The Educational Integration of Immigrants and Their Children:

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The Educational Integration of Immigrants and
Their Children

• Update of Research Results in the Education Domain

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Presentation to the 3rd Regional Conference and
Workshop

• Prairie Centre, Metropolis
• Saskatoon, September 2000
• Yvonne Hébert, domain leader

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Original Mandate of Education Domain

• Functionality in an official language
• School-work transition
• Awareness and understanding of Canadian culture
• Appreciation of diversity

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Original Research Objectives

• Immigration and educational attainment
• Educational settings as agents of socialization
• Policies and programs aimed at improving
  cross-cultural relations
• Effects of language education on integration

• Effects of various contexts on language learning
• Disability and immigrant populations
• Impact of immigration on policies, programs,
  practices, and curricula

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Current Priorities of Education Domain

• Systemic Barriers to Lifelong ESL Learning
• Nature and Impact of Racial Stereotyping and
  Discrimination within the Educational System
• Construction and Enactment of Citizenship
  Education
• as of October 1999

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Some basic facts...

• 13 research projects funded by PCERII
• 18 researchers
• 4 teams and 7 solos
• Over 4 year period from 1996-1997 to 1999-2000

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MERF Themes

• Across the four Centres of Excellence
• Language Learning and Literacy
• Identity and Citizenship
• Education and Social Mobility
• Institutional Adaptation, Teacher Education, and
  Intercultural Competencies
• PCERII themes

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Literacy, Institutional Adaptation to Diversity,
and Social Mobility

• Integration and Language Proficiency
• Family and Community Literacy
  
• Cultural Integration and Diversity

• Valuing Diversity Formal and Lived Curriculum
• Supporting Survivors of Torture
• Informal Learning, Educational Credentials and
  Work Transitions

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Citizenship, Identity and Voice

• Citizenship Instruction for Adult Immigrants
• Citizenship Concepts in ESL and FSL for Adults in
  Four Provinces
• Citizenship Values

• Influence of Contexts on Identity Formation of
  Immigrant Adolescents
• Voices of Immigrant Children in Canadian Schools
• Oral History Narratives Immigrant Children and
  Schools

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Some findings Language Learning Literacy

• Why differential educational success? (Archibald)
• Maintaining dual proficiency is correlated with
  success in an educational institution
• Deficit in vocabulary
• Kids who enter ESL at 5-7 years take more time to
  catch up than those who enter at 8-11 years

• What is socio-cultural environment of literacy
  development? (Wason-Ellam)
• Dreams and hopes of goodness for family
• Alienation and isolation
• Lack of English and focus on survival limit
  integration into new culture and its literacy
  practices
• Hope for their children and generations beyond

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Some findings Institutional Adaptation to
Diversity

• Ethno-cultural differences between secondary
  school students and teachers in 3 cities? (Carson
  et al)
• Preservice teachers resistance refusal to
  acknowledge their own implication in
  racism/sexism passion for ignorance issues of
  cultural difference, racism and teacher identity

• High school students complex responses to
  promotion of cultural harmony
• Video production that highlights school-based
  initiatives
• Difficulties surrounding collaborative research
  with a variety of stakeholders

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More findings Institutional Adaptation to
Diversity

• Documentary Analysis of Provincial Programmes of
  Study (DePass)
• 1989 Alberta Social Studies conceptualized within
  a structural functional perspective
• Additive approach to inclusion of cultural and
  racial minority voices

• Different cultural groups, at home or abroad,
  presented in a flat, unidimensional and
  stereotypical manner
• Province and country depicted as fair, tolerant,
  Modern, industrial, high-tech society, with a
  strong reputation for being non-aggressive and a
  key peace-keeper on the world stage

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More findings Institutional Adaptation to
Diversity and Intercultural Competencies

• Supporting Survivors of Torture (Arthur)
• identification of competencies for training
  community-based professionals and volunteers
• unique circumstances of involuntary migration and
  especially of torture

• parallel process of secondary traumatization
  among professionals and volunteers who work with
  survivors of torture
• managing vicarious trauma
• a multicultural approach to working with refugees
• advocacy role
• numerous program recommendations

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Work in progress Social Mobility and
EducationInformal Learning, Educational
Credentials and Work Transitions

• 2 key problems (Wotherspoon)
• non-recognition of considerable skills and
  capacities acquired outside of formal learning
  contexts
• schools set up to ignore or de-value informal
  knowledge of immigrants

• Research tasks to identify
• obstacles to recognition validation
• key issues from the perspectives of immigrants
• strategies/initiatives used by immigrant groups
  to enable use and recognition of such knowledge

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Some findings Citizenship

• How do adult immigrants learn about their rights
  and responsibilities prior to application to
  become Canadian citizens? (Derwing)
• Decline...

• Reduction in civic instruction in adult ESL
  classes
• Funding cuts introduction of multiple choice
  citizenship test
• Test promotes superficial and reductionist notion
  of citizenship
• Current procedures highly depersonalized

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More findings Citizenship Values

• Confusion between terms values, principles,
  dispositions, concepts
• Analytic framework proposed (Wilkinson Hébert)
• Four orders of logical relationships according to
  four domains of citizenship

• Civil-civic domain loyalty, sincerity, openness
  and civic-mindedness
• Political domain freedom, liberty, equality,
  justice
• Socio-economic domain solidarity, self-reliance,
  valuing the earth
• Cultural domain sense of belonging and human
  dignity

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Some findings Identity and Voice

• Influence of contexts on identity formation of
  immigrant youth? (Hébert et al)
• Mixity and fidelity to self
• Disparate, fragmentary views of language and
  citizenship
• Religion as central marker of collective identity
  within a diverse community

• Racialized Identity as central to both individual
  and collective identity as forms of social
  action
• Religion as organizing concept for raising
  children in a new context

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More Findings Identity and Voice

• Voices of immigrant children youth in Canadian
  schools (Schissel)
• Paper for Vancouver Metropolis Conference The
  Jeopardy of Victimization on the Well-Being on
  Immigrant Children in Canadian Schools in
  session on Immigrant and Refugee Youth
  Integration and Transition into Adulthood,
  November 2000.

• Two MA theses
• Trisha Keith, The Impact of Victimization at
  School and Away from School on Student Well-Being
  and Adjustment An Analysis of Immigrant Children
  and Youth (Spring, 2000)
• Alison Whittmore, Immigrant Families Perceptions
  of and Experiences with Elementary Secondary
  Education Systems in Canada (in progress)

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More findings Identity and Voice

• Oral history narratives of immigrants whose
  children attend Canadian schools (Hirabayashi et
  al)
• Two MA theses, with Sikh and Greek data
  respectively
• Racism as common experience of children
• Diverse patterns of parenting

• Home teaching of language and culture - fear of
  loss of heritage
• Teasing for limited knowledge of English
• Parents critical of quality of schooling in
  Canada
• Positive portrayals of cultures of origin
  community based activities and associations
• Negative views of self as member of group of
  origin - distancing of cultural group membership
  and rejection from peer group for skin colour

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Future Directions

• Development of domain-driven, prairie-wide,
  multi-site research projects led by several
  senior affiliated researchers
• Clarification of
• Definitional issues, ex., what is culture?
• Whose perspective(s) are reflected in analysis
  and interpretation?
• Differences between research and student
  assignments...
• Tensions in collaborative research...
• Depth of analysis for dissemination...

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More future directions...

• Improved reporting and posting of ongoing work
• Completion of all projects within 1 1/2 years
• Developing workable solutions to isolation,
  individualism and fragmentation
• Building on commonalities, ex., training of
  research assistants, exchange of readings and
  writings, drafting research proposals
• Developing effective working teams of researchers
• Moving towards more comparative research,
  regionally, nationally and internationally

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The Educational Integration of Immigrants and
Their Children

• Update of Research Results in the Education
  Domain
• Fall 2000, Saskatoon