Post-Soviet immigrant students in Ontario high schools: Curricular disjunctures and opportunities for reciprocal learning

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

Proposal

Despite existing research on educational experiences of immigrant students (Dryden-Peterson, 2017; Walker & Zuberi, 2020), studies of Canada’s fast-growing newcomers from post-Soviet countries (Statistics Canada, 2016) have been scant (Tereshchenko et al., 2019). While many of the 15 countries that re-gained their independence after the USSR’s breakup in 1991 followed divergent educational paths, many post-Soviet immigrants experienced high centralisation, ideological uniformity and focus on factual knowledge (Froumin & Remorenko, 2020). This presentation reports on qualitative interviews with students in Ontario high schools, their parents and teachers, exploring how differing curriculum orientations (Eisner & Vallance, 1974) shape responses to Canadian education and contribute to miscommunication between immigrant parents, students, and host country teachers.

Many post-Soviet parents prefer an academic rationalism orientation and expect schools to emphasize subject knowledge, set textbooks and extensive homework. Such parents are dissatisfied with Ontario’s less centralised system and strong social efficiency orientation, and may compensate for these perceived deficiencies by sending their children to immigrant community centres or hiring tutors. Parents critical of post-Soviet education, however, are happier about Canadian education and embrace its social efficiency blended with humanism, often sending their children to sports and arts extracurricular activities without trying to complement the academic part of the Canadian curriculum.
Student interviews elicited positive responses to the curriculum's flexible content and greater choice; development of critical thinking; and more relaxed learning approach. Negative perceptions included lack of readiness for increased autonomy and insufficient understanding of the consequences of student choices. Some students felt lost without enough knowledge and support to handle independence. Students also remarked on some courses’ lack of challenge and “rigour”, including STEM courses. Students suggested changes in education to make them feel more included and supported in their schools.

Prior research recommended negotiated curriculum and pedagogies, especially for learners of diverse backgrounds (Cummins, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1995). This involves working with students and parents on school-based curriculum development. Interviews with 13 teachers showed their general openness to inclusive education for immigrant students but a variety of views on how to accomplish this. Some teachers try to learn about their students’ languages and cultures and adapt curriculum and pedagogies, while others see the schoolboard or ministry as primarily responsible. Few had specific knowledge about the post-Soviet countries, including differences in curriculum orientations. Parental efforts to engage with their children’s academic curriculum at home and in the community were not visible to Canadian teachers, who did not report much awareness of such learning.

While immigrant parents’ often experience low familiarity with the new education system exacerbated by comparing their memories of schooling in home countries with their perception of Canadian schools attended by their children, teachers, on their part, might not be aware of what parents know, do not know, and what particular support they need. We believe that the incorporation of “parent knowledge” (Pushor, 2015) about their children in the classroom and mutual awareness of divergent curriculum orientations between parents and teachers has the potential to make Canadian education more inclusive and equitable for all.

Authors

• Max Antony-Newman, University of Glasgow

• Stephen A Bahry, OISE, University ofToronto

• Sarfaroz Niyozov Niezov

• Mohammad Shahidul Islam, Queen's University