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Refugee Children in Canadian Schools
The Role of Teachers in Supporting Integration and Inclusion

CHRISTINA PARKER

A teacher asked her Grade 5 class: “What are some of the reasons for moving to Canada?” Ten-year-old Jamal, who had recently emigrated from Kenya, readily responded to this question: “War. It’s too dangerous.” Others said: “better job,” “education,” “better opportunities,” “they want peace,” “they want new things,” “the government is not treating them well,” “freedom to practice their religion,” “a multicultural country where everyone is respected.” The teacher then asked, “What does refugees mean?” Caden, a Chinese boy whose mother had initially been denied entry into Canada, responded, “It means they do not feel safe, and then decide to come here as a refugee to live here.”¹ I observed this lesson on immigrants and refugees in Canada as part of my ethnographic study of children’s experiences with peacebuilding education in Canadian schools. Throughout this chapter, I draw on my experiences as a researcher and teacher to discern the experiences of refugee children and their families navigating the complex system of schooling.

Children are acutely aware of conflict and trauma; they have their own interpretations and perceptions of immigration and belonging in Canada. The students in this teacher’s class were all students of colour and had been in Canada for one generation or less. Their teacher, an immigrant from India, appeared to be comfortable posing questions about immigration to Canada. In their unit of study on immigration, the teacher told her students to ask their parents about why people moved to a new country and why they had come to Canada. Drawing on the textbook, the teacher explained the differences between the government’s “family” and “refugee” classes of immigrant. Many students were personally familiar with the latter.

Many teachers in urban—and some rural—settings have recently experienced a greater number of refugee students in their classrooms. Canada accepted more than 321,035 permanent residents in 2018, and more than 62,000 of those had been admitted on various humanitarian grounds. This figure included upwards of 46,000 resettled refugees. Close to half of these resettled refugees—nearly 22,000—were under eighteen.²

Across Canada, elementary school social studies curricula include a unit on immigration to Canada; in Ontario, students study this topic in Grade 5. The presence of immigrant and refugee students in Canadian classrooms influences how students connect with the curriculum, each other, and the school community. The experiences of refugee students are varied, as are the experiences that teachers have with refugee students in their classroom. One Toronto teacher attempted to engage with his diverse Grade 3 students’ cultural histories. During a discussion about a folktale, he mistakenly assumed that one of his students, an Afghani, was from Pakistan. The student, who had spent a year at a Pakistani refugee camp, was hurt, and retorted, “I’m not from Pakistan.”³ Like this student, others might be sensitive to discussions that highlight their perceived ethnicity and experiences based on stereotypes.

Refugee children who have emigrated from conflict zones are usually dealing with multiple challenges and issues that affect their integration into school. For instance, their not being able to speak the same language as their peers, their exposure to violence in their country of origin, and their being separated from family members all impact children’s mental health and well-being.⁴ Many who have spent time in a refugee camp have not had access to schooling, and others have experienced substantial learning disruptions. Such issues need to be addressed so that students with violent and traumatic histories can receive the kind of support that will allow them to successfully integrate and participate in school. Refugee students with marginalized backgrounds also have a higher probability of encountering instances of conflict at school with students, teachers, and the school system.⁵ They have the potential for higher levels of social and academic disengagement, possibly resulting in disproportionately fewer refugee students completing school in Canada. Schools are a unique and ideal resource for refugee families, and with adequate resources and support, they have the capacity to offer programming and services for children and their parents. The day-to-day classroom experience for refugee children is pivotal for successfully learning new cultural norms and practices. Teachers obviously play a key part in these students’ integration.

TEACHERS’ SUBJECTIVE IDENTITIES

In my experience as an elementary teacher, teacher educator, and researcher in diverse schools in Toronto, Canada, I have worked in many schools in areas characterized as high priority with marginalized populations; most of the students have been in Canada for one generation or less. I have spent significant amounts of time in a range of different classrooms, training teachers, learning from teachers, and conducting research with children and youth. My identity shapes how I work with students and teachers because my subjectivity as a teacher and researcher ultimately reflects my own history and culture. My position as a second-generation immigrant-settler in Canada may at times provide me with a privileged understanding of my participants. Still, even though I witnessed my parents’ immigration experiences, their cultural navigation and assimilation process is not and never will be the same as that of the varying students and teachers I work with, who all come with their own perceptions and experiences with migration. I cannot presume that I understand them simply because of my own generational history of immigration. Furthermore, students and teachers’ identities, such as citizenship status, race, ethnicity, class, and gender identities complicate their individual histories and experiences.

A large part of my work has been concerned with the integration of newcomer immigrant and refugee children into school. I have focused on how these students connect to the curriculum and on how some of their lived histories and experiences with conflict, war, and trauma have affected their engagement at school. In my work training novice teachers, I have had mixed results. Some teachers have felt equipped and ready to engage in the kind of cultural learning that is necessary for dealing with immigrant and refugee students’ experiences, while others hold on tightly to Westernized social and cultural lenses that inhibit their understanding of cultural differences.

Having a new student come into the classroom creates change and sometimes disruption. Schools are filled with disruptions, and teachers are expected to instinctively know how to handle them. Teachers acclimatizing new students to the classroom might ask them to share their name, get them set up with a new desk and notebook, and then continue their day-to-day role as teachers. However, what happens when such students do not speak English, and are perhaps carrying trauma from having just come from a refugee camp?

In the schools where I have worked as either a teacher or researcher, many administrators and teachers have expressed frustration with newcomer parents refusing to have their child tested or assessed for various learning abilities. They argue that newcomer parents fear that these assessments will lead to further isolation for their children, that they may be separated from their peers in mainstream classrooms, or become withdrawn. The parents have a point: while many of these assessments can lead to further support and access to resources, they can also further marginalize children who are already in marginalized positions. Communications around fears such as this are often unaddressed.

Many teachers (and their students) do not feel prepared to address conflicts that may arise from diversity in their classrooms, particularly as this diversity relates to race, culture, gender, and religion. For instance, what respect and being “polite” looks like is different in different cultures, which often results in conflict between students and teachers. This is particularly heightened for female students, where societal expectations of model politeness are often conflated and misconstrued. In one case, a teacher felt that her students were constantly disrespecting her because they avoided making eye contact with her when she spoke to them. Only much later in the school year did she realize that her students (mostly of South Asian background) were trying to show her respect.⁶ In another classroom that I observed, Anya arrived from Pakistan at her new Grade 4 classroom. She came dressed in her cultural attire and sat quietly in the seat that her teacher pointed out to her. When her teacher called upon her to respond to a question, she quietly stood up and looked straight ahead to verbalize her response. Many of the students, most of whom carried immigrant histories themselves, snickered. The teacher herself let out a little giggle. Mocking Anya illustrated the complexity of the acculturation process that children experience. In the context that Anya migrated from, it was a social norm and expectation to respond to her teacher in this way; however, as her acculturation journey was just beginning, she still lacked the cultural knowledge and social norms of how children were expected to behave in Canadian schools.

DISCUSSING CONFLICTUAL AND SENSITIVE ISSUES

Refugees’ lived experiences are difficult to discuss, name, or acknowledge, particularly for children; similarly, it is often uncomfortable for teachers, who may feel inadequate and unprepared to engage in such dialogue. Inviting students from marginalized backgrounds to speak often allows them to feel included. However, discussing sensitive issues can be detrimental to classroom social relations if adequate preparations have not been made.

In one Grade 4 classroom where I spent a significant amount of time learning and researching, I met Swetha, who had emigrated with her parents as refugees from Sri Lanka. From experience, she knew the difference between countries at war and countries at peace, but it was not something that she raised in the class. There, she chose to articulate her family’s happiness about their arrival. However, because of her close connection to Sri Lanka and her awareness of political unrest, she was perhaps more aware than many others in her class about what it meant to actually live in what she perceived to be a peaceful country.

The Sri Lankan civil war was a contentious issue in the news at the time I met her. The war had ended in May 2009 after the Mullivaikkal massacre, in which well over forty thousand Tamils died, following which the Sinhala government proclaimed victory. In August 2010, nearly five hundred Tamil Sri Lankans had arrived in Canada by boat, seeking refugee status or some other form of official protection. They were placed in detention, and the government of Stephen Harper made considerable efforts to prevent them from remaining in Canada. This was Swetha’s family’s experience, as she revealed to me in an interview:

In my parents’ home country . . . in Sri Lanka nowadays there is, like, armies and . . . they’re, like, shooting only the Tamil people and Tamil people are dying . . . but the government of Sri Lanka is the one that’s telling them to do it because he’s Sinhalese and everything, you know. And they hate Tamil people. . . . And our side, they call them Tamil Tigers and because we fight for them. . . . They can’t find my uncle anymore and my friend’s cousin’s uncle found [people] in a cave. . . . Oh, and 2,000 people came on a boat to Canada, and my parents were so happy. One of my cousins was on the boat, too.⁷

In one Grade 8 classroom where I conducted research, a significant number of students were Sri Lankan, and they felt betrayed by Canada’s lack of intervention in the war in Sri Lanka. In an interview with a group of Tamil Sri Lankan female students, one stated: “I really hate the Canadian government right now,” to which her peer replied, “’Cause it’s our people who’re getting affected.”⁸ As young people acculturate, their allegiance and connection to the country of origin may still be stronger than their connection to Canada. In this particular class, since many students had arrived from high-conflict settings, such as war zones or places where the government was corrupt, their willingness to engage and share perspectives in whole-class discussions was not always easy or welcomed.

Creating a safe space for acculturating students to navigate their cultural identities obviously requires careful planning and preparation of the classroom environment. The multicultural rhetoric of the dominant society has sought to define and normalize our perceptions of difference, but critical pedagogical approaches to issues of diversity can provide students with the autonomy to (re)define their own identities. Dominant narratives or messages about refugees can also influence teachers’ practices and responses to different types of children. Guiding students (and teachers) to explore social constructions of race, gender, and privilege, for instance, may also contribute to their increased awareness and understanding of power.

Children do not always want to share their stories. Often, neither do their parents. The trauma, shame, and many deep feelings associated with the refugee process are not something that teachers are necessarily equipped to address; nor should they forcefully address them, even when given the opportunity. Furthermore, for many children awaiting their permanent resident status, focusing on school—or anything else for that matter—becomes challenging.

FACILITATING INCLUSION

In my experience working with immigrant and refugee children, I have found that children often feel more comfortable sharing their story if they feel connected in some way. They may feel connected to a teacher or peer they have aligned with, or to content within the curriculum, or to classroom discussions that closely reflect their experiences. When teachers strive to create an inclusive and safe space for children, the process of building trust and creating an emotionally and physically safe community contributes to helping children heal from trauma.

Relationships between students are key indicators of safety in the classroom. Pedagogical tools to facilitate strong and healthy peer relationships are critical for ensuring student safety and inclusion. A Grade 8 teacher, Ms. Rossi, a white female, felt that peacemaking pedagogies such as circle processes (a dialogic pedagogical tool, where students sit in a circle, and use a talking piece to each take turns speaking) were very beneficial for her very transient student population, which included several Syrian, Roma, and Russian students who were refugees. She reflected on how this transient population impacted her role as a teacher:

I feel like I’m like the maître-d’ at a restaurant and I just have to cater to everyone, and people in the neighbourhood are looking on and everyone expects to be accommodated. So I try to make it my business to know everyone’s interests in the class, like in a restaurant, which is my classroom, because I want them to be engaged and I want them to feel safe. Since November I have gotten seven new students, who do not all speak English and have various needs, so circles have been really helpful.⁹

One of her newcomer students, a Russian child who did not know much English, was silent for the first two months he was there. Ms. Rossi relied on another Russian student in the class to translate for him. When the child did speak, he often had his head down and turned away. However, during a classroom circle, he spoke for the first time in front of his peers—in English. After he shared, his student peers spontaneously clapped to acknowledge him. In these contexts, the opportunity to speak in well-facilitated circle dialogues seemed over time to encourage more students to participate orally, while also nurturing healthy peer relationships. Ms. Rossi’s circle implementation illustrates how, when done effectively, peacemaking pedagogies can increase the opportunities for quieter, English Learner (EL) students to participate orally and feel more included in their classrooms.¹⁰

Overall, discussing historical conflicts and current events that relate directly to students’ lived experiences with conflict can raise further contention and, possibly, conflict. Teachers’ interpretations and assumptions may impact how or whether they teach about topics that are directly connected to students’ experiences. Prior to meeting the students registered in a course I was teaching I planned a lesson that focused on peacebuilding in Sudan. When facilitating this lesson, two students from Sudan raised their hands to contribute to the discussion, offering their own interpretation and sharing their story about coming to Canada as refugees, identifying themselves as Lost Boys of Sudan—orphans who had been separated from their families during attacks in the southern region of Sudan, and who had walked miles to escape war and recruitment as child soldiers. Clearly, my interpretation of this conflict was superseded by these students’ experiences. Their willingness to share and educate their peers was also reflective of their trust in their classmates and requisite safety in the classroom necessary to engage in such a difficult conversation.

REFUGEE PARENTS

When parents emigrate with their children, one often hears the phrase “I’m doing this for my children.” The this often refers to issues ranging from dangerous and risky journeys, to lack of social, cultural, and economic support, and the challenges of integration. Parents often attribute the sacrifice they make in leaving their country of origin, and the strength they develop in overcoming trials and tribulations in immigrating to a completely foreign country, to hope for their children. Still, many teachers are confronted with a wide variance in refugees’ parental involvement. In addition to working long hours, refugee parents may not understand how Canadian school systems work. Furthermore, many parents and families are deeply concerned about their child’s experience with inclusion and acculturation to their new school community. These concerns vary from fear their child will be rejected to concerns over their child’s loss of their own cultural values as they integrate into their new school community.

In many ways, parents of refugee children are further marginalized when they are not met with inclusive and welcoming school personnel. Teachers and school administrators hold a lot of power. The power dynamic between teachers and parents from marginalized backgrounds results in parents becoming passive recipients of information, with little capacity to advocate for their children or even to ask questions. This may be further exacerbated if the parents or guardians do not speak English or lack an understanding of the cultural cues and norms of the dominant society. Strong communication between teachers and parents contributes to children’s academic success, but typical strategies for connecting with parents—letters or phone calls—may not always be successful. More successful strategies include access to translators, translated letters home, connecting the new parent to other parents in the school community, and involving parents in activities and events, where they have a special role in the school activity or event. Such efforts help to provide a welcoming and safe forum for refugee parents to engage in their children’s schooling. They are also an instrumental factor in preparing for the students’ success. When teachers and administrators actively use strategies for supporting communication with refugee parents, the potential for students’ success and inclusion heightens.

CONCLUSION

When the needs of refugee children and their families can be met through structural supports embedded in schools, the children will enjoy greater academic success and social and cultural inclusion, and experience a strong pathway facilitating citizenship capacity-building. Encouraging all students, and particularly refugee students and their peers, to identify positively with their classmates, their cultures, and their society is essential for successful integration and inclusion at school. Teachers who are readily equipped with tools and strategies for supporting refugee students’ integration and inclusion, and who themselves receive ongoing support, professional development, and adequate resources, can maintain the kind of connection and communication necessary for building strong student communities.

The journey that refugee children experience when coming to Canada, in addition to their age and country of origin, are all factors in determining what kind of support will be effective and useful. Many children who arrive in Canada as refugees have likely experienced violence, trauma, and separation from their family, and they may have been out of school for an extended period of time. Overall, integrating refugee children poses a challenge that teachers and administrators across Canada are facing, particularly when dealing with inadequate resources and supports to contribute to successful integration and acculturation. Without adequate and ongoing support, the outcomes for immigrant and refugee children will be suboptimal at best, and tragic at worst.

1 These comments were made in March 2011, in a Grade 5 classroom in Toronto. I was present at the time as a classroom observer. For additional discussion, see Christina Parker, Peacebuilding, Citizenship, and Identity: Empowering Conflict and Dialogue in Multicultural Classrooms (Rotterdam: Sense, 2016), esp. chap. 4, “Identity Connections: Conflictual Issues Across Time, Space, and Culture.”

2 Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2019 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, Government of Canada, last modified November 1, 2019, https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english/pdf/pub/annual-report-2019.pdf, p. 3.

3 Curt Dudley-Marling, “‘I’m Not from Pakistan’: Multicultural Literature and the Problem of Representation,” The New Advocate 10 (1997): 123–34.

4 Katie Stadelman, “Caring for Kids New to Canada: Mental Health Promotion,” Canadian Paediatric Society, April 2019, https://www.kidsnewtocanada.ca/mental-health/mental-health-promotion.

5 See, for example, Motoko Akiba, “Predictors of Student Fear of School Violence: A Comparative Study of Eighth Graders in 33 Countries,” School Effectiveness and School Improvement 19, no. 1 (2008): 51–72; Kent Spencer and Ian Austin, “Gangs a Threat to Refugee Kids,” The Province (Vancouver), November 10, 2011; Hieu Van Ngo, Avery Calhoun, Catherine Worthington, Tim Pyrch, and David Este, “The Unravelling of Identities and Belonging: Criminal Gang Involvement of Youth from Immigrant Families,” Journal of International Migration and Integration 18, no. 1 (2017): 63–84.

6 Christina Parker and Kathy Bickmore, “Conflict Management and Dialogue with Diverse Students: Novice Teachers’ Approaches and Concerns,” Journal of Teaching and Learning 8, no. 2 (2012): 47–64.

7 Swetha, whose family was living in Toronto at the time, made these comments in April 2011.

8 This exchange took place in April 2011 at a school in Toronto.

9 Interview with the author, April 21, 2016, Toronto. The teacher’s name has been changed for confidentiality.

10 For a detailed account of this incident, see Christina Parker and Kathy Bickmore, “Classroom Peace Circles: Teachers’ Professional Learning and Implementation of Restorative Dialogue,” Teaching and Teacher Education 95 (2020): article 103129.