Leadership and Policy Dilemmas: Syrian Newcomers as Future Citizens of Ontario, Canada

• In Event: 25.020 - Education, Immigration, and Migration: Policy, Leadership, and Praxis for a Changing World

Abstract

Purposes
This study reveals how two School Boards in Ontario approach the integration of Syrian newcomers into schools, communities, and society as future citizens, examining the costs and benefits to educators, with respect to the design and implementation of curricular and extra-curricular activities for integrating immigrants.
Theoretical Framework
As it is too early to empirically formulate a valid framework given the scant literature on successful school integration of refugees, we utilized two broad lines of inquiry : Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems’ theory and Dewey’s (1916) conceptualization of democracy in terms of everyday human interactions beyond the structural delimitations of governance and voting habits. At every level of Bronfenbrenner’s model, we may insert Dewey’s theories of human actions from which both morality and democracy emerge in practice.
Methods and data sources
This is a qualitative study of two School Boards in Ontario, Canada with “great reputations” for welcoming newcomers. Formal, semi-structured interviews were conducted along with many co-incidental conversations among school-based educators (i.e., administrators and teachers), social workers, settlement workers and School Board members. The interviews were all pre-arranged with individuals selected by the school systems’ themselves (a definite limitation). In all, 38 conversations were included, supported by 25 interview consent forms, covering all levels.
Based on the frameworks, we sought a methodology consistent with emergent designs. Therefore, we settled upon operational memoing in qualitative research (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). We wanted our interview transcripts to come alive creatively, open-endedly and reflectively. From audio recordings and fieldnotes, we transcribed the data and created memos, read, debated and questioned. Data exploration was enhanced by looking for continuities across transcripts and communications through open-ended discussions and questions (Birks, Chapman & Francis, 2008) rather than confirming codes and themes.
Findings and Significance
Our tentative findings revealed that Syrian newcomers were adjusting to the more open, diverse, and democratic environment inside Canadian schools. Canadian educators addressed the effects of trauma as they encountered newcomers, as they recognized the effects of trauma and post trauma would arise in the years to come. Moreover, they worked as a team to overcome many of the challenges arising inside any school especially one that has received an increase of Syrian newcomers. In short, Syrian newcomers were being received, welcomed, nurtured, and treated as “gifts” that will only help to improve Canadian society. Moreover, our tentative findings were viewed as processes and verbs, rather than as fait accompli and nouns specifically with respect to governance, Canadian federalism, Canadian socialism, the transition process into Canadian culture, and the expert handling of trauma. Across these, we observed the exchange of “gifts” flowing to Syrians (and other newcomers) and those flowing back to Canadians for their efforts.
In terms of significance, we identified five open-ended policy and leadership dilemmas related to newcomer placements, principal appointments, sustainability of innovations, and influencing societal discourses for and against immigrants. Unless the narratives of hope inside school boards is extended deliberately beyond schools, the separation of school and society will increase as feared by Dewey in 1916.

Author

• Ira E. Bogotch, Florida Atlantic University