Challenges and Successes in the Development of an Intercultural Early

Learning Program for Refugee Children

PMC Research Symposium, Edmonton, Jan. 21, 2010

Dr. Anna Kirova, Department of Elementary EducationUniversity of Alberta

Domain Leader, Family, Children and Youth

Context of the Study

16.1% of the population in the province of Alberta are immigrants and refugees.

In Edmonton 22.9% of the population are newcomers.

Circumstances of Newcomer Families

Settlement Issues Involvement in ECEParental underemployment

or unemployment Language problems Separation from former

social networks Loneliness Perceived or real

discrimination Family conflict Perceived cultural

incompatibilities

Newcomers lack awareness regarding the availability and benefits of early education and services.

Newcomers lack accessibility to high-quality programs due to limited space, complex enrolment processes, language services, and transportation.

The early care and learning community lacks responsiveness to the needs of newcomers due to a shortage of bilingual/bicultural providers, and/or culturally competent staff, and inappropriate parental and community involvement strategies.

Project BackgroundMultiple Partners Concerns RaisedThree ethno-cultural

communitiesSettlement agenciesGov. Departments of

Education, Health, and Children & Youth Services

Public School BoardHead Start Network

Lack of ECE spaces for newcomer children

Stigmatizing entrance criteria

Too rigid age “cut-offs”Problems with the “income

criteria” Inflexibility of existing

programsLinguistic and cultural

barriers Transportation difficulties

Purpose of the ProjectTo be genuinely responsive to the unique early learning

needs of newcomer children growing up in a particularly complex social/economic and multicultural context.

To provide cultural and linguistic continuity for young newcomer children through both first language and English instruction.

To be culturally sensitive and inclusive of the newcomer families’ perspectives.

To be holistic, strength-based and equity-based, building on the combined expertise of government organizations, community partners, communities, and researchers.

To be collaborative, inter-relational, and interdependent so that mutual learning becomes fundamental to success of the project.

Theoretical FrameworkInterculturalism Sociocultural-Historical

TheoryBased on mutual

understanding and dialogue.Exists in the tension

between cultures.Intercultural Competence

is a set of skills that allows a person to shift between cultures (Bennett, 2009)

Interculturalism seeks to create a “common space”

Provides an alternative to the developmentalism inherent in DAP

Recognizes the essential relationship between the mind and culture, history, and institutional settings

Sees human development as an ever changing process

MethodologyParticipatory Learning and Action Research (PLA)

Investigates issues of concern to marginalized populations,

Explores planning, implementing, and evaluating development activities.

Promotes interactive learning, shared knowledge, and flexible, yet structured analysis.

Offers opportunities for mobilizing local people for joint action towards life-enhancing changes.

Data Gathering and AnalysisPLA methodology requires all participants to

become co-researchers.

Data were co-constructed and generated collectively during all phases of the process.

Data were analyzed on an on-going basis.

After an analysis of each of the data sources, significant items of information were identified and shared among the co-researchers.

Role of the ResearchersHelp families articulate the goals they have for

their preschool children.Gather data regarding indigenous preschool

practices;Support the implementation of indigenous

practices within the classroom context;Guide the development and implementation of an

intercultural early learning program; andBuild knowledge that will contribute to

intercultural early learning practices in a multicultural society.

Stakeholder Goals and Aspirations: Ethnocultural Communities

Kurdish CommunityLanguage is very important for our people, it is our way of survival. The program will make us feel, “I am here, I exist in this country, I am included.”

Somali CommunityOur children are just kind of melting into the new culture. This program will bring them back to their roots.

Sudanese CommunitySome kids born here don’t know the value of our culture that’s why we have to tell them where we come from and how they can keep our culture alive.

Stakeholder Goals and Aspirations: NGOsSettlement Agencies

The program is an opportunity to create something quite pure and from scratch.It’s essential that we continue to learn about the families and their ways of being and knowing and how that impacts our school system.

Head Start NetworkThere are needs that we can’t meet. This program will do what we cannot.

Stakeholder Goals and Aspirations:Government Partners

Public School BoardWe are very interested in this particular program and in working with partners on trying to develop something that will be sensitive to the culture of the families and kids involved.

Ministry of EducationIt is important to honour, respect and support the first language, growth and development in order to be a strong bridge to the English language.

Stakeholder Goals and Aspirations: Government Partners

Capital HealthThe approach is very interesting and although there hasn’t been a direct link to health yet there will be. Children and Youth ServicesWe would really like the opportunity to be able to give the parents who are involved in this program lots of information about what else Social Services does besides taking kids from their home.

The ProgramThe program was offered four days a week, from 9:30 to 12:00.

Children were bussed to the school. It included: 17 children who were three and a half years old by September 1,

2007, and their families. Families were selected from the Kurdish, Sudanese, and Somali

communities. The number of children from each community was as follows: 3 Sudanese Arabic-speaking children, 5 Kurdish-speaking children, and 9 Somali-speaking children.

There were L1 instructors for each linguistic group who were selected by their respective community, and a classroom teacher who was a monolingual, English-speaking, first year teacher with the EPSB.

The instruction time was divided equally between instruction and activities in English, and instruction and activities in the children’s native language.

Issues and Concerns

Background Challenges: Hurried Start

“We knew it was a window of opportunity and if we missed it, that next year we probably would just see a proliferation of ELL sites that would follow a typical early learning model.”

Parental and Community Involvement

As expressed by one settlement community worker, this program needed to engage communities and involve families in ways not defined by “middle class terms.” In her opinion, most early care and learning programs were looking for parental involvement such as joining the Board of the agency or spending time in the classroom which was not possible for newcomer parents.

Multi-Partner Collaboration: Working Out Tensions

After all, we are different creatures in terms of organizations, you know we have government colleagues, and we have school board colleagues and we have not had a chance to declare to each other our value orientations and then also where might we have some sense of tensions … and tensions are not bad but we need to make them visible so we can work with them right?

Systemic Issues: Location and Community Building

It would be easier for us if we could have programs in a community where they already live and they are likely to go into the kindergarten in the school where the early learning program is or very close so we could have some joint work between 2 schools or among 3 schools.

Classroom ChallengesInnovative nature of the project: There was

no example to follow, no materials, no curriculum.

First days: Managing four languages while trying to create a community and creating a learning environment.

Imbalance of linguistic groups: Creating small-group culture-specific leaning activities.

Classroom structure: Establishing rules acceptable for all.

Classroom Challenges: Staffing English speaking teacher

I was chosen because I didn’t have any experience in pre-school, in ELL, so I didn’t have pre-conceived notions of what the pre-school program should look like…so we can build it from scratch.

Kurdish L1FacilitatorI came because I want to help Kurdish children understand that they’re Kurdish-Canadians and that they can bring richness to the Canadian society and also learn from it too.

Somali L1 FacilitatorThis opportunity is good for me and for them too because this is the first time I’m teaching Somali kids my language because since I came to Canada 14 years ago I’m trying to learn English.

Sudanese Arabic L1 FacilitatorI am here because I want to give the children a lot of things, how to respect people, how to respect Canadian culture and back home culture.

Key LearningsAs a community-driven project, it served as a

means for building community capacity.The interdisciplinary and multisectoral make up of

the steering committee allowed for differing perspectives and systems to work together in the creation of a unique program.

The settlement experience of communities facilitated or hindered the ability to recruit leaders to the school setting. Human resources need to be nurtured long term.

Sustainability was a central concern to both the ethnocultural communities and policy makers.

Preliminary Results (Second year of the study)

All the children made gains in English vocabulary and length of sentences from January to June.  

Most of them made gains in English story telling.  The amount of English all children used (code-switching),

in their home language decreased from January to June. This could mean they are starting to make some gains in their home language, or at least, felt comfortable using their home language in the classroom.  

The parents speak more of the home language to the children than vice versa, All the children have far more contact with English language media and playmates than in the home language.  Most parents report that they feel heir child is losing the home language.  

Importance of the StudyThe results of the pilot year confirm the value of

establishing multi-sectoral partnerships to address the specific access barriers encountered by newcomer families.

The pilot demonstrates how a grass-roots or generative approach to program development can support the high aspirations newcomers have for the education of their children.

A particular strength of the pilot is that it has strong potential for influencing major systemic change in the area of early childhood care and education. 9 Early Learning Programs are currently fully functioning as part of the EPS.

Thank you to the children and families who made this work possible.