Thriving at Crossroads
Our study is planned to travel through four phases over three years; these phases are concurrent, and will influence and inform each other ways to engage with them and their health. Through out each of these study phases, we aim to be innovative, flexible and provocative while also grounding our work in the latest research.
Phase 1: Descriptive study
Phase 1 will provide us with a better understanding of how often ethnic minority young people experience alienation and discrimination, and its impact on their health and wellbeing, including emotional and future health.
We will look at existing research including population surveys such as Youth 2000, New Zealand Health surveys.
This will allow us to look at how young people currently experience discrimination in environments such as health, education and justice, as well as track how this might change over time and influence health outcomes.
Phase 2: Study of public discourse
In this phase, we will explore how ethnic minority youth with intersecting identities are viewed, portrayed or referred to in public discourse, particularly as New Zealanders, and their contribution to the society. We will also explore how they view themselves and engage with their health.
This will involve analysing data from media narratives, and holding interviews with relevant stakeholders (i.e., youth and community leaders, and service providers).
This will help us understand how ethnic minority youth with intersecting identities are represented by others or themselves and positioned within New Zealand society.
Phase 3: Study of lived experiences
In this phase, we will explore ethnic minority young people’s lived experiences of intersecting identity/ies in Aotearoa New Zealand, how this is explored by them and developed over time, and how they navigate social institutions, communities, and other people. We also examine how these experiences impact their health and wellbeing.
In this phase, we will conduct interviews with ethnic minority youth who have one or more intersecting minority identity to examine their lived experiences.
Phase 4: Creative co-design study
This phase will use co-design processes and invite youth participants to take on a central role and gain control of the narrative.
In this phase we will explore young people’s response to how people perceive them and act towards them and what can they show us about better ways to engage with them and their health.
We will bring ethnic youth participants together with creative professionals in a field of their interest, such as film, spoken word, dance, theatre, literature or visual arts. The creative mentors will help facilitate expression via art forms. By removing the borders of traditional research, we aim to empower our young people to explore these questions and come up with new insights and solutions.
We hope that this will generate rich and innovative responses which may contribute in unique ways to conversation, suggest new directions for health services, and help policy makers understand where to direct resources.
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This research is conducted under the auspices of the University of Auckland.
Phases 2 and 3 are approved by Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee (Reference: AH23606 and AH24474). Phase 4 has been approved by Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee (Reference: AH25686).
The research is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (Project grant: 21/425)