more frequent, as one or both parents’ work commitments or their seek-ing stable employment require relocation of the family to another geographical area(DEST & Def, 2002).

Lifestyle-related movement, where a family makes a conscious decision torelocate to a larger home or a better climate, accounts for many of these moves.Housing changes, due to instability in the housing market, eviction, a lack of ade-quate, low income housing and home ownership also account for a considerablenumber of family moves (DEST & Def, 2000; Fisher et al., 2002; Mantzicopoulos& Knutson, 2002; Martin, 2002; Skandera & Sousa, 2002).

Changes to the family that might serve as antecedents to mobility includefinancial or social difficulties, death, divorce, separation, disharmony or conflict(Astone & McLanahan, 1994; DEST & Def, 2002; Fisher et al., 2002; Rumberger& Larson, 1998). Family dysfunction can also lead to children becoming state wardsor being placed in foster care. Some family moves may also be culturally related,due to cultural ceremonies, family business or recreational activities (DEST & Def,2002).

Low family income is a determining factor for mobility (Audette,Algozzine& Warden, 1993; Family Housing Fund, 2002; Fisher et al., 2002; Skandera & Sousa,2002). According to Skandera and Sousa, children from low income families orchildren who attend inner-city schools are more likely to have changed schools fre-quently than those from middle to high income families. Further, Alexander,Entwisle and Dauber (1996, in Wright, 1999, p. 347) state that ‘higher income students frequently transferred into and out of the district, whereas lower incomestudents more often transferred within the district’.

Ethnic minority groups are often cited as more mobile populations (DEST &Def, 2002; Family Housing Fund, 2002;Wright, 1999).

In Australia, there are a significant number of Indigenous students with highmobility rates, often with patterns of movement centred on a ‘base’ school, andintermittent travel to other locations in which enrolment in school may or may not occur. A summary of three Commonwealth projects on Indigenous student

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mobility and found that within an Indigenous student population of 793 studentsfrom seventy-six schools, there were 1,039 movements in a nine-month period.These included transitions from primary to secondary school as well as movementsin and out of school (DEST & Def, 2002).

School-based reasons for mobility feature less prominently in the literature.School issues such as social adaptability, engagement in curricula, academic diffi-culty, and safety may all lead to mobility in the student population. Additionally,time absent from school, misbehaviour and low educational expectations werefound to correspond to students changing schools or dropping out of school beforecompleting high school. Forty per cent of primary school students who changedschools did not change residences (Rumberger & Larson, 1998).With figures suchas this, schools’ roles in student mobility cannot be ignored. As Rumberger &Larson (1998, p. 1) note, ‘Schools are at least partly responsible for high studentturnover and, consequently, should help address the problem’.

Impact on students

Mobility affects all stakeholders, from students and their families to school per-sonnel and system functioning.This paper looks at the affects of mobility on thelearner. Benefits related to mobility include increased resilience and higher aca-demic achievement in some students (DEST & Def, 2002;Whalen & Fried, 1973).Rahmani (1981, in Fields, 1995) found no significant negative impacts on measuresof academic and social achievement for the children of Defence Force families,despite high levels of mobility. This could be due to the highly structured and supported relocations of Defence Force families (Duffy, 1987, in Fields, 1995).

In much of the literature, however, mobility is seen as problematic to students,families and school systems. Academic achievement may be lower (Astone &McLanahan, 1994; Family Housing Fund, 2002; Fisher et al., 2002; Ingersoll,Scamman & Eckerling, 1988; Mantzicopoulos & Knutson, 2000; Parades, 1993, inWright, 1999; Rumberger & Larson, 1998) and behaviour and social interactionscan be adversely affected by mobility (DEST & Def, 2002; Fields, 1997; Fisher etal., 2002; Mantzicopoulos & Knutson, 2000). In a study of highly mobile ten to fifteen year olds in Queensland, Fields (1995) found that seventy per cent of thesample had experienced significant social and school adjustment problems. Peeracceptance ratings of these students were decidedly lower than their non-mobilepeers.They may feel socially isolated and consequently take up with other marginalstudents who may be involved in antisocial behaviour. Highly-mobile studentsreport themselves to be more insecure, inconsistent, complaining, critical, and withfewer friends than their less-mobile peers (Audette,Algozine & Warden, 1993).

Some health and developmental problems may be the result of mobility(Rumberger & Larson, 1998).Wood et al. (1993, in Rumberger & Larson, 1998,p. 2) found that children who moved frequently (six or more moves by age eighteen) ‘were between fifty per cent and 100 per cent more likely to be reported to have a delay in growth or development, to have a learning disorder, tohave repeated a grade, or to have four or more frequently occurring behaviouralproblems’. Ingersoll, Scamman and Eckerling, however, caution that using

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mobility as a blanket excuse for negative functioning is a misnomer: ‘Mobilityaffects may be solely a function of contamination of pre-existing differences,including socio-economic status, or they may be reflective of other effects relatedto disruption of smooth psychosocial development’ (1988, p. 6).

Intervention

A number of strategies have emerged to address perceived negative impacts ofmobility; however, many of them remain strategies in theory only and have not yetbeen taken up in practice.These include modifications to curriculum and recordkeeping, procedural and attitudinal changes, and community involvement withmobile families.

Curriculum and record keeping strategies include developing a national cur-riculum that would make local as well as interstate moves less complicated (Fisheret al., 2002; Williams, 1996, in Wright, 1999), and implementing computerisedrecord exchange systems to keep track of student progress (DEST & Def, 2002;Fields, 1997; Fisher et al., 2002).

Procedural changes needed to facilitate student mobility include teachertraining in flexible instructional strategies, multiple methods of assessment andstrategies to help address the challenges facing mobile families (Fisher et al., 2002).Communication between schools and school districts can be strengthened (Martin,2002). In a longitudinal study of children, families and teachers on Queensland’sshow circuit, Giroux found that through teacher knowledge of students’ edu-cational contexts and children, parents, tutors and teachers ‘crossing borders’(Giroux, 1990 in Wyer et al., 2000, p. 6) between each others’ cultural systems, theissues of mobility can be ‘recognised and celebrated rather than labelled as inher-ent “problems”.’ Academic support, such as tutoring and before-and-after schoolprograms and personal development studies within the school combined withsocial support in the form of orientation and welcome sessions for new students orbuddy systems also help to engage mobile students (Fisher et al., 2002; Ingersoll,Scamman & Eckerling, 1988).

Attitudinal changes can increase students’ and families’ sense of membershipand engagement with the curriculum. Through a nurturing and personalised climate, where teachers have high expectations of and are emotionally available to their students, negative impacts of mobility can be addressed (Fields, 1997;Fisher et al., 2002; Mantzicopoulos & Knutson, 2000; Rumberger & Larson, 1998).Wyer et al. (2000, p. 1) suggest that teachers step out of their own context of educator and get to know students, families, lifestyles and contexts as a way of getting to know and appreciating mobile students and by doing so improving their educational outcomes. Their research, however focused on teachers from the School of Distance Education who, they concede, ‘may be better positionedthan most regular schools to promote the kind of “border crossing” ’ they describe.

Community involvement, in the form of extra curricular activities that support families and forge stronger bonds between the school and the home is considered by Fisher et al. to be the best strategy for preventing high mobility.

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This could include health services, breakfast and lunch programs, clothing pools,counselling, adult and parent education classes, family camps and multi-age programs. These strategies would strengthen family bonds to help families workefficiently despite mobility. Keeping parents strong contributes to more effectivepartnerships between parents and schools in the academic and social developmentof their children (Fisher et al., 2002). Parents also need more information about theimpact on children of changing schools (Martin, 2002).

While these strategies seem to hold great potential in addressing the negativeimpacts of mobility, Fisher et al. (2002, p. 319) note that, in practice, ‘rarely areantecedents a focus of school-level interventions’. In their investigations, no pro-grams were identified that directly address school-related causes of mobility. Forexample, while school personnel recognised the importance of building caring,trusting relationships with families, no systemic efforts were identified to createsuch relationships in actual practice.

MethodologyThis research examined antecedents and impacts of mobility in a regional area innorthern Queensland. Between 1997 and 2000, four out of every ten adults inQueensland had moved at least once. Of these, seventy-two per cent had relocatedwithin twenty kilometres and forty-nine per cent within five kilometres of theirprevious home. Employment opportunities and changes in housing were the mainreasons cited for the moves. Seventy per cent of the moves were made by unem-ployed persons.Thirty-eight per cent of couples with children and forty-three percent of single parents with children moved during this period (Australian Bureauof Statistics, 2000).

Fisher et al.’s (2002) ‘Cycle of Mobility’was used as a framework for this study.The Cycle of Mobility focuses on the antecedents of mobility, or sources con-tributing to movement in and out of schools/districts (school and family circum-stances); the impact of mobility on students; and intervention strategies to addressnegative impacts of mobility.The research questions were:

• What factors in families appear to give rise to mobility?• What are the perceived impacts of mobility to students?• What intervention strategies are currently in place to address any perceived neg-

ative impacts of mobility? How successful are these? Could more be done toaddress the negative impacts of mobility?

This study focuses on primary school students. This is because, as Parades(1993, in Wright, 1999) suggests, mobility has a more pronounced impact at earli-er grade levels. Through Education Queensland (2002), the researchers identifiedfive focal primary schools with high mobility rates within the regional area. Dueto time restrictions on this research, we felt that taking our sample from five schoolswould be manageable while still providing us with rich description of factors influ-encing mobility.We also felt that for this study, we would focus on state schools,where mobility is considerably higher than in private schools. Future studies mightinclude a larger sample of schools, including a variety of private and public schools.All schools and participants are referred to by pseudonyms only.

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Of the five schools, only Niranda State School ranked in the level of ‘high’mobility in statewide data; three others ranked in the average to high levels ofmobility and one ranked in the average level of mobility for the state (EducationQueensland, 2002) although, according to school personnel, it has high levels ofmobility within a portion of the school population.When attendance records wereexamined, schools reported mobility for 2003 as follows: Niranda—fifty per cent;Bridgewater—forty per cent; Primbee—fifty-six per cent; Wellington—thrity-seven per cent; and Egmont—twenty-three per cent.

Niranda State School Niranda State School has a school population of ninetystudents. It is situated on the main highway to the north of the city.The area sur-rounding the school has changed dramatically in the past decade.Where once theschool was surrounded by houses, many of these have been replaced by units andgovernment subsidised accommodation. Quite a number of the students do notcome from the immediate area, but are dropped off and picked up by parents ontheir way to and from work in the city. Student numbers have been declining eachyear at Niranda State School, so a number of the classrooms are now being utilisedby a Support Services Unit.

Bridgewater State School Bridgewater State School, with a student population of 483, is located in a multicultural, low-socio economic area. Similarto Niranda State School, Bridgewater State School is also experiencing a down-ward trend in student population.The school population has changed dramaticallyover the last decade, with large numbers of migrant and Indigenous families moving into the area.A large public housing estate is part of the school catchmentarea. Bridgewater State School also has a designated special needs unit attached to it.

Primbee State School Primbee State School is an inner city school withapproximately 282 students, many of whom are from migrant or Indigenous families. Similar to the two previous schools, Primbee has experienced numerouschanges to the area, with houses replaced by flats and government subsidiseddwellings.A special needs unit is also located at Primbee State School.

Wellington State School Wellington State School, with a student populationof 441, has one of the highest populations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderstudents in an urban primary school setting in Australia.A special needs unit is partof the school. Many of the students live in a nearby public housing estate.There isquite a high level of student movement between Wellington, Primbee andBridgewater schools, particularly by Indigenous students.

Egmont State School Egmont State School, with 798 students, is located in ahigher socio-economic suburb and has students with a wider range of family back-grounds. Once the ‘elite’ primary school in the region, it has faced many changesin recent years. Because of the popularity of this school, enrolments have been open only to students living in the immediate area, or family members of currentstudents.

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Once schools agreed to be involved in the research, one administrator andone teacher from each school was asked to participate in the research by agreeingto being interviewed. Mantzicopoulos and Knutson (2000) focused their researchon parental reports of the impacts of mobility on the family and the children, butwe felt that adding school personnel’s perceptions would enrich our findings. Tothe total of ten school participants we added a school social worker and an in-school program coordinator, whose experiences with mobile students and theirfamilies added further insight into the situation in the region.We weren’t prepared,however, for parents’ responses to being interviewed.

Each school identified five to ten families with high mobility rates.Permission was sought from them to participate in an interview by letter, telephonecall (where possible), and in some cases through visits to the home.This last strat-egy was suggested by one of the teachers at Niranda School, who encouraged adoor knock as he felt that parents probably wouldn’t respond to our letters ofrequest.

The only parents who consented and were interviewed were from EgmontState School, the school with the lowest mobility rate in the study. In the four otherschools, families either did not return their permission forms or had moved againby the time the researcher went to visit the homes.

School personnel were interviewed at the school and parents in their homes,using open-ended questions about antecedents to and consequences of mobility.Participants were also asked about any intervention strategies that may have beenimplemented to address the negative impacts of mobility and the success of thesestrategies, and whether more could be done in this area.

Interviews were audiotaped where possible (some participants would notagree to this) and notes were taken by the researchers as the interviews proceeded.Interviews were transcribed and coded, looking for emergent themes (Bogdan &Biklen, 1998). Emergent codes were then applied to the entire data set and displaysformatted to group information for further analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

FindingsAntecedentsIn accordance with the literature, participants cited housing changes, where families change residences within the same area or move to another geographicallocation (interstate, overseas and to areas outside the region) and employment ofparents as antecedents to mobility.

Significantly, however, three strongly-reported antecedents to mobility in thisarea were not reasons of housing and employment.

Family breakdown, with suggestion of domestic violence, was one of these.One teacher, Dave, said that at times one parent was hiding from the other parent,possibly fearing for their own and their children’s safety:

A lot of instances have been where mothers are dodging the father, usually trying to limit, or actually in a lot of cases that we have had here, stop access,and therefore they don’t want anyone to know where they are. They can go to great lengths of changing their names, and therefore that is why they

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constantly move . . . They usually get into an employment stream which will support that movement.

A number of employment opportunities in this regional area are indeed sea-sonal. It is a popular tourist destination, particularly during the cooler months andalso a stopping point for shows and circuses that tour Queensland.A need for pri-vacy and anonymity may be one reason why parents were so difficult to recruit forthis research.

Cultural issues were the second antecedent to mobility that was stronglyreported in this area, and that may help to account for families having moved bythe time a researcher did a door knock. Noted particularly within the Indigenouspopulation, this issue affected families going back to the Torres Strait Islands to visitrelatives, attend funerals or join in cultural celebrations. Health of relatives was alsonamed as a reason for families moving. Years Four and Five teacher, Lisa said,‘Children go up to the islands to see their families and they are taken up there andthey can be gone for two or three months at a time.’ Leonard, principal ofBridgewater School, added that some families ‘don’t get back until weeks afterschool starts.’

The third category of strongly-cited antecedent to mobility was school-basedproblems, primarily the behaviour of the child. Lisa noted that some children ‘moveschool because they are getting into trouble at one school and they think they cango to another school and that the trouble won’t follow them. But the truth is thatthey haven’t made any changes themselves.’ Anecdotes from school personneldescribe these situations as follows:

The child that is leaving my class is leaving because he is down here currentlyfrom Thursday Island [in the Torres Strait] and living with his aunty, and hisbehaviour is so poor that she cannot control him and she is sending him backto live with his mother on Thursday Island (Ralph, Year Six teacher).I had a boy who was getting into sniffing glue and he was getting into a lot oftrouble here at school, so he was just taken from here and taken over to EgmontSchool. But I noticed that he is now back in Wellington School, so I don’tknow what happened at Egmont, but he was just moved simply because he wasgetting into trouble (Lisa).At the moment, I’ve got a girl who has been getting into trouble and I thinkthe family might have moved house to Fairfield (pseudonym)—they said theywere going to Fairfield and she said ‘no’, she was going to stay here atWellington. She has been getting into a little bit of trouble. The parents havesaid, ‘Oh no, we’re going to take her to Fairfield’ (Lisa).

Another school-based reason for mobility given was the behaviour of parents and teachers. Sandra, an in-school program coordinator, noted that some-times parents don’t fit into the school. At times, mobility may be the result of teachers picking on students, said Year Three teacher, Kate. Another participantnoted that at times parents move their children because they don’t like the child’steacher.

These three antecedents to mobility—family breakdown, cultural issues andproblems within the school—feature strongly in this research. Each of these

antecedents may help to explain parents’ hesitance to participate in research aboutmobility: in the first case to remain anonymous; in the second because they hadactually moved again for cultural reasons; and in the third because of their prob-lems or dissatisfaction with the school and possibly the education system.

Consequences of mobility As was mentioned in the literature review, this research found that the process ofmoving schools was reported to provide the child with new experiences that helpbuild resilience and independence in some children. As acting principal, Kylie,noted, ‘An upsetting routine to one child can be a challenge to another child—itdepends on children’s resilience.’ The experiences children bring with them mayalso assist them to excel in some school subjects. Dave reported that ‘some studentshave a wealth of experience and knowledge coming from different places, so theyexcel at subjects like science, history and SOSE.’

But school personnel and parents reported other positive impacts of mobil-ity. These included a disruption to undesirable friendships and a creation of newfriendships, which could impact favourably on the child’s behaviour. SchoolPrincipal, Warren said, ‘Sometimes when a child moves, behaviour improves—where the friendships which were influencing the behaviour are no longer thereto detract from learning.’

Unfortunately, participants in this research reported a number of negativeimpacts of mobility on school achievement, social interactions and behaviour of thechild, similar to those in prior research. But contrary to the literature, no mentionwas made, either by school personnel or parents, of any impacts of mobility onhealth and development.This may be based on the very small input parents had inthis study, considering that parents are largely responsible for health matters fortheir children. Had more parents participated, perhaps mention would have beenmade of health and developmental impact.

All participants reported the negative impact of mobility on school achieve-ment. Gaps experienced through missing chunks of schoolwork were said to makeit difficult for a mobile student to catch up with their new class. Lisa observed thatthere are

. . . gaps in their skills and knowledge because they haven’t had the continuouscurriculum, so that when we go to teaching something, or go back over some-thing or something comes up, the rest of the class know it and they [the mobilestudents] are just sitting there.

If students arrive from another area, particularly from interstate, they can beunfamiliar with the curriculum altogether. Year Six teacher, Patrick said, ‘Kidsbecome disenfranchised—they often come in too late in the term to pick up onwhat is happening.’

Many of the mobile students were reported to require special support programs to address their academic needs; yet mobility was said to disrupt theseprograms, and the length of time it often takes to transfer students’ records from theold school to the new one can mean the problems are not addressed for lengthyperiods of time, if at all.Warren said:

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Generally, mobile students benefit from special programs and then these are dis-rupted. Appraisement is an example. It takes quite a bit of time and effort tocarry out an appraisement on a student, and often you just get it carried out andthey move.

Besides schoolwork suffering and students needing to catch up on missedwork, participants said that there are a number of social problems associated with student mobility, many of these associated with settling into a new schoolenvironment. Dave noted:

The students themselves may not be able to fit in to the community of theschool. It makes it very difficult for the students to build good relationships withother students, and friendships. They usually require a lot of catching up to getup to the level that we are at in the school, or within the school environment.

A mother added that some days her son seemed ‘really down’ at home anddidn’t want to go to school.

Another negative impact of mobility mentioned was friendships and rela-tionships with other students and teachers This included both the disruption ofestablished friendships, which caused sadness and grief in some children, and thedifficulty of making new friends in a new environment.

Barbara, mother of twelve-year-old Mark, reported that Mark has found itdifficult to make friends in new schools. She described the friendships he had estab-lished as ‘on again, off again’ friendships and said that as Mark moved into the upperprimary grades, he felt less and less accepted by other children. But she added thatthis could be partly due to his interests, which are more inclined towards the arts,while the schools Mark had attended focused more on sports.

Parents also mentioned that at times other children teased their children.Teachers commented that mobile students often seem anxious, nervous, unsure, shy,reserved and reluctant to stay in school. One teacher noted that at times, mobilestudents don’t try to fit in because they know they will leave again soon.Accordingto Warren, these are signs of the deep impact mobility has had on the child. Sandrarelated this story:

There was a little boy who I remember very distinctly. He had moved arounda lot. His parents were both long-term unemployed and very mobile. He cameto our school after quite a number of other schools. He was very reserved whenit came to making friends. We did a lot of work on fitting him into the classand assisting him with making friends. He was invited to a birthday party foranother boy in the class. He was so excited. It was his first ever invitation to abirthday party and he was so looking forward to it. A week before the party, hisparents moved town and he was gone. I will never forget the look of dismayon his face.

While both parents and teachers reported behaviour problems such as students not wanting to come to school, teachers reported that behaviour problemsfrom previous schools were not necessarily addressed by the new school.This waspartly due to the length of time it currently takes for information from one school

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to reach another, and also because some parents were reluctant to inform the newschool of their children’s behaviour problems, preferring to present the child asproblem-free as a way of giving the child a fresh start. ‘This means we often haveto re-invent the wheel with a new student,’ noted Warrren.

Intervention

For the most part, participants reported negative impacts of mobility on students.Yet when asked to describe what practices were currently in place to address theseimpacts, responses were limited. Extra programs in reading, language, computersand social skills were used to address difficulties of all students, but not targeted tomobile students. No mention was made of universal curricula or modifications to existing curricula, and no changes to school record-keeping or transferring ofstudent information were noted.

Individuals reported welcoming new students and their families and makingan effort to get to know them through new parent nights, interviews and extra-curricular, community-building activities to familiarise them with the school com-munity. A few school personnel said that uniforms and books were made readilyavailable for new children, and that school staff listened to families’ suggestions andmade an effort to increase parents’ awareness of the importance of education, andto discourage the move.A social worker talked about counselling children in prep-aration for a move and a teacher reported sending students ‘to the next school withat least lots of work in their books that they’ve really made a start on their learn-ing.And we can moderate where they are up to in their work so we can send oninformation to another school.’

Placing students in special needs classes was another strategy mentioned, butin the context of schools second-guessing parents:

Sometimes parents don’t give the full story on enrolment if the child has learning support issues, disabilities or behavioural problems. They want to keepit a secret so the kids can be given a fresh start, but then the issues rise fairlyquickly. Sometimes these children need to be placed in a special needs class fortheir own benefit.

Brief mention was made of attendance officers who followed up on mobileor absentee children and their families and extra programming time for teachers toassess the levels of new students. Other strategies included buddy systems and continued support of the child. Lisa noted:

We try to make [the new child] feel welcome and that they are part of thegroup. We try to do some group inclusive activities so we get them into a groupin the classroom and we try to encourage them to have their say and maybe tryto get them to be ‘Student of the Week’ or something, just to make them settle in and realise it is a good place to be.

Several participants reported the burden of extra work that classroom teachers experience while trying to help children fit into the class.This might affecttheir attitudes to mobile students and families, which seemed to indicate some

disfavour. ‘Most schools do not like students to move to another school in the area, and try to work issues through for the stability of the child’ said Sandra.Lisa added:

When parents come in and say that they have been moved to another houseand they were thinking about moving their children, we do try to discourage[this] with an interview, and talk through some of the issues. I think a lot of theteachers spend time with the children trying to give them a positive view of theschool, and we watch out for them.

While some participants rated current strategies as successful, others mentioned that success was dependent on a number of variables, including parents’and child’s cooperation and reasons for the move. Dave said:

[Success] varies from student to student. It tends to be very successful for somestudents and not so successful for other students, especially students who movearound a lot who don’t really want to make friendships, but prefer to be on theirown. And trying to improve them in group activities tends to disrupt the groupof students.

Kylie felt that success is indicated by the communication channels with families. She said that a number of the families who had moved out of the area stillstay in contact with the school. Lisa described a successful transition that she hadfacilitated:

One that I had a success with is a little boy who came to me from a school onthe Tablelands where they had been getting into a lot of trouble, mainly I thinkthrough his older brother. And when he came here he told me that they came here for a new start. So I explained to him that schools are all the same—buildings, teachers, children, lessons, principals, deputy principals, and that theonly thing that can change is himself. And we went through a whole lot ofChoice Theory things on how he can make better choices and he has settled inreally well.

While current practices to address the negative impact of mobility were fairly minimal, a number of strategies were suggested by participants as further waysto deal with the negative impacts of mobility. Many of these were also mentionedin the literature.

Suggestions that put responsibility on the school were largely procedural, suchas hiring home/school liaison officers, parenting programs, student mentor programs, staff development on the mobility rate and its impacts, making sureinformation about the child and work folios were sent promptly to the next schooland creating a national curriculum with universal assessment. Ralph put forwardthe idea of a central data collection agency to address this problem:

It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea that there was some central data collectionagency rather than the parents or the guardians of the child be expected to bringon that child’s transcript forms and report cards and stuff like that . . . some sortof central agency that would hold the records of the children for a particularperiod of time, especially while they are in the state system.

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Attitudinal changes within the school were alluded to through a few sugges-tions about fostering better communication with parents and other schools, but ingeneral, mobility seemed to be viewed as problematic. It was suggested that theDepartment of Education should intervene to stop people from moving schools.One teacher said:

I really think that the department needs to maybe look at ways and means ofstopping people changing schools willy-nilly within a school district for no goodpurpose except that ‘I’m getting into trouble here; I’ll go over somewhere else.

ConclusionAs Sandra so aptly said, ‘Not many families move for conventional reasons, such as transfers with parents’ jobs.’ Although some families in the region investigatedrelocate to seek employment or changes to housing, the antecedents of familybreakdown, maintaining cultural and family ties while maintaining schooling, andaddressing behavioural problems in the original school are all issues that need further research and addressing.

The interviews conducted for this research support the notion that whilethere are positive impacts of mobility on the student, there are a great many negative impacts that impede upon learning and socialisation. Mobile students arefaced with disruptions to and gaps in their studies, difficulties in adjusting to newsituations, and extra burdens such as transport and financing new uniforms and supplies.

Participants reported some strategies that are currently implemented toaddress the negative impacts of mobility, but for the large part these strategies seemto rely on the good nature and welcoming attitude of the teacher, and the extrasupport for special needs within the school. According to participants, currentstrategies work for some students but not for others.This implies that it is a ‘hit ormiss’ situation whether mobile students will actually meet their learning and social-isation outcomes during their school lives, and ultimately whether they will continue to high school completion.

A number of strategies to further address the negative impacts of mobilitywere suggested, including a central data collection agency to pass on informationfrom one school to the next, more awareness of the issues of mobility to the student, the family and the school and stronger partnerships with families. Ratherthan recognising that changes to teacher attitudes and pedagogy could make a difference to the impact of mobility, participants in this study seemed to viewmobility as something problematic that required teachers to complete more work,second-guess parents and reinvent the wheel, and that needed to be fixed by chang-ing the students and their families.While viewed as ‘problems’, mobile students mayexperience further negative consequences of mobility.

As Fisher et al. (2002) observed, people recognise the importance of address-ing the issues of mobility, but have yet to implement strategies that actually do so.A parent in this study noted,‘Lots of kids have issues [due to mobility].There needsto be more help for the kids and more family support.’

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Keywordseducational mobility academic achievement attendancetransfer policy transfer programs social restrictions

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AuthorsDr Reesa Sorin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at James Cook University,Cairns. Her research interests include student mobility, conceptualisations of childhoodand emotional literacy. Rosemary Iloste is a Community Development Officer for Education Queensland in theCairns region. Sorin and Iloste are hoping to do further research on mobility and retention strategies forprimary school students.Correspondence concerning this article can be addressed to Reesa Sorin, School ofEducation, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD 4870.Email Reesa.Sorin@jcu.edu.au

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