Empowering educational transformation through international comparative curriculum mapping: Insights from the ESCAPE Project

• In Event: Global knowledge for local equity: Comparative curriculum mapping for social justice in Canadian education

Proposal

The language of instruction plays a central role in the academic trajectory of newcomer students (Van Viegen et al., 2016). However, it is not the only factor contributing to their challenges. Refugee students in Canada face multiple barriers: inappropriate grade placement, low teacher expectations, lack of culturally appropriate support, culturally insensitive pedagogy, and breakdowns in home-school communication (Author, 2023). To move forward towards more equitable inclusion, two critical issues must be addressed: the exclusivity of the language of schooling that continues to marginalize students (Cummins, 2017; Dendrinos, 2019; Morgan, 2020) and the cultural embeddedness of curricula, which must be realigned to reflect students’ lived experiences and funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005). In response to these challenges, the ESCAPE project, funded by MITACS and SSHRC, aimed to explore how educational content can be made more accessible and inclusive for refugee students. It was guided by the following research questions:


What role does examining the curricula of students’ countries of origin play in understanding their educational backgrounds?
How can linguistically and culturally responsive resources support refugee students’ school transitions?
How do these resources transform the perspectives of teachers, parents, and students?


The project combined comparative curriculum analysis with collaborative action research. Drawing on Porter’s (2006) framework of intended, enacted, and assessed curricula, the team examined curriculum design, pedagogical approaches, and evaluation practices. The analysis focused on STEM curricula (Grades 6–9) across 17 countries, including, for instance, Afghanistan and Syria, exploring learning objectives, instructional methods, symbolic representations, and assessment formats (Author, 2025; Author, in preparation).


Curriculum analysis was conducted using national documents and websites across the countries studied. Drawing on these findings, the team developed multilingual, culturally responsive resources that reflected students’ diverse backgrounds. Several schools in the Greater Toronto Area participated in the project. Teachers co-designed lesson plans incorporating the proposed resources. Interactions between students and teachers were analyzed in light of the students’ prior curricula, educational norms, and individual trajectories. In addition, we organized 15 parent workshops through participating schools or in collaboration with community organizations.


Findings showed that analyzing students’ home curricula helped educators better understand their cognitive frameworks and identify points of alignment or divergence with the Canadian curriculum. This approach fostered a critical intercultural pedagogy that valued refugee students’ knowledge, supported teachers in adapting their practices, and helped parents better understand the Canadian education system. It also highlighted the challenges posed by Canadian curricula, their shift toward more liberal educational models, and, the increasing reliance on digital assessments, which demanded advanced linguistic, cultural, and technological competencies.


The project promoted mutual recognition and inclusion of refugee students and responded to questions raised by the decolonization movement by offering a bottom-up approach, empowering schools and teachers to recognize and build upon their students funds of knowledge and to adopt pedagogies that reflect and respect these realities. In this presentation, we will discuss how this approach now needs to be considered and assessed at a broader systemic level, and how key points of rupture must be critically addressed.

Authors

• Mai Naji, OISE - University of Toronto

• Emmanuelle Le Pichon, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education OISE, University of Toronto