Understanding social inclusion: Stories of disruption through school policies/practices in refugee families’ life making in Canada
Abstract
Composing lives that have a sense of coherence is part of the identity making of refugee families and shapes their attempts for social inclusion. Their struggles for narrative coherence are shaped by the bumping places and tensions that they experience as their lives bump against dominant narratives that structure the policies and practices of many institutions including schools. Using narrative inquiry, we inquired into the experiences of three Syrian refugee families as they bumped against institutional policies and practices.
Notes
Community organizations: Multicultural Health Brokers (MCHB)
Future research / gaps identified: n/a
Key populations: Syrian refugee families who now live in Edmonton, AB
Open access: No
Integration timeline: not defined
Key findings:
- The Syrian refugee families have been living through various forms of transitions interlaced with anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and hope.
- When the families send their children to Canadian schools, they are also entering into a new world with their children and working to imagine and live out new stories in Canada.
- Children’s experiences at school are entwined, and in reciprocal relationship, with their family stories.
- Children’s school experiences shape the family’s experiences of social inclusion and their sense of community, belonging, and acceptance and, in doing so, their narrative coherence.
- For the families with whom we talked, they believed the Canadian educational system would help their children learn and equip them with opportunities for the future.
Key recommendations:
Narrative inquiry is a useful method for exploring lived experiences as it creates a relational space for the telling and retelling of stories of experience, a space which allows for the possibility of imagining otherwise as researchers come alongside participants.
Location: Edmonton, AB
