Multi-Stakeholders’ Perspectives on the Education of Children and Families with post-Soviet background in Ontario: Implications for Policy and Practice

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Educational experiences of immigrant and refugee children in the Global North have become vital to research, policy and classroom practices in various fields such as immigration, diversity, peace and conflict studies as well as comparative and international education (Dryden-Peterson, 2017). Canada and Canadian education systems (both public and private) have been at the forefront of research, policy and practice in this field for decades (Lara & Volante, 2019; Walker & Zuberi, 2020). While Canadian engagement with challenges, including educational ones, of immigrants and refugees has also included newcomers from post-Soviet countries, research on the experiences of this diverse and fast-growing population (Statistics Canada, 2016) has been scant (Tereshchenko et al., 2019). This panel is devoted to laying out the status of existing research, policy and practice in education, as well as to presenting insights from our SSHRC–funded, mix-method study of this understudied population.

Our panel presents findings of an ongoing project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which directly explores the Canadian educational experiences of children and adolescents from former Soviet Union countries and their families in Canada. The study has used a mixed method multiple embedded case study approach (Yin, 2003) where data from classroom observations, interviews, focus group discussion, surveys and key documents have been collected, analyzed and presented at various venues. Qualitative data has been collected from a range of stakeholder groups: teachers, principals and counsellors from public and private schools, as well as from students, parents, and community educators with Soviet and post-Soviet backgrounds.

The research team includes four seasoned scholars and four research assistants, the majority of whom relate to countries of the former Soviet Union in multiple ways. Our positionalities were instrumental in designing the study, engaging with participants, and analysing data (Parson, 2019). We have also been guided by a combined critical-constructive conceptual framework informed by ecological, multicultural, intersectional perspectives. The data have been collected and analyzed using interview and survey guides that were created via a critical constructive review of the existing literature on immigrant and refugee education as well as of our personal-professional experiences as both (im)migrants and scholars of immigrant and refugee education in Canada. NVivo and SPSS have been used (in addition to manual examination of the data) for data coding and identification of themes and subthemes. Combining multiple dimensions of various stakeholders’ experiences, our framework acknowledges the presence of multiple challenges and issues, as well as work being done to provide hope and opportunity at the micro (individual/family), meso (school/community centres) and macro (province of Ontario) levels.

The study seeks to identify commonalities and differences in the participants’ perspectives on themes such as their rationale for immigration to Canada, their relationship to the constructs of Soviet and post-Soviet, views on the comparative advantages and disadvantages between Canadian and home-country curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher-student relationships. Using an asset rather than deficit approach towards our participants, our study also presents solutions and suggestions proposed by the parents, students from the former Soviet countries, as well as from Canadian educators and local and international research.

The panel's presentations will provide nuances, specific details and analytical insights along the following based on voices of parents (presentation 1), community school educators (presentation 2), teachers working with immigrant students (presentation 3), and students with post-Soviet backgrounds (presentation 4).
The principal investigator of the project will chair the session and will start the panel by introducing the history, context, rationale and key objectives of the project as well as locate the study in the broader research on immigrants and refugee education in North America. At the end, the PI will provide concluding thoughts by highlighting our project's implications for policy, practice and theory of education, as well as for methodological dilemmas of researching immigrant and refugees' education in Canada and in countries in transition.

Sub Unit

• Europe and Central Asia SIG

Organizer

• Max Antony-Newman, University of Glasgow

Chair

• Sarfaroz Niyozov Niezov, OISE, University of Toronto

Individual Presentations

• Sending Your Kids to Canadian High Schools: Voices of Parents of post-Soviet Backgrounds - Anna Rzhevska, OISE, University of Toronto; Umme Kulsum, Toronto Catholic District School Board, University of toronto; Max Antony-Newman, University of Glasgow

• Perspectives of Community School Educators on Post-Soviet Youth in Toronto - Talar Melkissetian, The University of Toronto; Stephen A Bahry, OISE, University ofToronto; Johanna HELIN, OISE, University of Toronto

• Voices of Students with post-Soviet Background on their Canadian Schooling Experiences - Nikolai Afanasev; Sarfaroz Niyozov Niezov, OISE, University of Toronto; Jessica Grace MacDonald