Understanding the early development and well-being of children from refugee backgrounds in kindergarten from the perspective of teachers and settlement workers: A population-level, mixed methods study

• Children from refugee backgrounds in British Columbia, Canada, scored significantly lower in 14 of the 16 areas of development in kindergarten compared with their non-migrant peers, according to teacher-assessed Early Development Instrument results. • Focus groups with educators and settlement workers helped to create a more fulsome, nuanced understanding of the population-level results, including the unique developmental strengths of children from refugee backgrounds. • Focus groups helped to identify concrete ways in which school systems can be more proactive and responsive to the developmental needs of refugee children. • The study showcases the combined depth and breadth of a mixed methods approach to paint a rich and nuanced picture of the developmental well-being of refugee children in BC. The current study aimed to capture a holistic, contextualized understanding of the developmental well-being of refugee children in British Columbia (BC), Canada, using a two-part explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. Part 1 (quantitative) utilized population-level teacher-reported Early Development Instrument (EDI) data collected in kindergarten across BC to examine the development of children from refugee backgrounds compared with immigrant and non-migrant reference groups ( N total =232,888). In Part 2 (qualitative), two focus groups were conducted with educators ( N = 4) and settlement workers ( N = 3) who work closely with children from refugee backgrounds to explore, contextualize, and better understand the results of the analysis. Quantitative findings indicated that refugee children scored, on average, significantly lower in 14 of the 16 EDI subdomains of development in comparison to their non migrant peers (in the domains of language and cognition, communication and general knowledge, emotional maturity, social competence, and physical health and well being). Focus groups generally corroborated the quantitative findings, but also helped to generate a more nuanced understanding by (1) contextualizing refugee children’s behaviour and development, (2) underscoring the impact of cultural understandings and nuances in refugee children’s learning and development, (3) highlighting unique developmental strengths of children from refugee backgrounds, and (4) identifying concrete ways in which school systems can be more proactive and responsive to the developmental needs of refugee children. The study showcases the combined depth and breadth of a mixed methods approach to paint a rich and nuanced picture of the developmental well-being of refugee children in BC.