From Isolation to Belonging: How Refugee Children With Disabilities Can Thrive in “Artful” Canadian Schools

• In Event: Examining the Educational Experiences of Refugee Children With Disabilities in Jordan, Canada, and Kazakhstan

Abstract

Two typical barriers for refugee children with disabilities (RCDs) in Vancouver include a lack of English language proficiency and various mental/health complexities. Once in schools, children with such complexities often exist in a “silent phase” while they acquire basic English lacking an adequate means of personal expression. This phase may worsen their emotional condition. Art has been called a universal language (Eisner, 2006). For children with PTSD, the arts “speak” through a symbolic language that has the power to transform their lives by releasing bad memories (van der Kolk, 2014). Regarding children with disabilities, art may be one effective modality of non-linguistic expression. This research in Vancouver, Canada focused on discovering how teachers might meet refugee students with disabilities (RCD’s) diverse learning needs, through facilitating expression, intercultural interactions, and lesson participation through art.

Four theoretical frameworks support this study. First, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as a legal and philosophical framework, extends into the United Nation’s (1990) Convention of the Rights of the Child, and UNESCO’s (1994) educational mandate for children with special needs. Moreover, Mertins’s (2009) disability theory reverses common thinking about children with disabilities as being “defective”, and instead, ascribes disability to environmental causes, and simply a difference.

In this mixed methods, transdisciplinary study, the researcher designed a series of “blended art workshops” with activities borrowed from art therapy, and others that the researcher created, for children ages 7-9 years old (n=49). The researcher used arts-based research methods as a guide, kept a journal, photographed the art, analyzed art for changes over time and for clues to RCDs’ inner world that might otherwise be invisible (Barone & Eisner, 2012). For additional data sources, the researcher administered questionnaires to teachers.

Over seven-weeks, researchers implemented the following activities: drawing self-portraits; reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle, 1969/1987) and making caterpillars; creating paper-bag puppets that we used in digital storytelling; and photovoice.

While analysis is ongoing at this time, initial results include qualitative data issued from teachers indicating that 100% of students “loved making art”. These teachers expressed that they intended to make more use of teaching through art as a means of differentiating lessons, especially regarding literacy activities. In observing students, researchers noticed student participants spontaneously helped one another. Students demonstrated pride in their work, increased their time on task and expressed appreciation for their classmates’ efforts. Culturally diverse children generally collaborated in arts activities without hesitation and made friends from different backgrounds. Data further indicates that such friendships have spread to after-school activities as children meet within their communities.
The scholarly significance of the study lies in the discovery that the use of arts for this population can be a successfully used as a means of emotional support, expression and as a tool to facilitate multicultural acceptance and inclusion. Results point to the arts as effective in many educational areas, from social-emotional learning to critical thinking, which may accelerate their interest in academic learning.

Author

• Susan Barber, Simon Fraser University