Refugee-background teachers' remedies and repair responses to Canadian schooling of students from war zones

• In Event: Elevating Refugee-Background Communities’ Ways of Knowing, Doing, Being, and Becoming: Canadian and U.S. Perspectives

Abstract

This research investigates refugee education in Canada, specifically the context of K-12 teachers in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The study revealed that 10% of British Columbia and 20% of Ontario teacher respondents have such backgrounds. Among seventeen focus group participants, seven had personal or parental refugee experiences. My presentation will focus on three teachers who personally or whose parents had experiences of forced displacement due to war. These refugee-background teachers offer unique insights and specific recommendations based on their dual roles as former students and current educators.

Data collection involved two parts. First, an online survey was distributed to K-12 teachers and administrators in Ontario and British Columbia through the principal investigator’s network, which was further shared by respondents, leading to 260 responses. I will focus on a particular group of respondents for this presentation, refugee-background teachers. Focus group participants were sampled from the initial survey phase. Surveys and focus group data were grouped into three parts: 1) current understanding, practices, and materials to meet the refugee students’ needs, 2) feedback from students, colleagues and parents on these strategies and, 3) future materials, supports, and professional development needs identified by teachers to aid in their work with refugee students.

Results show that teachers’ refugee backgrounds significantly influence their approach to addressing challenges faced by newcomer students from conflict zones. Their experiences often propel them into leadership roles, advocating for necessary structural and educational reforms needed to serve these students. They provide unique perspectives on systemic issues within the schooling system, from ministry-level policies to peer interactions among students. The research finds that refugee-background teachers’ innovative strategies and advocacy underscore the critical need for strength-based educational frameworks (SBTF) to repair the deficit mindset of many in the schooling system.

SBTF is a two-pronged approach involving both educators and students, according to which educators and students systematically discover and develop their strengths (Lopez & Louis, 2009). When educators implement programmatic activities, they can help students identify their talents and develop strengths while learning substantive knowledge and academic and problem-solving skills. Refugee background students are often perceived as “at-risk” due to their language barriers and war related experiences. However, refugee-background teachers’ narratives in this study challenge these assumptions. They also highlight issues like assessment, integration, and healthy development as more pressing than language and literacy. Many refugee-background teachers have effectively used technology, apps, and other non-verbal or non-English pedagogies to overcome language barriers and enhance their students’ knowledge base. Their insights are key to remedying and repairing institutional and personal barriers faced by educators working with refugee students.

Overall, this research underscores the critical contributions of refugee-background teachers in refugee education, advocating for SBTF. Teachers’ personal experiences as refugees allow them to contribute significantly to improving the educational outcomes for newcomer students, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and leveraging the strengths of both educators and students in the learning process.

Author

• Sofia Noori, University of British Columbia