Cooking for Cohesion: A Storytelling Approach to Fostering Culturally Diverse Understandings in a School Community

• In Event: International, Immigrant, and Linguistically Diverse Families Supporting Education

Abstract

Cooking for Cohesion drew on the work of Emmaus College, a high school in Rockhampton, Australia and that of Canadian educator Marc Kuley, based on a desire to create a welcoming and inclusive community at Edgeview School (a pseudonym) in Western Canada. As diverse families cooked together and shared their stories, perspectives shifted, connections were made, and relationships and a sense of belonging emerged. As a result, Edgeview School moved from a place of separation to a place of inclusion, moving from schoolcentric (Lawson, 2003) to familycentric (Pushor, 2015b) practices and embedding parent engagement in on-going programs in ways that reflect a systematic approach to working with families rather than a random act (Weiss et al., 2010) within the school.

Authors

• Esther Maeers, University of Regina

• Debbie A. Pushor, University of Saskatchewan