Dependency , partiality and the generation of research questions in refugee education

From the late 1990s to the mid 2000s refugees who gained entry to Australia came mainly from the African region, in particular Sudan. This contrasts with earlier intakes from Asia, the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia. The change in regional focus sparked research into the resettlement of African refugees in Australia, but it is a new field and research is subsequently limited. This article reports ethical issues involved in research with adult South Sudanese students, specifically the impact of participants’ dependency and the researchers’ partiality. A qualitative approach, taken mainly due to ethics considerations, informed the generation of research questions. Far from inhibiting the research, we argue that an acceptance of these issues enabled the researchers to ask the ‘right’ questions.