Immigrants In Canadian School - Research Paper Example

LITERATURE REVIEW IMMIGRANTS IN CANADIANSCHOOL …………………… College ………………………… Introduction Canada is one of the few countries with an official multicultural policy. The concept that minority cultural communities are deserving respect and recognition within their host nation is the foundation for the ideology of multiculturalism. The Canadian Multicultural policy, which was originated in 1971 and then ratified in1988, promotes all cultures, religions and languages equally (Multiculturalism, 2000). According to Canadian Government (2007), the multiculturalism ensures that all citizens of Canada, no matter they are immigrants or not, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging (cic news). Canadians thus tend to see their country as demonstrating high cultural diversity and low conflict. As it is a country built on immigration, accepting about 250,000 immigrants per year and officially a bilingual country, it guarantees equal education rights for religious and language minorities (Levin, 2008), rights for cultural and religious expression and right to take pride of it in schools, at home and outsides as well. This part of the research presents literature attempting to outline debates and literatures about the education levels, achievements, language learning of immigrant students, their rights of cultural and religious expressions and parental involvement in Canada. Immigrant students, academic performance and their rights in Canada Educational success in one of the major goals that a large number of immigrant students is striving to attain in Canada. The OECD (Organization for economic co-operation and Development) report (2006) has found that immigrant students, in many countries that it researched, are motivated learners and are showing positive attitude towards schools, however, they often perform significantly at lower levels than their native counterparts, especially in key school subjects like Mathematics, reading and language, and general problem solving skills. There is little difference between the performance of immigrants and native students in three countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (OECD, 2006, p.3). The OECD research above shows it striking that immigrant students in all 17 countries express similar levels of motivation than their native counterparts and therefore schools should take this as an opportunity to help immigrant students succeed in the education system. The latest OECD (2010) report shows that immigrant students (second-generation immigrant students) perform better than or the same as their native peers in Canada (p. 12). Finding that some groups of the immigrant students in Canada received higher grade point averages than that of Canadian born students was also surprising (Gunderson, 2007, p. 175). It should be noted that first-generation immigrants are those who and their parents are born outside Canada and therefore they experience difficulties of language learning and adjusting with new environments and cultural differences. Second-generation immigrants are those who are born in Canada but their parents are born outside it. Second generation immigrants started performing well in education and this has in turn caused to increase the number of immigrants to Canada in recent years (Cummins, 2008). Even though the educational performance of second-generation Canadian immigrant students are relatively better than that of immigrant students in many other countries, a number of studies has attempted to describe the reasons behind low performance of first generation immigrant students. According to Chow (2000), as far as academic performance of the immigrant students is concerned, the educational researchers and practitioners have long been attempting to understand the link between students’ family background and academic performance. The family background is a significant factor that directly affects educational performance of the children. Family background is separable in to distinctive three components, financial capital, human capital and social capital. Family’s wealth or income is considered as financial capital, potential for a cognitive environment conductive for children’s learning is human capital (usually parental involvement) and relationship among persons in the living society is social capital (Chow, 2000). Chow (2000) has made a detailed research regarding low performance of 368 Hong Kong immigrants attending 26 different public schools in Toronto, Canada, and it was found that students who indicated above mentioned family background components were demonstrated lower academic performance. The research has also highlighted father’s presence as a significant factor that determines academic performance of Chinese and Hong Kong Students. It shows that immigrant students are not performing well simply because they are immigrants, but, there can be various factors that directly or indirectly influence the educational performance. Gollnick and Chinn (2009) stressed that immigrant students, mainly at high school levels, tend to be unnoticed by their teachers and other officials. A number of factors, including family set up, affect their education and they are living in segregated and low-income communities (p. 327). Though this is the case with American immigrant students, the same is the case with Canadian immigrants too. Rong and Preissle (2008) have found ‘alinguistic learners’ as another serious issue behind lower performance of some immigrant students, especially of Chinese students in Canada. Some Chinese immigrants in Canada seem to have lost the ability to use their heritage language and have never developed proficient English. This issue has long been overlooked (p. 89). This has not only caused language learning issues, but also to make them less performing in education for proficient English is the medium of teaching an all public and private schools. Language seems to be a great barrier for the newcomers to Canada. Most of the newcomers from Asian and other countries are not fluent in English or French and thus they struggle to understand what is going on in the class. Borzykowski’s (2009) study shows that high school dropout rates are very high for some groups. 42.5% of Portuguese-speaking students don’t finish 12th grade, 39.1% of Spanish-speaking students and 36.7% of Somali youth don’t complete secondary school education. Same time, the national dropout rate is less than 10% which is very less compared to other immigrants. According to Borzykowski (2009), many of the issues that immigrants face are related to language and literacy. The education system in Canada is mainly text-based, requiring reading books and writing tests, and therefore it does not work well with second language students. Another main issues noted in the study of Borzykowski (2009) was that immigrants also have tended to shy away from certain subject areas that are likely to lead to lucrative careers in science and technology. Around 47 % of the Toronto population is immigrants. Out of that, relatively less number of students as only 19.4% of Portuguese-speaking and 22% of Spanish-speaking students took a university math course, compared to 39.8% of native English speakers. It shows that the gap between immigrant and native students is not confined in academic performance, but is also obvious in achieving degrees and going for higher studies too. Apart from the educational performance, race, cultural and religious differences remain to be another issue that immigrant students often feel when they are at school. Today’s school environment has become increasingly diverse and educators are faced with an overwhelming challenge to prepare their students from multicultural and diverse populations and backgrounds. As some groups of students have greater societal benefits than others due to race, gender, religion, culture, ability, geography, age and so on, it is more risky that teachers have situations that are more crucial within the classroom (Gollnick and Chinn, 2009, p. 2). Religious differences raise a number of issues to the educators because the holidays to be celebrated are to be considered, religious dresses and codes are to be respected, appropriate interaction of boys and girls, dress in physical education are also considered to be matters of greater concerns. Even though immigrants parents give greater importance for their children’s education, they often are not satisfied with school’s approaches to teaching and learning and are less likely to accept the public school’s secular values as appropriate for their family (Gollnick and Chinn, 2009, p. 3) Wayland (1997) argued that disparate Canadian political cultures, especially in dealing with immigrants, are critical factors that influence the rights of minority religious students. Following a suspension of a Sikh student in 1988 from wearing Kripan to school, the Peel Board of Education has banned Sikh students from wearing it. Mr. Harbhajan Singh Pandori then filed a case in the court alleging religious discrimination (p. 547). Canadian society is modern and open where as some of the immigrants are less likely to accept and get adjusted with it. For instance, immigrants from Arab countries, especially girls, possess quite different values and perceptions. Muslim girls are usually rules by men and thus their opportunities for jobs and careers are very limited. Women’s freedom is circumscribed. In this regard, Arab female immigrant students in Canada may benefit more than their male counterparts by adopting Canadian values (Abu-rabia, 1997, p. 126). Canada is a prominent multicultural country and it ensures that everyone in the country can take pride in his cultural and religious matters. Though there were few incidents of religious inequalities, students from any ethnic group have rights to express their values and religious codes. Curricular materials and texts for better learning for Immigrant students Materials play pivotal role in education. Text books, learning instruments, tests and learning assistance materials like audio clips are main aids for learning, and if these are not well prepared, not systematically organized and are not appropriate for all or some students, the results that they can deliver will be adversely affected. The first generation immigrants in Canada are found les performing in education due to a number of factors. Borzykowski (2009) considers curriculum and materials as another significant reason behind the poor academic performance of immigrant students in Canada. He quotes from George Dei, from Ontario Institute for Educators, saying: “the material is still geared toward Caucasian Canadian-born children, and many immigrants cant relate. "Its a very important issue” (Borzykowski, 2009, Master FILE Premium ). For second generation immigrant students, it would be easy to get adjusted with the curriculum and materials, but, for first generation immigrants and newcomers, it is still a big barrier for learning languages and other subject areas. Canadian text based learning remains to be a challenge for immigrant students. One possible solution for this is to add non-text-based learning like filed trips, pictures in to the curriculum and discussions etc. Computer assisted teaching programs, Audio Visual Projector for learning and other practical methods can be useful to help immigrants students learn English well (Borzykowski, 2009). Borzykowski (2009) argued that a large number of gifted children are also ill-suited to the standard class room set up in Canada. Gifted children are those who have divergent brain, comprising of 5% of the total population. The use specialized arts of the mind and they find solutions for particular issues. As they are creative thinking, they can tackle situations from various perspectives. Gifted kids are often bored and there is a disadvantage that the system may adversely affect their self-esteem. Teachers’ preparation for the diversity in the Classroom Teachers should be able to develop frames and teaching practices according to the classroom environments. As Canadian classrooms are diverse and multicultural, teachers should be able to accept different cultural and religious values, codes and practices. Eakle and Garber (2003) reported that a large number of teachers in Canada failed to move beyond a simplistic and addictive approach to multiculturalism by recognizing the possible dangers of ‘reader as tourist’ approach toward literature learning. When there is an immigrant student newly assigned to a class, the teacher must be prepared to welcome and he should be supportive to the students. The teachers are supposed to find out from school administrator what support the school and its district offer for immigrant students (Gollnick and Chinn, 2009, p.327). Educators should be aware of the difficulties that immigrant families may have to face during the first few years. Students who entered Canada as members of ‘regular immigrant’ families are often waiting for the immigration process as long as five years and these can cause many difficulties on the family (Gunderson, 2007, 165). Most immigrant students lack English Proficiency which is essential for them to understand the classes (Rong and Preissle, 2008, p.110). English in not their primary language and brings more responsibility for the teacher to ensure that all immigrants in the class can learn well. Language shouldn’t be a barrier for them. Teachers are expected to create more inclusive learning system. They should help their struggling learners in the classroom. Rong and Preissle (2008) stressed that immigrant parents may have different norms, ideas and beliefs about schooling and it may cause conflict among the children (p. 111). Teachers are to be aware of these so that they can help newcomers avoid misunderstanding and learn better. It is highly important that teachers must be conscious of the ethnic identification of immigrant students. They may be very different and at stages of assimilation. They may think that they cannot get adjusted with homogeneous group. When some students identify strongly with the dominant group, others will be trans-cultural and successfully figuring out how to fuse the culture of the dominant society with their very own cultures. All these instances are to be dealt wisely so that teachers can help all of them in a better way and develop a far structured and interactive classroom environment (Gollnick and Chinn, 2009, p.328). Gollnick and Chinn (2009) suggested that teachers have to use the examples from immigrant students’ cultures and social systems. It can help them lean well as well as bring them more involved in interactive learning program (p. 328). More importantly, teacher should understand cultural and religious backgrounds that they belong to and they should avoid any examples or comments that can cause a feeling that immigrants students’ cultures or religious practices are blamed. For instance, Arab female students consider veil as religiously important and they keep certain values. They are less likely to get indulged with drinking, dancing and parties. Teachers should be aware of it so that any possible mishap can be avoided. Parent-Teacher Communication and its influence on Immigrant students The research conducted by Ladky and Peterson (2008) has highlighted that there are successful school practices for both formal and informal immigrant parent involvement in their children’s school learning and academic performance, for communicating with immigrant parents and also for learning more about the languages and culture of their students and their families (p. 82). Their research has suggested that there is a gap between the language of home and school and it remains to be a barrier to successful communication partnership. Parents, teachers and principals should find ways to utilize mother tongue in ways that can support student’s English learning (p. 82). Ladky and Peterson (2008) studied several teachers, principals and parents to analyze teachers’ role in giving home works and teacher-parent communication. Their study has found that many teachers assigned regular homework for their ESL students. Independent reading and reading loud at home were some of the homework given (p. 84), which in turn can help parents know students works and study improvements. Almost all of the interviewed new immigrant parents had very clear expectations that regular homework should be assigned by their child’s teacher as they value homework as means of understanding whether their child is accomplishing the targets in the school days (Ladky and Peterson, 2008, p. 85). The participants in the research including teachers, principals and immigrant parents believed that it was highly important for new immigrant parents to read and write at home in order to support their children’s English language abilities (Ladky and Peterson, 2008, p. 86). As discussed earlier, immigrant parents are formally and informally involving in school activities as well as major programs, celebrations and other events that are educationally important. Immigrants parents involve in school activities as means of learning more about Canadian schools and thus to improve their own English and consequently to help improve their children’s English as well (Ladky and Peterson, 2008, p. 86). Immigrant parents from Dubai, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Jordan and Israel have involved in a number of school programs and volunteered in their children’s classrooms to observe how their children are performing. Quite notably among the researched parents, one Sri Lankan immigrant parent has volunteered students’ field trips, monitored children’s play ground activities and even helped schools in preparing materials (Ladky and Peterson, 2008, p. 86). The parental involvement and parent teacher communication of immigrant parents in Canada are thus illuminating example for how to promote a better learning environment from parents to teachers, parents to schools and from teachers to students. The study conducted by Ladky and Peterson (2008) has found that 90% of the teachers relied on the parent teacher meeting with a translator to explain the details of the report card and to convince them about students’ performance. According to some parents they interviewed, written communication, by using the notes in the student agendas, permission forms, signing of tests, report cards, newsletters and other documentation were essential for effective parent-teacher communication. Though there are effective communication between immigrant parents and teachers in Canada, there are instances of conflict or misunderstanding between them. For example, some students and parents from some countries believe that their teachers should treat them with love and consider themselves as second parents.. In Peru, there are 50-60 children and a teacher there will still be able to identify each of them. But, Canadian culture and style is different (Shor and Bernhard, 2003, p. 391). This has caused some students to complain about teaching and schooling as they expect same as they were treated from their countries A group of students complained deals about school and schooling system of Canada. Students from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan believed that they haven’t been given good education and teachers are not caring them. They actually had skill-based view of teaching and learning. There were serious differences in the views of teaching and learning between teachers and students and teachers and parents (Gunderson, 2007, p. 210). Immigrant parents may face difficulties in relation to the differing expectations about ways that teachers and educators are following Canada. their expectation can be different. But, figures and researches show that immigrant parents are highly motivated (OECD, 2010 and Gunderson, 2007) and therefore they do involve in co-curricular, formal and informal school events in order to create have better communication between school and parents and also to encourage their children learn well. Conclusion The literature review part of this research paper has highlighted various thoughts, findings and reports about immigrant students, their educational performance, their cultural and religious rights, the learning materials and its appropriateness to immigrants, teachers’ preparedness to accept diversity and multicultural aspects in the classroom and immigrant parent-teacher communication. The first generation immigrants are relatively less performing whereas second generation are better performing than the native peers. Canada is a country built in multiculturalism ideology and therefore everyone in Canada has rights to believe in any religious, take pride of it, celebrate events etc, and same is the case within the school as well. Even though there are instances of misunderstanding between parents and teachers, the majority of immigrant parents are highly involved in school events in order to facilitate better communication. 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