Documenting Stories of School Integration Among Immigrant and Refugees Families

• In Event: Highlighting the Voices of Immigrant and Refugees: Examples of Community-Based Research

Abstract

An unprecedented number of immigrants and refugees are entering Western countries, which presents unique and consequential social challenges. Children and youth comprise nearly half of this population, and this impacts various school systems significantly. The first and main point of contact for nearly all immigrant and refugee families is the school. It is in this setting that integration, education, mental health and well-being support, and community play a critical role in the lives of children and youth; setting them up to become productive members of society.

The point of entry for this study will be that of school integration. Defined broadly, this phenomenon captures the adjustment of newcomer youth across all aspects of student life – both inside and outside the educational context (e.g. English Language Leaning [ELL], academic performance, classroom behaviour, social networking, identity negotiation, emotional and familial well-being, involvement in school life, and understanding of the academic system).

Central to our research were the following questions: a) How do newcomer families’ experience their integration into Canada? B) How do newcomer families’ experience their integration into the school systems adopted by various family members? C) How does the mental health and well-being of newcomer families reciprocally affect these processes (integration into Canadian society and the school systems)?

In the current sociopolitical climate, the media often frames newcomer narratives statistically, and the voices of immigrants and refugees are rarely included in the dialogue. Informed by our previous work with various immigrant and refugee communities, we aimed to reposition dominant discourses on migration and resettlement. We did so by restoring participants’ personal narrative and ignite a much-needed dialogue within the educational community, rippling out from the micro to the meso and macro levels. In this way, immigrant and refugee families were thought to have critical, yet untapped perspectives that will inform the research questions and, through our knowledge dissemination, stakeholders at all levels.

To elicit these complex stories, immigrant and refugee families engaged in an arts-based engagement ethnography (ABEE) where they used cultural probes (iPad, dairies, maps, stationary) to document their daily experiences of societal and school integration. The contents of these cultural probes (now participants’ artifacts) were used to guide individual qualitative interviews with each family member and subsequently a focus group interview with the entire family. All data (i.e. artifacts as well as individual and family interview transcripts) was analyzed using a set of systematic steps for ethnographic research.

In addition to the research component of our project, immigrant and refugee families are currently engaging in the creative use of film to share their lived experiences and put a personal face on migration and resettlement. They are working with a professional filmmaker who will help them integrate their data into a document on societal and school integration. Families are focusing less on the tragic elements of their stories, instead recounting their experiences through a strengths- and resilience-based lens.

Authors

• Anusha Kassan, University of Calgary

• Rahat Zaidi, University of Calgary

• Patti Trussler, Mount Royal University

• Mahnoor Khan, University of Calgary

• Nina Sudra, University of Calgary