A relatively large body of scholarship in Canada explores the various dimensions of immigrant and refugee youth experiences of schooling, recognizing that schools play a central role in the integration of immigrant children and youth (Brewers & McCabe, 2014; Devine, 2011; Hall, 2002, pp. 87-88; LaVasseur, 2008) and that education represents a key factor in their overall well-being (Devine, 2011; Rossiter, Hatami, Ripley, & Rossiter, 2015, p. 749). Studies explore immigrant and refugee youth’s educational aspirations and attitudes toward schooling, as well as the patterns and the complex factors influencing their educational outcomes (Garnett, Adamuti-Trache, & Ungerleider, 2008; Krahn & Taylor, 2005; Smith, Schnider, & Ruck, 2005; Sweet, Anisef, & Walters, 2010; Wilkinson, Yan, Tsang, Sin, Lauer, 2012; Wilkinson, 2002). Many of these studies are quantitative in …show more content…
It does so by exploring immigrant and refugee youth’s experiences of education and schooling in a medium-sized immigrant-receiving city in Ontario. We build our argument around three main questions: How do schools attempt to facilitate the settlement and social inclusion of immigrant and refugee youth? How do young immigrants and refugees experience their education and schooling within this institutional framework? What effect, then, do schools have on young immigrant and refugee’s sense of identity, social inclusion, and belonging to community life? Analysis shows that schools function simultaneously as sites of social inclusion and exclusion in ways that creates a dynamic of inclusionary exclusion. As this paper demonstrates, a major consequence of this process is the production of an ambivalent sense of belonging to community
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
Schissel, Bernard, and Terry Wotherspoon. “The Legacy of Residential Schools.” Inequality in Canada: A Reader on the Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class. 2nd ed. Ed. Valerie Zawilski. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2010. 102-121. Print.
... education proved challenging for Home children during adulthood. The many difficulties the young immigrants endured not only isolated them form Canadians around them but it also discouraged most Home children from staying in rural communities.
My interviewee is classified as a second-generation female immigrant, meaning that she is a US born child with immigrant parents (Feliciano, 01/04/16). To keep her identity confidential, I will use a pseudonym for my respondent; in this essay, she will be referred to as Monica. This paper will discuss and analyze Monica’ struggles with language, her experience of assimilation, what drives her educational success, and how does she see herself in terms of identity.
By the late nineteenth century the economic lines in America between the upper and lower class were quickly widening because of the boom of urban industrial expansion. Moreover, during the 1800s, America witnessed an influx of immigrants coming from many parts of the world, they made tenement houses in New York’s lower East Side a common destination. One person witnessing the living conditions of these tenements was journalist Jacob A. Riis. For several years, Riis, with camera in hand, tooked a multitude of photographs that depicted the atrocious working and living conditions in the New York slums. Riss reported that the tenements were severely overcrowded, unsanitary, and a breeding ground for crime and disease. Riss also claimed that the “slum” landlords of these tenements exploited immigrants by charging them more rent than they could afford. As a result, every member of the family had to work—even young children. Subsequently, in 1890, Riis wrote a book entitled: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, which included his horrifying photographs and sketches, as means to expose to the middle class the chaotic environment of tenement living. Although Riss’s book exposes a myriad of social and economic problems regarding tenement housing, one of the more prominent ills his photographs and prose reveal is the harsh and distressing reality that immigrant families from the lower class must treat their children as a form of labor in order to survive. With this in mind, by describing and analyzing three of Riis’s photographs, I will demonstrate the validity of my argument which portrays the exploitation of child labor.
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
The Canadian and American governments designed a residential school system to assimilate Indigenous children into Western society by stripping them of their language, cultural practices as well as their traditions. By breaking these children’s ties to their families and communities, as well as forcing them to assimilate into Western society; residential schools were a root cause of many social problems, which even persist within Aboriginal communities today.
The integration of immigrants in Canada (or any country for that matter) involves integration into three different domains: the social sphere, the economic sphere, and the institutional sphere. (12) Integration into the social sphere refers to immigrants’ ability to create relationships and have social interactions with other Canadians. Integration into the economic sphere refers to immigrants’ ability to enter the labour force and work in jobs that match their qualifications, while integration into the institutional domain refers to immigrants’ ability to become “fully functional citizens, without facing systemic barriers emanating from the structure and functioning of major institutions. A well-integrated immigrant group is one which faces no institutional obstacles, no market disadvantage, and no social isolation.” (12)
In doing so I will demonstrate the hardships that many individuals from diverse cultures face by choosing to take on a new identity in a new country. It is not easy leaving behind what is familiar and welcoming a new identity, having to build a new home. I take this subject very personally as my parents’ immigration process to Canada was one of hardship and joy, it also made them feel alienated at times. Through discovering Canada and the different cultures it holds they welcomed it and started a family in a new land. In doing so they experienced the accepting and amicable nature that Canada held in
Across the country, there are children who leave home to avoid the dangers of home only to face the dangers of living on the streets. For some the urge to leave is short lived and they return home. For others it can be a lifetime of struggle as the situation they once thought was a good solution suddenly becomes a never ending nightmare as they fight to survive and face the harsh reality that they have no place to turn to.
“The boy who first entered a classroom barely able to speak English,…”, (PG 1) this quote by Rodriguez in “Achievement of Desire” not only captures the early change that was inevitable in his educational journey of having to face his own self-identity in regards to hopefully becoming a “scholarship boy”, but also touches on one of the biggest barriers facing incoming immigrant children. My first day of kindergarten
Each time we revert back to such topics, there were moments of discomfort and uncertainty. This is a prime illustration of the demands her childhood imposed upon her, not directly forcing her to obtain a position in the work force, yet undoubtedly suggesting it, in order to survive. Lynn A. Karoly and Gabriella C. Gonzalez (2011) attempt to find spaces for immigrant children to occupy in their efforts of early care and education for children in immigrant families. “Participation in center-based care and preschool programs has been shown to have substantial short-term benefits and may also lead to long-term gains as children go through school and enter adulthood” (Karoly and Gonzalez, 2011, p.
Immigration is not something that occurs in every individual’s life, but when it does, it has major impacts on how one tries to find where they belong. At the age of seven, I immigrated to Canada, and I am most thankful to my parents for doing so. My journey to belong had begun, and after schooling for a few months, I had done well in making a couple friends, but I was still adjusting to the domestic society. One thing that I noticed, was the huge difference between how I behaved at home, and how I behaved at school. I was a shy, timid and chubby boy who spoke only on request, but at home, I was a totally different individual, asking my parents question after question ...
Over the last seventy years the immigrant population in the United States of America has increased from just 10 million to nearly 45 million today. Immigrants now occupy 13.5 percent of the population today a substantial increase from a mere 5 percent back in the 1950s (Migration Policy Institute). The world in which we leave is so vast and unique from place to place, along with these amazing places come communities of people with distinct ways of life. As an immigrant family leaves their old home, it is not unusual for them to have a hard time adjusting to their new life in a different place. But over time, they slowly adapt to the ways of life of their new home while also keeping strong ties to their old one. In her novel Amy Tan explores
Admittedly, growing up in Australia, as a Muslim migrant and a part of the large Hazara diaspora, I have had to deal with social and political expectations of a completely different system of government and learn to have a relaxed attitude to way of life that is distinctly at odds with more traditional environment I have migrated from. At times I didn’t know who I wanted to be, where I belonged to. Did I want to identify as a typical western teenager or a traditional middle eastern teenager? Ultimately, these questions and complications helped me become the person I am today. As a consequence of being able to change my identity and my sense of belonging, I was able to adapt and assimilate to the expectations and values of Australian society. Granted, my interactions, encounters, and connections with those around me, has allowed me to have an unconditioned acceptance of myself and view myself as a functioning member of Australian society. However, while these changes have led to minor compromises of my inner values and frameworks I was brought up within, I have still managed to keep a healthy balance of changing in response to the changes in my environment and remaining true to myself. Because it is only through such poise, that we are able to feel a genuine sense of belonging and acceptance of