1996/97 PCERII Funded Research Abstract
Research Title: Oral History by Adult Members of Immigrant Families whose Children attend(ed) Canadian Schools
Research Team:
Research Domain(s): Education
This research project focuses on immigrant families whose children attend or have attended Canadian schools. Children, who have come from an immigrant family context, often speak another language other than English, and live in a culturally-different family and community social milieu. On the other hand, Canadian school presents a completely different cultural context to most immigrants, particularly in terms of content, process, and expectations for schooling. Each immigrant family, in particular adults, must deal with this socio-cultural contradiction as part of their lived experience. The narratives by the adults responsible for the immigrant children will share stories as retold from their lived experiences. The purpose of this project, as part of an overall three year study, is to describe and document the problems, issues and concerns of adult family members of immigrant children who attend(ed) Canadian schools. The project assumes that the immigrant families will have diverse intracultural interpretations of their lived experiences concerning their children’s schooling and these interpretations will reveal understandings of the problems and issues from the perspective of the immigrant adults. Thus, the oral history project will allow immigrant adult family members to not only speak for themselves, but the process will help interpret the meaning of the lived experience relative to the Canadian schooling practices of their children.