Researchers thank children in changing Pacific study

Dunedin research participants in a University of Otago study, Childhood in a changing Pacific, were thanked last night at Te Tumu School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies.

School of Geography professor Claire Freeman last year interviewed 36 families in Dunedin, and 35 in Apia, Samoa, to study the effects of family migration on children and to learn what Pacific Island children thought about their families, their futures and the places they lived.

Prof Freeman said the children all identified strongly as Pacific Islanders, despite widely spread, transnational families.

The importance of family, but also of nature, in children’s lives was evident in photographs children took in the study.

Children also displayed a good understanding of the complexities of families spread internationally, Prof Freeman said.