Coming from a Nigerian background, a teaching family, and has studied up to the first degree in Nigeria. I came abroad for a master's programme in Europe with certain assumptions and values, such as a solid commitment to the notion that teachers are vital to the success of any education reform and cultural diversity should be celebrated. This was my first time leaving Nigeria and coming to Europe to do a master's programme in education policies and global development. I got to study and live in four countries and universities in Europe as part of my master's programme. This experience exposed me to distinct cultural shocks and values – in the sense of race, national identities, and varying levels of socio-economic development. In particular, I lived and studied in Spain, the Netherlands,  Malta, and Norway within two years of my programme. I also had the opportunity of doing internships in Belgium, France and Italy before moving to Ireland for my doctoral studies. 

The opportunity to experience cultural diversity in Europe was very striking for me. I got to experience a particular kind of diversity in the sense of race, and I watched it as it played out for migrants of minority backgrounds in trying to settle down in their host countries. In my travels in Europe, I perceived that the increasing influx of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers into Europe mainly was seen as problematic or challenging for many European countries. I observed that in many countries within Europe, minority migrants are faced with many challenges - socially, politically and economically in their host countries. In Malta, I met a friend from West Africa who has spent 14 years in the country shared with me that he is yet to get a job that can guarantee his economic stability. He further shared the complex process of navigating the labour market and the lack of policies supporting migrants from accessing jobs in the country.

Being in the field of education and international development, I became passionate about the Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the SDGs, passed by the United Nations member states in 2015. In particular, SDG 4 on quality education is a holistic approach to ensure that all students have access to equitable and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds (Boeren, 2019). 

After one year of post master's programme work experience, I decided to study for a PhD programme, and I applied to several PhD opportunities in Europe. I only got offered a funded PhD at an Irish university. Initially, I intended to continue my Master's research on teacher and quality education within the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, upon my arrival in Ireland, I began to interact with the Irish culture at university, at church, and with migrant parents, and the Irish community became more interesting for me. I was also interested in learning about and being part of the Irish community. Also, I reached out to some migrant communities to help me get settled in. In my interactions and engagement with members of migrant communities in the west of Ireland and its environs, some parents shared the challenges they encounter within the Irish education system. For example, more than 90 per cent of teachers in Irish schools identify as White, Irish, and Catholic even with the increasing socio-cultural diversity within the student population (Heinz & Keane, 2018; Heinz, 2008).

Considering my experiences with diversity, including culture, I see diversity from a positive standpoint, having experienced this back home in Nigeria (a country with over 200 ethnic groups and languages) and across several countries in Europe. I decided to do a PhD research study in supporting Irish teachers to be culturally inclusive. And to raise awareness that cultural diversity should not be seen as problematic but as something that can be beneficial to students' learning and even the socio-economic growth of Ireland itself. For example, countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia are ‘significantly developed’ due to the positive contributions of migrant populations over the years (Gopal, 2016). In this presentation, I reflect on my relationship with research participants in the research study. Participants included student-teachers/beginning teachers and migrant parents of minority ethnic backgrounds. I conducted 17 interviews with student-teachers/beginning teachers and 5 focus group discussions with 20 parents. My reflection is guided by an approach proposed by Milner (2007) in his article, Race, culture and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. I define my relationship with the student-teachers/beginning teachers who participated in my research study as a partnership to address a common challenge within the Irish education system, and they had a mutual feeling about it. Most of the student-teachers/beginning teachers who participated in my research study are from White Irish and Catholic backgrounds. Though I was seen as a 'Black African' researcher and researching across different races, this kind of research approach has significant benefits, according to Gunaratnam (2003). Such benefits include making better "links between lived experience, political relations and the production of knowledge" (Gunaratnam, 2003: 23). I was able to make sense of and connect my research participants’ socio-cultural experiences with their views of the subject of the study. During the interviews with the student-teachers/beginning teachers in the study, I start by stating why I was interested in this study and how I position myself. I begin each conversation with participants by talking about the aims of the research project and what is required of them for their participation in the project. The above approach invited questions from the student-teachers/beginning teachers, which questioned my positionality. Participants asked me questions such as, 'what made you choose to conduct this research study?'

'what is your story?', 'what do you intend to do after this PhD?', and 'how do you define your own culture?' I believe these questions asked by participants were from a place of being fascinated by a 'Black African' migrant researching the Irish education system. On the other hand, for my parents' research participants, the relationship and responses were a bit different in the sense that in all of the focus groups with parents, the participants showed appreciation for their voices to be heard and were open to sharing their experiences, particularly their own and children's education experiences within the Irish education sector. Furthermore, participants saw me as part of the community. I also see myself as part of their community, based on shared characteristics of being a migrant belonging to a minority ethnic group in Ireland. This built a trust level with the parents who participated in my study. In addition, parents in the focus groups believe that I can relate to their 'struggles' of being 'invisible' and not 'heard' in Ireland, as a migrant myself. Also, recent evidence suggests that parental involvement in educational development in Ireland is experiencing less progress (Brown et al. 2020). It was particularly fulfilling to me as a researcher that the parents in my studies felt that their voices finally matter in an area that affects their stay in Ireland after I shared with them plans of disseminating my research findings and sharing insights from the study with educational stakeholders. The differences in my conceptualisation of the relationship between student-teachers/beginning teachers and parents' research participants could be attributed to the contextualisation of my positionality as an 'insider-outsider' researcher (Adu-Ampong & Adams, 2019). The negotiation of my positionality among the different categories of research participants was guided by the credibility and

approachability framework of Mayorga-Gallo and Hordge-Freeman (2017). In other words, effective navigation between being an insider and outsider in a culturally diverse setting provides a better opportunity of gaining access and credibility with research participants. Thus, for my parents' participants, I was an 'insider' based on the perception that I can relate to and understand their challenges as migrants (Ganga & Scott, 2006) from diverse cultural backgrounds in Ireland. While for student-teachers/beginning teachers in my study, I was an 'outsider' becoming an 'insider' and perceived as an "impartial observer" (Irgil, 2020: 4). So they were comfortable in working with me and sharing their experiences in addressing a common problem – the increasing need to ensure culturally inclusive teaching and learning environments in Ireland. References Adu-Ampong, E. A., & Adams, E. A. (2019). 'But you are also Ghanaian, you should know': Negotiating the insider-outsider research positionality in the fieldwork encounter. Qualitative Inquiry. DOI: 1077800419846532. Boeren, E. (2019). Understanding sustainable development goal (SDG) 4 on "quality education" from micro, meso and macro perspectives. International Review of Education, 65(2), 277–294. Brown, M., G. McNamara, S. O'Brien, C. Skerritt, J. O'Hara, J. Faddar, . . . G. Kurum. (2020). "Parent and Student Voice in Evaluation and Planning in Schools." Improving Schools 23 (1): 85-102. Ganga, D. & Scott, S. ( 2006). Cultural' Insiders' and the issue of positionality in qualitative migration research: Moving "Across" and moving "Along" researcher-participant divides, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 7. Gopal, A. (2016). Visa and immigration trends: A comparative examination of international student mobility in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly, 4(3), 130–141.10.1002/sem3.20091 Gunaratnam, Y. (2003). Researching 'race' and 'ethnicity.' Methods, knowledge and power. London: SAGE Publications. Heinz, M., & Keane, E. (2018). Socio-demographic composition of primary initial teacher education entrants in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies, 37(4): 523–543. Heinz, M. (2008). The composition of applicants and entrants to teacher education programmes in Ireland: Trends and patterns. Irish Educational Studies 27: 223–240. doi: 10.1080/03323310802242153. Irgil, E. (2020). Broadening the positionality in migration studies: Assigned insider category. Migration Studies, mnaa016, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaa016. Mayorga-Gallo, S., Hordge-Freeman, E. (2017). Between marginality and privilege: Gaining access and navigating the field in multi-ethnic settings. Qualitative Research, 17, 377-394. Milner IV, R. (2007). Race, culture and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen, Educational Researcher, 36(7), pp. 388-400.