Reporting Refugees in PISA and the Education Quality and Accountability Office: The Right to Be Represented

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Misread Possibilities: Minorities and Educational Reform

Abstract

This paper examines how refugee students are represented in large scale assessments in international (PISA) and Canadian (EQAO) contexts. The representation of refugee students is examined in available literature and policies both nationally and internationally with the intent to understand how refugees are included in data sets (e.g., how refugees are defined and categorized) and how often are data sets representing refugee populations (e.g., exclusion criteria) used. The results of this review reveal that refugee students’ low performance at school results in many of them being excluded from the exam and thus not being represented, which poses a challenge as teachers are unable to support students without data. Still, data is not collected due to low performance.

Authors

• Jennifer L. Hancock Montgomery, University of Toronto

• Divij Chuttoorgoon, University of Toronto

• Neelofar Ahmed, University of Toronto

• Joanna Pluchino, University of Toronto