Settlement and schooling: unique circumstances of refugees and forced migrants in post-war Toronto suburbs.

Dippo, Don ; Basu, Ranu ; Duran, Marcela 等

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities of discovering, sharing, and transforming school-community linkages through proactive outreach programs that are of particular relevance to public elementary schools catering to a large refugee and immigrant population. The authors argue that community-school linkages, as currently understood and discussed in the literature, are primarily focused on unidirectional relations, but certainly have the potential of furthering the particular needs of these children and their families in more productive ways. A wealth of untapped opportunities and creative capacities exist in the community that provide the potential for 'bridging and bonding' social capital where the response is sensitive to power relations that can arise from hegemonic interactions. School-community linkages are crucial for displaced communities further isolated and stigmatized in underserved and deprived pockets of the city. These are particularly evident in Toronto's post-war suburbs, such as Scarborough, where the concentration of neighbourhood poverty is well documented, but where the energy and creativity in the production of its social and cultural landscape, and the commitment of its citizens, are less noted. Based on an outreach workshop held in one such school, the potential of a sustainable emancipatory school-community framework is explored.

Resume

Cet article porte sur les possibilites de decouvrir, partager et transformer les liens entre l'ecole et la communaute par le biais de programmes de communication proactifs qui soient particulierement pertinents pour les etablissements elementaires publics recevant une large population d'immigres et de refugies. Les auteurs affirment que ces liens, tels qu'ils sont actuellement compris et etudies dans les publications universitaires, sont avant tout focalises sur des relations unidimensionnelles, mais qu'ils pourraient certainement servir les besoins particuliers des enfants et de leurs familles de maniere plus productive. Dans ces communautes, une abondance d'occasions inexploitees et de capacites creatives sont susceptibles de procurer un capital social <<affectif et relationnel>>, la ou il y a une reponse receptive aux relations de pouvoir qui peuvent naitre d'interactions hegemoniques. Les liens ecole-communaute sont cruciaux pour les populations encore plus isolees et stigmatisees, deplacees dans des secteurs non desservis et defavorises de la ville. Ceci est particulierement evident dans les banlieues d'apres-guerre de Toronto, telles que Scarborough ou la concentration de quartiers pauvres est bien documentee, mais ou l'energie et la creativite dans l'eclosion de son paysage social et culturel et l'engagement des citoyens ne sont pas autant pris en note. Un atelier de communication qui a eu lieu dans une de ces ecoles, a permis d'explorer le role potentiel d'un cadre ecole-communaute emancipateur durable.

INTRODUCTION

We want to begin by acknowledging/celebrating the work of thousands of teachers across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who, for more than thirty years (since the mid-1970s when Canada adopted State Multiculturalism as a national policy), have been working to create inclusive, warm and welcoming learning environments for all kids including newcomers. At a time when European leaders one after another are declaring the failure of state multiculturalism in Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, we find delegations of educators from all over Europe and the United States, but also increasingly from China, travelling to Toronto to find out how we "do" multiculturalism in GTA schools. All are impressed with the diversity of Toronto schools and most are amazed that that diversity is described as a strength and a benefit to the school. All report that within the first five minutes of visiting a school, whether they are being hosted by a student, a teacher, or an administrator, they are told that the school "is like a mini-United Nations with more than (twenty, thirty, sometimes fifty) languages spoken here." This is pointed out not as a problem but with pride. Gerald Kennerman describes this as "multicultural nationalism" (Kernerman 2005).

This is not to say that there aren't problems. In practice, there are a full range of responses to the racial, ethnic, religious, class and sexual diversities found in Toronto schools from shallow "chomp and stomp" approaches limited to food and dance to deeply committed versions of multicultural/anti-racist education that aspire to full participation and community engagement. Another problem, all too apparent to those of us who are interested in and care about children and families who have experienced forced migration, is a lack of knowledge and understanding of important differences between "newcomers" and "refugees" or "forced migrants".

Part of this problem has to do with the fact that, because teaching is a relatively accessible profession, many teachers in Toronto are children of immigrants who do know about hardship, who have faced discrimination, who have lived in poverty, and who have experienced language barriers, etcetera (Houston and Prentice 1988). These are teachers who presume to know all about the experience of being a "newcomer" with little or no appreciation of how the experience of flight profoundly affects the migration experiences of children and families. Such presuming-to-know can lead to a distinct lack of compassion for refugees and forced migrants and a susceptibility to the kind of "criminals and queue jumpers" analysis popular amongst xenophobes everywhere.

Another dimension of the problem of lack of knowledge and understanding of the differences between the experiences of "newcomers" and refugees or forced migrants is what happens when the well-meaning teacher insists on knowing more (or worse, insists on "telling the class") about "what life was like in your home country" and then has no idea how to respond to what has been told--who then becomes traumatized by learning about the child's trauma.

This paper will focus on two initiatives designed: a) to help teachers and administrators to better understand issues related to settlement and forced migration and, b) to encourage teachers to look to communities for support in their efforts to create teaching and learning environments that are inclusive and welcoming to all kids. In the next section of the paper we will describe a workshop developed by the Centre for Refugee Studies and delivered to teachers and principals in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) focussed on: pre-arrival experiences of refugees; the legal context and refugee determination processes; settlement issues faced by refugee families; and the complexity of trauma and vicarious trauma. Following that, we will describe another workshop developed by the authors for the staff of a particular school in Scarborough--one of Toronto's inner-suburban communities. This workshop was focussed on the social capital of neighbourhoods and emphasized the importance of knowledge of local context. We wanted to stress the idea that the children of families who have been subject to forced migration enrol in schools with a host of complex issues and that no teacher alone can know enough about the important features of each migration experience to respond well to children and their families. Knowing about and making connections with Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community Based Organizations (CBOs), faith communities, settlement organizations, etcetera, is a necessary but too often overlooked strategy for teachers to learn to serve refugee families well. We conclude the paper by describing some of the things we are doing at York University (with specific reference to the Geography Department and the Faculty of Education) to help make sure our students understand the importance of global and local contexts and will be able to use that knowledge to create the kinds of living and learning environments that will help us all learn to live well together.

THE CENTRE FOR REFUGEE STUDIES "SETTLEMENT AND SCHOOLING" WORKSHOP

The idea for this workshop came about when two administrators from the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) came to a Centre for Refugee Studies Open House seeking advice for how to think about accommodating the increasing number of families from Mexico, Haiti, and Colombia who were seeking to register their children in TCDSB schools. The legal status of many of these families was unclear and their situation with respect to housing, employment, etcetera, was often precarious. These school administrators recognized gaps in their own knowledge and, as school leaders, felt responsible for learning more and making sure that teachers and staff members in their schools had opportunities to develop better understandings of issues related to forced migration experiences. In response to this request, the Centre for Refugee Studies developed a two-hour interactive presentation and an accompanying resource package that was first presented to a group of TCDSB administrators and has subsequently been modified, updated and presented to numerous groups of teachers and school administrators across the GTA.

The presentation opens with a section on pre-arrival (in Canada) experiences, making the point that while some refugees will have come from camps and protracted refugee situations, others will have fled large urban centres. This section includes statistics on refugee and asylum seekers worldwide, resettlement by country, the total number of refugees in Canada, and a breakdown of where claims in Canada are made (airport, inland, and at the Canada/US border). We conclude the section with an historic overview of countries of origin of refugees and asylum seekers, pointing out how world events and domestic politics have an impact on who arrives and who is allowed to stay in Canada.

The second section of the presentation focuses on the legal context generally and refugee determination processes in particular. It begins by reviewing the 1951 definition of a Convention Refugee and describes the various means by which individuals and families can be sponsored to come to Canada including: Government Assisted Refugees (GARS), Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSRS), and Joint Assisted Sponsorships (JAS). We also review the situations and processes related to Inland Claimants, Non-Status, and Undocumented migrants. Canada's Refugee Determination System is presented in a chart form that includes various paths and processes related to both Overseas Resettlement and Inland Determination.

The third section of the presentation addresses settlement issues with special attention given to matters related to schooling. Included in this section, as well, is information about cultural adjustment, housing, employment, health care, community services and the range of existing programs and services needed to support the adjustment of individuals and families that have experienced trauma. The examples we give include the supportive counseling provided by NGOs such as the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture that play a major role in the process of healing the traumatic effects and improving the mental health of the survivors/refugees. We stress the importance of mutual support groups to help survivors overcome the isolation that they may feel (e.g., Somali Women's group, Iranian men and women's group). We highlight the need for coordinated professional services which include experienced physicians, psychiatrists, lawyers and social service workers who are essential in the recovery process. We also include the important role of settlement services in assisting to overcome the many barriers to positive resettlement (interpretation/ translation, social assistance, employment, skills training, educational, social and cultural facilities, etcetera).

As a caveat, we do suggest that while schools should provide information about these services to the families since schools are among the first official Canadian institutions that a family will access, the counselling of survivors does require specialized training and skills and is outside the realm of services that a school can provide. Thus it should not be undertaken by regular school staff unless they receive adequate training.

In the discussion about schooling we turn our focus to children and their families in their relations with schools. We include pre-arrival considerations such as the displacement, violence and chaos refugee children may have experienced. We also raise points related to the immediate needs upon arrival over and above the need to learn a new language. These would include the effects of sometimes prolonged poverty and dislocation prior to arrival, separation from nuclear or extended family, and the obvious effects of culture shock which can manifest itself in a variety of ways once children are registered in schools (Stewart 2011). We make a point of stressing some of the behaviours that may become evident in schools such as stomach aches, nervousness, anxiety, aggression, lack of concentration, mood swings, sense of disconnection, withdrawal from participation, sadness, and stuttering or other effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. We highlight how schools can give shape and structure to the lives of refugee students and their families and how teachers can be role models in providing a welcoming environment. Teachers can support the psychological and emotional adjustment of these children.

We conclude this presentation with suggestions and examples of ideal reception approaches and school practices that help in the successful adjustment of refugee children. In doing this we keep in the back of our minds the uneven quality of the reception given to immigrants and refugees because of its reliance on federal and provincial support for newcomer students (Lessard and Brassard 2009; Basu 2004a).

Among the ideal reception conditions for refugee students in schools we suggest the following:

* A clear set of procedures related to the reception and integration of refugee students and their families.

* Provision of initial educational assessments in students' first languages to ensure appropriate placement in classrooms and an understanding of their learning needs.

* Provision of upgrading and literacy programs within English as a Second Language (ESL)/English Language Learning (ELL) and regular classroom programs depending on assessment results.

* Procedures for careful monitoring of progress to ensure their successful integration.

* Assurance that most teachers in the school have ESL qualifications and the promotion of ESL qualifications as important professional development for all teachers.

* Procedures in place to prepare the student body for the reception, welcoming and protection of refugee students.

* Strategies to incorporate the new families as an integral part of the school community.

In delivering the workshops we recognized the possibility that our presentation could be received with skepticism by teachers who saw themselves as familiar and comfortable with the needs of immigrant students given their experiences teaching high numbers of newcomers and their own experiences growing up as children or grandchildren of immigrants. We were also somewhat pessimistic given the lack of progress observed in the area of reception of refugees in schools which the Centre for Refugee Studies has been following since the 1980's. These workshops confirmed both suspicions, but also found a growing interest in becoming more informed on the part of many attendees.

BUILDING COMMUNITY IN SUBURBAN INNER-CITY SCHOOLS WORKSHOP: SCARBOROUGH AS A SITE FOR EMANCIPATORY PRACTICE

In order to build a form of emancipatory practice where the school is at the forefront of structural change, we investigated the possibility of exploring the relational space of one particular school community with their teachers. Through this workshop we tried to further explore the possibilities of discovering, sharing, and transforming school-community linkages through proactive outreach programs that are of particular relevance to public elementary schools catering to a large refugee and immigrant population. Community-school linkages, as currently understood and discussed in the literature, are primarily focused on unidirectional relations but certainly have the potential of furthering the particular needs of these children and their families in more productive ways. A wealth of untapped opportunities and creative capacities exist in the spaces surrounding the community that provides the potential for 'bridging and bonding' social capital; yet where the response is critical and sensitive to power relations that can arise from hegemonic interactions. School-community linkages are crucial for displaced communities further isolated and stigmatized in underserved and deprived pockets of the city. These are particularly evident in Toronto's post-war suburbs, such as Scarborough, where the concentration of neighbourhood poverty is well documented, but where the energy and creativity in the production of its social and cultural landscape, and the commitment of its citizens, are less noted. Based on an outreach workshop held in one such school, we explored the potential of a sustainable emancipatory school-community framework.

The workshop began by discussing the broader macro contexts linking the effects of global economic restructuring; changing national and international demographics; flows of migration and transnationalism; to the simultaneous effects on changing neoliberal modes of governance and policy regimes; and the culmination of these processes on the form and functioning of cities. Within Toronto we focused on the post-war suburbs as a product of these forces and Scarborough as a particular site of neglect. Our discussion then moved to the particular challenges that neighbourhoods in Scarborough faced to give a sense of the everyday realities that refugee families faced and the structural impediments embedded in these landscapes. The distribution of public services, settlement agency support, public transportation and other public good discrepancies were all discussed. Further, the racialized poverty and the difficulty negotiating daily life within these many challenges, we argued, made the school as a public hub critical in developing and nurturing caring and supportive communities. Communities, we argued, were already immersed in creating their own places in these neighbourhoods and schools could build on these associational linkages and work together. Thus, we argued, recognizing the micro-geographies of school spaces was the first step in a broader movement for change.

The discussion was contextualized by presenting numerous maps both of the wider city (see Map 1) and scaled down to the local neighbourhood (See Map 2). For example, maps showing the spaces of population change, recent immigrants, education levels, density of dwellings, lone parent families, and movers were overlaid with changes in enrolment levels and English as a Second Language students (see Table 1). Situating the school within this framework allowed us to engage in a more philosophical and pragmatic way towards understanding the social/economic/demographic spaces and the limitations of the spaces, and, further, the accessibility and networks with other schools facing similar challenges.

Drawing on Mark Warren's (2005) work on Communities and Schools we presented three models of school community linkages: Community IN the School Model or the service approach (community schools approach adopted by the Toronto District School Board with their Model School Initiative); the development approach (community sponsorship of new charter schools); the organizing approach (school-community organizing) or School IN the Community Model; and the possibilities for linking individual school change to political strategies that address structures of poverty. The final model, we argued, would allow a more

emancipatory approach as it would allow the school to be understood as integral to the surrounding community rather than in isolation. Using the TDSB case we presented a spatial framework of Civic Engagement that would provide a critical framework to measure conditions conducive for "social capital" formation within neighbourhood schools--an argument towards civic agency (see Basu 2004b). This framework was developed by drawing on Putnam's notion of social capital (1993) along with Epstein's (1993) work on parent school links but with a spatial perspective. Central to this argument is that the quality of engagement (in terms of time, resources and skills) produced in a particular place and space leads to variations in social learning, social consciousness and organization; which in turn determines the kind of political consciousness and mobilization undertaken by a particular community. Basu (2004b) outlines how civic capacities or the social spatial capital in each school could be classified as being Intramural (activities within the school); parental (regular, ongoing, governance); schools linkages with neighbourhood and community organizations (e.g., settlement services, hospitals, businesses, child care centres, among others); or extrinsic (linkages with other schools beyond the neighbourhood). The teachers and members in the workshop were asked to comment and reflect on these variants of civic engagement and how they might relate their particular school to the quality and kind of community engagement.

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The discussions that followed noted that schools needed to play a more central role in advocacy. Schools were not only IN but OF the community. Suggestions were made that community use within social housing--child care centres, senior homes, malls and food courts could also be spaces where outreach events could be held. Events such as parent teacher evenings, intergenerational activities, heritage languages, community or faith walks, and job shadowing in community-based organizations were events that would bring the school to the community and, for refugee and immigrant families in particular, foster a sense of belonging and well being. Suburbs like Scarborough were, in general, neglected by non-profit organizations as most of the resources were focused in the inner city. Most of the refugee and recent immigrants, however, lived in the suburbs at the edge of cities.

IN BOTH WORKSHOPS

In both workshops teachers acknowledged their own lack of knowledge about the unique circumstances faced by refugees and forced migrants and lack of familiarity with the community-based organizations and settlement services available in the neighbourhoods where they work. And while there were some teachers and administrators who thought that such knowledge and understanding was crucial to being able to provide excellent learning environments for the children of refugees and forced migrants, there were others who were of the view that because these are the rightful responsibilities of settlement and/or social and/or community health workers, as teachers, it would be best not to become too involved. The feeling was that somehow involving oneself in matters having to do with housing or nutrition or social services, was to lose sight of the primary mission of schools and mandate of teachers which is student learning. This tension came up at every workshop we gave.

Throughout all of these discussions, we tried to stress that engaging the community does not require them, as teachers, to "lead" the community or to "organize" the community (or even "teach" the community). To engage the community rather means to be interested in the community, to care about what's going on, and to be willing to contribute what one can to efforts aimed at addressing community concerns. It means being in solidarity with the community, and standing with them as they endeavour to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods. Teachers we worked with seemed to have a difficult time thinking about "professional boundaries" and "professional responsibilities" in relation to the messages we were trying to get across regarding community knowledge and community engagement (Dippo and James 2011). And we, in turn, were having a difficult time describing, in ways that didn't seem burdensome, community engaged schools and classrooms where parent and grandparent participation was commonplace, where the curriculum was inclusive and focused on local problems, questions, interests and enthusiasms, where teachers were recognized and greeted on the street and at the plaza, and where the business of schooling was conducted with energy and enthusiasm.

When we first began making these presentations, we were invited into schools from one end of the city to the other on a monthly basis. And while we liked to imagine that our presentations were so compelling and the discussions afterward so rich and rewarding that we were developing a reputation of providing "really useful" professional development, the fact is that we had advocates in the central administrations of both Toronto school boards. Neither of these people is currently working in the professional development divisions of their respective boards, and interest in our workshops has fallen off rather dramatically. We have not given up on the professional development route to encouraging teachers to become more knowledgeable regarding settlement issues. That said, we have also come to realize the importance of making sure that students planning to enter the teaching profession be afforded the opportunities to develop these knowledges, skills, and commitments.

CONCLUSION: INITIATIVES AT YORK UNIVERSITY

The outreach workshops discussed above have brought the numerous challenges that refugee families face to the forefront. Further to the outreach programs discussed above, we have tried to implement into our curriculum and teaching ways of engaging our students with these critical themes.

In a course on the "Geographies of Education," discussions on globalization and migration and the implications of neoliberalization on education are central to the course. A week is devoted to the challenges faced by refugee students in particular and the students are introduced to the workshop discussed above. Further, an assignment is designed to allow students to explore neighbourhood schools of their choice and critically think through a comparative community mapping project. Students are asked to explore two schools of their choice in the Toronto Region--with different levels of advantage. The students undertake a school analysis, neighbourhood analysis and compare and contrast the micro-geographies of these spaces with a critical introspection on the material covered in the course. The spaces of the community, linkages and flows between schools, associational networks, resources invested and equity measures undertaken by the school, are all investigated. A report is presented to the entire class and comparisons made with their peers allows them to engage in a Toronto-wide comparison of schools and communities and the spaces of inclusion and exclusion embedded within the broader public education system. As many of these students are future teachers, planners or social workers, this exercise is a first step toward introducing them to the importance of community and school relations and the challenges that schools face within the broader context of neoliberalism (Apple 2001).

In the Faculty of Education these concerns are included in a number of elective courses ("Education and Human Rights," "Urban Education" "Global Issues and Education," "Teaching English Language to Learners in Mainstream Classrooms") as well as embedded in the expectations of our Practicum Evaluation Protocol. The first year practicum, entitled "Studies in Communities and their Schools," consists of a seminar that accompanies a field experience in a community organization or settlement agency that provides support and advocacy services to students and families. The main thrust of the practicum points is to have teacher candidates understand the complexities of the communities that students come from. Requiring first year students to engage in an inquiry process helps them learn and reflect about this reality. The practicum culminates with a one-week observation of a school and its surrounding community accompanied by a community mapping activity designed to identify and learn about the wide array of organizations and services available to that particular school. Teacher candidates are expected to see the school as part of the broader community and hopefully develop an understanding of how schools reflect and support the community as a whole. We acknowledge community mapping as a community-based research and community organizing tool that can also be used to identify the strengths and weakness of a particular community.

We began this paper by expressing appreciation for the good work of teachers while at the same time acknowledging the shortcomings of an approach to inclusive education that doesn't distinguish between the experiences of newcomers and forced migrants and seems unable to connect with the social capital of communities. These are not self-correcting problems. To the extent that teachers are unaware of them as issues, they will persist without intervention. We have described our efforts working with school administrators, teachers, student teachers, and potential teachers aimed at expanding their knowledge of the conditions of forced migration and deepening their appreciation of the bridging and bonding power of social capital. Our hope is to engender awareness in teachers of the potentially transformative role schools can play in combating new forms of xenophobia and building strong, sustainable, and inclusive communities.

REFERENCES

Apple M. W. 2001. Comparing Neo-liberal Projects and Inequality in Education. Comparative Education 37.4: 409-423.

Basu, R. 2004a. The Rationalization of Neoliberalism in Ontario's Public Education System, 1995-2000. Geoforum 35.5: 621-634.

Basu, R. 2004b. A Flyvbjergian Perspective of Public Elementary School Closures in Toronto: A Question of 'Rationality' or 'Power'? Environment and Planning: C, Government and Policy 22.3: 423-251.

Dippo D., and C. James. 2011. The Urbanization of Suburbia: Implications for Inner-Suburban Schools and Communities. In In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability, eds. D. Young, P. B. Wood, and R. Keil, 115-130. Kelowna: UBC Praxis (e)Press.

Epstein, J. 1993. "A Response" to (M. Fine). Teachers College Record 94.4 (Summer): 710-717.

Houston, S., and A. Prentice. 1988. Schooling and Scholars in Nineteenth Century Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Kernerman, G. 2005. Multicultural Nationalism: Civilizing Difference, Constituting Community. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Lessard, C., and A. Brassard. 2009. Education Governance in Canada, 1990-2003: Trends and Significance. In Canadian Perspectives on the Sociology of Education, ed. C. Levine-Raskey, 255-273. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, R. D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Stewart, J. 2011. Supporting Refugee Children, Strategies for Educators. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Warren, M. R. 2005. Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform. Harvard Educational Review 75.2; 133-173.

DON DIPPO is Professor in the Faculty of Education and a Centre for Refugee Studies scholar at York University. His interests include: the social and political organization of knowledge, environmental and sustainability education, global migration and settlement, university/community relations, and teacher education.

RANU BASU is Associate Professor in Geography and a Centre for Refugee Studies scholar at York University. Her interests relate to the geographies of marginality, diversity, and social justice in cities; neoliberal governmentality; critical geographies of education; and spatial methodologies including GIS.

MARCELA DURAN teaches in the Faculty of Education, and is a faculty member associated with the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University. Her areas of interest in teacher education are: Equity, Human Rights, Community School Relations and Immigrant and Refugee Education.

TABLE 1. List of Maps Produced During Community Consultation

Mapping School Community Spaces:
Interactive Exercise

         Percentage change of ESL Students (1998-2003) and

Map 1    population under 14 years
Map 2    recent immigrants
Map 3    average household income
Map 4    population education level
Map 5    proportion of lone-parent families
Map 6    percentage of recent immigrants
Map 7    percentage of apartment dwellings
Map 8    percentage of movers (mobility)

         Percentage change of Enrolment (1998-2003) and

Map 9    average household income
Map 10   population education level
Map 11   proportion of lone-parent families
Map 12   percentage of recent immigrants
Map 13   percentage of apartment dwellings
Map 14   percentage of movers (mobility)