Towards decolonized and transformative educational practices:Insights from refugee family narratives of their exilic journeys (2023 - 2025)
Funded by SSHRC Insight Development Grant and the University Research Grants Programme (URGP), University of Manitoba Research Team: Tamam Youssouf (PhD student), Sonia Kermani (MEd student), Wanjoo Tan (MEd student), Xuyang Li (PhD student), Rawia Azzahrawi (PhD student), Anushka Kandpal (MEd student) |
Set against unprecedented forced migration, a topic of global significance that has huge implications for Canada, this study focuses on the education of refugee children. It aims to understand the unique experiences children of refugee backgrounds bring to the classroom by gaining an understanding of one of the most significant yet often overlooked markers of refugeeism, the refugee journey. This project recognizes the refugee journey as a period in itself, consisting powerful life changing events that greatly influence whoever experiences them and affect their settlement (Benezer, 2002). The overarching objective of this study is to explore refugees’ narratives of their journeys to develop inclusive, and reciprocal pedagogical practices that benefit all learners (Canadian born, immigrant and refugee).
The research team works with multi-generational refugee families using narrative and arts based methods to generate data to gain a deep understating of the exilic journey these families took. We aim to understand the journey through refugee family narratives of their journeys to Canada; assembling artifacts refugee families associate with the journey; and collecting and analyzing historical fiction on refugee journeys by Canadian refugee authors;
The research team works with multi-generational refugee families using narrative and arts based methods to generate data to gain a deep understating of the exilic journey these families took. We aim to understand the journey through refugee family narratives of their journeys to Canada; assembling artifacts refugee families associate with the journey; and collecting and analyzing historical fiction on refugee journeys by Canadian refugee authors;
How can schools be better prepared? Voices from refugee families (2024 – 2026)
Funded by UM/SSHRC Explore Grant
This study focuses on the education of refugee children. It aims to explore how schools in Manitoba can provide an inclusive learning environment for refugee children. Empirical research from across Canada shows that refugee children are often subjected to exclusionary educational policies and practices (MacKay & Tavares, 2005) which result in poor academic achievement (Beiser, et. al. 2015) and disengagement (Guler & Berman, 2019). This is largely due to misalignments between the students’ lived experiences and education (Sánchez-López & Young, 2018) and educators lacking evidence-based practices for responding to refugee students’ unique needs (Guo et al, 2019). My study aims to address this gap. Conceptually informed by critical and decolonizing theories, the objective of this study is to explore how refugee families experience K – 12 education to develop inclusive and reciprocal pedagogical practices that benefit all learners – Canadian born, immigrant and refugee.
Funded by UM/SSHRC Explore Grant
This study focuses on the education of refugee children. It aims to explore how schools in Manitoba can provide an inclusive learning environment for refugee children. Empirical research from across Canada shows that refugee children are often subjected to exclusionary educational policies and practices (MacKay & Tavares, 2005) which result in poor academic achievement (Beiser, et. al. 2015) and disengagement (Guler & Berman, 2019). This is largely due to misalignments between the students’ lived experiences and education (Sánchez-López & Young, 2018) and educators lacking evidence-based practices for responding to refugee students’ unique needs (Guo et al, 2019). My study aims to address this gap. Conceptually informed by critical and decolonizing theories, the objective of this study is to explore how refugee families experience K – 12 education to develop inclusive and reciprocal pedagogical practices that benefit all learners – Canadian born, immigrant and refugee.
This is a new research project that I will be starting later this year. The aim is to understand in what ways social cohesion is promoted (or not) in bilingual classes. This work will be a continuation of the work that I have been doing in Sri Lanka. Adopting narrative and visual ethnographic methods, this study will be carried out with teachers and administrators working in bilingual programmes. The study will include a two month field visit to Sri Lanka where I will be working with closely with teachers and school administrators.
This ongoing collaborative research brings the voices of a group of critical scholars working with plurilingual graduate students in education. Taking a multiethnographic approach, these conversations are informed by the affective (Martinez Agudo, 2018) and plurilingual (May, 2014) turns in applied linguistics, we engage in critical conversations about the provision of writing support for plurilingual graduate students. Our conversations focus on faculty perspectives of writing support for plurilingual graduate students; how the writing support we provide our students have changed with the emergence of AI tools; aspects of AI-mediated writing that concern us; promising practices for supporting plurilingual graduate writers through the use of AI; and, how we negotiate our own identities when we support our plurilingual learners.
"As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our ways of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am to look in that mirror, and not run from what I can see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge – and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject. "(Palmer 2007, 3)
Taking a multiliteracies (Cope et al., 2018) approach, this research focus on teachers’ autobiographical creations. It explores the power of creativity and criticality in helping educators to gain a deeper understanding of their teaching selves. This research focuses on creative autobiographies generated by my graduate students. The teachers are encouraged to use a medium of their choice to create their autobiographies.
"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." (Freire, 2000, p. 34)
This research is embedded in an ongoing collaboration with Antoinette Gagné and Marlon Valencia where we focus on infusing creativity into identity research. This autoethnographic work focuses on our evolving identities as teacher educators and the identity work we carry out with our students.
This research is embedded in an ongoing collaboration with Antoinette Gagné and Marlon Valencia where we focus on infusing creativity into identity research. This autoethnographic work focuses on our evolving identities as teacher educators and the identity work we carry out with our students.
This research explored the potential of culture-centric arts-mediated approaches to reconciliation, to foster sustainable peace and reconciliation. This research was a collaboration with the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice of the Queen’s University, Belfast and two Sri Lankan theater groups, Janakaralya and Stages Theatre Group. Drawing upon the work of the Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1979), this Ethnographic Case Study studied the pedagogical potential of theater. The research culminated in a two-day sharing event, that brought together educators, artists and policymakers who shared their academic work as well as art.
"Teachers’ pedagogical practices are a direct reflection of their identities. In times of postconflict reconciliation, teachers can either push students further into socially segregated cocoons or help them to emerge and embrace a broader world view" (Herath, 2023)
This research explored the potential of identity portraits (Busch, 2010), an art-based approach to identity research, to understand how identity can be used as pedagogy to help teachers develop more expansive multicultural and multimodal communicative repertoires.
This research explored the potential of identity portraits (Busch, 2010), an art-based approach to identity research, to understand how identity can be used as pedagogy to help teachers develop more expansive multicultural and multimodal communicative repertoires.