Appropriate interventions for assisting transnational social workers (TSWs), nurses, and teachers in their transition into the receiving country are significant for enabling competent and safe professional practice. These professionals form a significant part āwhinatanga mā ngā kaimahi pāpori. Ko tā te pepa nei he matapaki i ngā taunakitanga mā ngā toki tūārangi nēhi me ngā kaiako kei ngā whenua reo Ingarihi, arā, a Piritānia, Amerika, Aotearoa, Ahitereiria, Kanata me te aha. Ka tirohia ērā āwhinatanga hei kaupapa taunaki mā ngā kaimahi pāpori e whakawhiti atu ana ki tētahi whenua hou.Ko ngā kitenga nō tētahi arotake whānui tonu o ngā tuhinga e anganui atu ana ki ngā taunakitanga mā ngā toki tūārangi nēhi, kaiako, kaimahi pāpori hoki. Ka tirohia e te pepa nei te whakaaro kia āwhinatia ngā toki tūārangi kaimaihi pāpori e whakawhiti ana ki tētahi whenua hou,ā, ka puta ai he tūtohunga mō ngā rautaki me ngā āheitanga taunaki.

This qualitative study conducted three focus groups with transnational social workers (TSWs) in three cities of Aotearoa New Zealand. The aim of the study was to examine the transitional experience of TSWs, particularly in relation to any strategies and mechanisms existing in the host country to facilitate their personal and professional transition. A significant finding is that a coherent profession-wide programme for facilitating the transition is absent as the existing practices are mostly within the employer–employee relationships. Transitional experiences of TSWs are explained using the metaphor of ‘territory’ and some strategies for effective transition are suggested.

INTRODUCTION: Critical Realism (CR) has much to offer to social work research because of its recognition of the existence of objective and subjective realities. Bhaskar (1978) classifies these levels of reality as the empirical, the actual and the real. Empirical realities emerge from our experience of the world and include our subjective constructions. The underlying real reality is seen as a productive force, causing the empirical to appear. Researchers using CR methodology can employ an analytic process called retroduction. This approach involves moving back and forth from the empirical to the real to identify causal mechanisms that drive the empirical to manifest.APPROACH: This research brief is the outcome of a research methodology literature review undertaken by two doctoral students who employ CR perspectives. Their research proposals have been used as case studies to demonstrate the usefulness of CR in informing social work research. These findings were presented at the ANZSWWER international symposium held at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.FINDINGS: CR uncovers the epistemic fallacy of reducing ontology to the realm of epistemology. The totalising truth claims of both objectivism and subjectivism are replaced with an alternative conception of stratified forms of reality – the real, actual and empirical. Reality exists both objectively and subjectively. This enables researchers to bridge social constructionism and structural causation. It allows for study that explores the subjective considerations of respondents while examining the objective existence of causal mechanisms such as social structures, systems or processes. CONCLUSION: CR offers an alternative that social work researchers have long been searching for: to engage meaningfully in studies that examine perceived realities at the empirical level and the causal mechanisms that lie behind them.

INTRODUCTION: Critical realism (CR) provides a unique and robust philosophical framework for social work researchers by attending to the role of individual agency and social structure; however, little practical guidance is available regarding how the ontology and epistemology of CR can be applied as a methodological framework for qualitative research. APPROACH: In this article, we explain what CR is in relation to other ontological and epistemological positions and provide some practical suggestions for CR-informed research by drawing on relevant examples from a study that examined the causes of trust among Korean migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that the three-layered ontological map of CR justifies the use of series of data-coding processes to identify preliminary tendencies at the surface layer of empirical reality, abductive reasoning to formulate ideas about how observed tendencies are connected at the middle layer of actual reality and retroductive inference to identify causal mechanisms or structures and key conditions embedded in the deeper layer of real reality to produce certain experiences under study.