Immigrant and Refugee Students in Canada

Canada

Immigrant and Refugee Students in Canada

Edited by Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

Copyright © 2014 Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

14 15 16 17 18 5 4 3 2 1

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Immigrant and refugee students in Canada / Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe, editors.

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55059-548-2 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-55059-550-5 (mobi).—ISBN 978-1-55059-551-2 (epub)

1. Immigrant children—Education—Canada. 2. Refugee children—Education—Canada. I. Brewer, Courtney Anne, 1988-, editor of compilation II. McCabe, Michael, 1964–, editor of compilation

LC3747.C3I45 2014     371.826'9120971 C2013-908294-8     C2013-908295-6

Produced with the assistance of the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Dedication

To my wonderful family and friends. Thank you for your unwavering support and encouragement every step of the way.

—Courtney

To Sarah, Rebecca, and Zachary. Thanks for leaving Daddy enough time for this!

—Mike

Contents

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Working together to navigate the Canadian education system

Michael McCabe and Courtney Anne Brewer

2 School readiness: A review of literature

Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

3 Immigrant students’ health: An overview of the need to improve our awareness and response to the health of immigrant children and their families within the educational context

Taunya Wideman-Johnston

4 School-based interventions for refugee children and youth: Canadian and international perspectives

Marta Young and K. Jacky Chan

5 Immigrant mothers’ use of a discussion group in becoming school ready

Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

6 Matching policies to needs in early childhood development programs in newcomer populations

Linda Ogilvie, Darcy Fleming, Anna Kirova, Lucenia Ortiz, Sandra Rastin, Catherine Caufield, Elizabeth Burgess-Pinto, and Mahdieh Dastjerdi

7 Cultural negotiations of sense of place through shared parent–child art-making in a preschool for immigrant children

Anna Kirova, Patti Pente, and Christine Massing

8 African refugee women’s songs and stories: Possibilities for diversifying literacy practices in early childhood education

Christine Massing

9 Refugee families with preschool children: Looking back

Darcey M. Dachyshyn

10 Refugee students in Canadian schools: Educational issues and challenges

Samuel Tecle and Carl E. James

11 The value of language in refugee youth’s construction of identity

Neda Asadi

12 The Accelerated Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) program in the Waterloo Region District School Board

Kimberly Hird-Bingeman, Michael McCabe, and Courtney Anne Brewer

13 Building community capacity to support Karen refugee youth in schools

Lisa Sadler and Nancy Clark

14 Fostering solidarity in the classroom: Creative expression workshops for immigrant and refugee students

Caroline Beauregard, Marie-France Gauthier, and Cécile Rousseau

15 More than winning the lottery: The academic experiences of refugee youth in Canadian universities

Martha K. Ferede

16 Managing expectations through building cultural competencies

Ashley Korn, Michelle Manks, and Jacqueline Strecker

17 How do I get in? Exploring the underemployment of immigrant teachers in Canada

Christine L. Cho

Contributor biographies

Acknowledgements

The editors of this book would like to extend thanks for and acknowledgement of a Language and Literacy Research Grant from Nipissing University’s Schulich School of Education. Without this funding, projects such as this would not be possible. The editors would also like to thank Brush Education for recognizing the importance of this project and helping to make the research and ideas gathered from this collaborative initiative accessible to policy makers, educators, community service agencies, and the greater population. Furthermore, extensive gratitude is offered to each author who contributed to this project. The authors’ passion for working with refugees and immigrants, as well as their dedication to research and deep desire to continue conversations in support of Canada’s students in their educational journeys, is truly admirable.

1

Introduction

Working together to navigate the Canadian education system

Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

This book is long overdue. Unique in its design, it is a truly collaborative effort of impassioned researchers and frontline workers from across Canada, exploring a plethora of programs aimed at assisting many of our immigrant and refugee families as they attempt to navigate the Canadian educational system. It also examines many of the issues that face this unique population as they begin to settle in Canada. Dewey (1907) considers schools to be a miniature community, an embryonic society (p. 32), one that reflects the life of the larger society, and [is] permeated throughout with the spirit of art, history and science (p. 45). Noddings (2007) states that schools are minisocieties in which children learn through practice how to promote their own growth, that of others, and that of the whole society (p. 39). The most effective strategies to promote learning are those that recognize differences in student experiences and that fit learning to individual students. Or, if we put it another way, the experience has to be built on or connected to prior experience. The programs explored here attempt to do exactly that.

This project is grounded in socio-cultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) with influences from Freire’s (1970/2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. We assume that both culture and context play a major role in the situations that refugee families experience. Refugee families are in unique situations in Canada, and as Lee (1988) suggests, having ties to two places in these situations can result in feeling a lack of place or identity. In each chapter, complex scenarios about how and why participants arrived in Canada exist for all participant groups. It is important to gain perspectives from across Canada, as experiences and interventions vary from region to region (Fantino & Colak, 2001; Pillay & Asadi, 2012). Understanding these contexts is crucial in building an understanding of the immigrant and refugee family experience, particularly as it pertains to adjusting to the Canadian educational system. Because Canada is a geographically large country that offers various approaches and services to immigrant and refugee families (Fantino & Colak, 2001), the socio-cultural lens becomes even more complex, yet more necessary. As Tecle and James explain in their chapter, Many studies have demonstrated the ways in which racism and colonialism have influenced and informed both historical and contemporary Canadian society. The ongoing legacies of colonialism, capitalism, and racism affect individuals’ experiences—particularly those of refugees. We draw on anti-colonial theory to understand colonialism and the indelible influence it has had on geopolitical conflict, forced migration of peoples, and persistent struggles (Dei & Asgharzadeh, 2001). Colonialism has had a role in territorial conflicts, ethnic disagreements, displacement of people, and, as a consequence, the creation of refugees. Colonialism also plays a role in the push and pull factors that make resettlement possible and necessary.

Initially, this book looks at overarching issues related to the lives of immigrants and refugees in Canada, namely school readiness and familiarity, health issues specific to the population we are investigating, and an overview of the types of programs available to this population. Each of these topics is repeated throughout chapters that follow because it is impossible to ignore these issues in a book like this one.

Brewer and McCabe review the literature related to school readiness and how readiness affects students, families, teachers, and schools. This investigation is taken up later with a look at a parent school-readiness program in the Kitchener-Waterloo region of Ontario. Wideman-Johnston looks at health issues specific to immigrants and refugees and relates them to the increasing body of research surrounding overall health and well-being in our student populations and the way they contribute to academic endeavours. Wideman-Johnston points to the need for increased attention in this area, particularly related to the complex discussions integrating physical, mental, and social health as it relates to academic success.

Young and Chan provide a thorough account of the types of programs that promote school-based interventions for refugee students. This chapter acts as an introduction to the remaining chapters of the book. As Young and Chan say, Given that the majority of refugee children and adolescents attend school, the school setting is an optimal venue for interventions to be developed and implemented to address their psychosocial challenges. From an ecological standpoint, it is crucial that comprehensive school-based interventions include not only the students themselves but also their parents and teachers.

The second part of the book provides accounts of various research projects that focus on important issues related to interventions. It is divided into four general sections, namely early years, middle years, secondary education, and post-secondary education, according to the age of the students discussed. The early-years component deals with a broad spectrum of issues related to the process of children’s early education. Using parental involvement and engagement in school as indicators of school readiness, Brewer and McCabe explore the process by which immigrant mothers prepare themselves and their children for school in Ontario. The immigrant mothers who participated in a school-readiness program provide accounts of barriers to and benefits of their participation. Ogilvie, Fleming, Kirova, Ortiz, Rastin, Caufield, Burgess-Pinto, and Dastjerdi use action research to generate policy-relevant data to evaluate the cultural appropriateness of assessment tools and practices used in early childhood development education programs with immigrant and refugee (newcomer) children. In the tradition of humanistic geographers, Kirova, Pente, and Massing explore how immigrant preschool teachers and their immigrant students and families investigate their bicultural identities through aesthetic explorations of sense of place, while recognizing the importance of the emotional realm of our human relationships with place and of the human ability to reflect and interpret such relationships through artistic representations.

Through two ethnographic studies, Massing investigates experiences from professional development sessions on communication and guidance for refugee women employed at an early childhood centre and for women in an early childhood certification program. In this chapter, the author concentrates on the women’s recollections of the ways in which storytelling and songs were used in their families and cultures. In the final chapter in this section, Dachyshyn provides an account of data rooted in research undertaken with refugee families located in Canada, but also includes experiences and research from other locations that now inform the author’s understandings of the complexities involved in refugee resettlement. We believe this perspective will open up opportunities for dialogue about the multi-faceted nature of resettlement.

The next section deals with the middle-years school experiences of immigrants and refugees. Building on Sam Tecle’s experiences as a child of Eritrean parents who grew up in a racially diverse, low-income urban neighbourhood, Tecle and James discuss the complexities, tensions, and challenges of students and teachers as they engage in the educational process—a process where students struggle to maintain a dual identity: that of being a Canadian while remaining true to their country of origin and by extension their ethnic culture. Asadi reports on the importance of identity, the role of language in identity development and belonging, and the stance of public and educational policies. The focus here is on high dropout rates among students for whom English is a new language and a multitude of other factors such as discrimination, poverty, lack of ability to access resources, peer pressure, and the tendency to engage in criminal behaviour. Hird-Bingeman, McCabe, and Brewer look at the Accelerated Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) program operating in the Waterloo Region District School Board, which is for students ages 9 to 13 who have recently arrived in Ontario schools with limited prior schooling. Students enter the program through a referral process at any point between grades 4 and 8. The ABLE program is intended to help identified ESL/ELD students who have been in Canada for one to three years make significant gains in English-language development, literacy, numeracy, and academic skills and knowledge so they can successfully integrate into regular classroom programs.

Two chapters are dedicated to issues related to students and families in the secondary school years of their education. Sadler and Clark outline a collaborative approach to the integration of refugee youth into Canadian schools. They work with Karen refugee youth, who are one of Canada’s newest and largest groups of government-assisted refugees resettled into a suburban community. Drawing on a strengths-based approach, the authors discuss some stories of success in which several community organizations play a role in supporting youths’ access to education and ongoing resettlement needs. Beauregard, Gauthier, and Rousseau examine three programs of the Transcultural Research and Intervention Team, which focus on creative expression workshops for children and youth in multi-ethnic schools. One common feature of these programs is that they offer a space where fostering solidarity becomes possible through play and creative expression. The authors first discuss the rationale and theoretical framework structuring the workshops, and then describe the three programs using vignettes to illustrate the complexity of the relational dimension of these interventions.

The post-secondary section looks at academic experiences of refugees in Canadian universities, the building of cultural competencies, and the underemployment of immigrant teachers in Canada. Ferede investigates the academic experiences of refugees who were resettled directly into universities through the World University Service of Canada’s Student Refugee Program from 2007 to 2011. Findings show that refugee students face tremendous pedagogical, curricular, and technical challenges that they overcome with institutional, faculty, staff, and peer-to-peer supports. Korn, Manks, and Strecker delve into refugee experiences with pre-departure orientations for university students. Using evidence from the experiences of the World University Service of Canada’s Student Refugee Program, the authors conclude that such orientations are an essential aspect of any refugee-sponsorship program. Cho explores the under employment of immigrant teachers in Ontario. Drawing from a critical ethnographic project with immigrant teacher candidates juxtaposed with an information session at an immigrant counselling service, Cho’s research exposes two challenges with getting hired as a teacher in Ontario: perceptions around language proficiency and the limitations of Canada’s Multiculturalism Act.

The purpose of this book is to highlight services and interventions offered to immigrant and refugee students and families, not only to provide identification of problem areas but to offer meaningful solutions. It is important that Canadian information about immigrants and refugees becomes part of scholarly literature. If they understand these issues in a Canadian context, those in the field of education will be able to approach their practice with a more thoughtful and informed perspective. We hope this book will form the basis for discussion and future studies and courses in teacher education and social foundations programs.

This book will be instrumental in addressing several key themes pertaining to the education of children of immigrant and refugee families:

1. Common challenges faced by immigrant and refugee children and families with regards to the formal education system;

2. Common aspects of intervention that appear to assist immigrant and refugee children and families successfully;

3. What narratives from academics and frontline workers tell us about working with immigrant and refugee families.

We hope our efforts will act as a starting point for future discussion and a spark for future research.

References

Dei, G.J.S., & Asgharzadeh, A. (2001). The power of social theory: The anti-colonial discursive framework. Journal of Educational Thought, 35(3), 297–323.

Dewey, J. (1907). The school and society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Fantino, A.M., & Colak, A. (2001, Sep–Oct). Refugee children in Canada: Searching for identity. Child Welfare, 80(5), 587–596. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=5377635&site=ehost-live&scope=site Medline:11678416

Freire, P. (1970/2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (30th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing.

Lee, E. (1988, Jun). Cultural factors in working with Southeast Asian refugee adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 11(2), 167–179. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-1971(88)80051-4 Medline:3403751

Noddings, N. (2007). Philosophy of education (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Pillay, T., & Asadi, N. (2012). Participatory action research and educational liberation for refugee youth in Canada. The Canadian Society for the Study of Education Annual Conference, Waterloo, ON.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

2

School readiness

A review of literature

Courtney Anne Brewer and Michael McCabe

School readiness as a definition in different contexts

School readiness is often thought of in relation to students and their personal experience in terms of being prepared, or not, for attending formal schooling. According to the US National Education Goals Panel in 1997 (as cited in Dockett & Perry, 2009), school readiness includes the traditional notion of children being ready for school but goes beyond this to include the schools’ readiness for children and the family, and community support services that benefit children in their transition into school. Even in terms of determining school readiness at the level of the individual student, concepts of school readiness have changed. At the student level, traditional understandings of school readiness often focus on knowing the alphabet, knowing how to count, and skills such as being able to hold a pencil properly. Now, however, ideas about school readiness, in terms of what will actually offer students an advantage upon arrival to school, are changing drastically. A study by Janus and Duku (2007) explains that the way students navigate the classroom—by being flexible, adaptable, cooperative with others, able to ask questions comfortably, and able to show respect for all aspects of the classroom—is much more important than the traditional understanding that curricular knowledge is primarily essential. Janus and Duku also explain that children do not automatically become ready for school just before beginning school; rather, being ready for school is an outcome of everything in a child’s life. This point means that the role of the parents in exposing their children to things that will promote all aspects of being ready for school is immensely important. In addition, the need for promoting school readiness often focuses on children who are on the verge of entering formal school; Graue (2006) notes, however, that kindergarten is too late to start concentrating on school readiness. Graue suggests that readiness should focus on development of children from birth to five years. This idea of focusing on readiness early in life is repeated by Ramey and Ramey (2004), who identify seven types of experiences that are important in ensuring school readiness among children, based on brain and behavioural development. These experiences include encouraging exploration, monitoring basic skills, celebrating developmental advances, rehearsing and extending new skills, being protected from inappropriate disapproval, teasing and punishment, communicating richly and responsively, and guiding and limiting behaviour (p. 473).

One important issue to consider in school readiness, beyond what the research says about child development and essential skills needed to participate in the school environment, is the perception of school readiness that teachers and parents hold. Such perceptions are important because they influence school readiness at the human, practical level rather than from a removed and distant standpoint. Moreover, if perceptions differ, the needs of the child may not be completely met, as one ideal may be preferred over another, more optimal one. Piotrkowski, Botsko, and Matthews (2000) and Zhang, Sun, and Gai (2008) state that there are consistencies in ideas of readiness in terms of physical well-being, the ability to concentrate, child rearing, self confidence, learning interests and engagement in class (Zhang et al., 2008, p. 469). Discrepancies exist in terms of parents emphasizing the need for mastery of basic knowledge over mastery of learning skills, compared to kindergarten teachers, who saw less of a need to have a mastery of knowledge and more of a need for mastery of learning skills (Piotrkowski et al., 2000; Zhang et al., 2008). This discrepancy was also reported by Barbarin et al. (2008), who noticed that there was an emphasis on general knowledge and a lack of importance placed on inferential skills as an aspect of readiness. Piotrkowski et al. noted that among black and Hispanic parents who speak English, there was a belief that children should be able to communicate in English before entering kindergarten, which contrasts with views of kindergarten and preschool teachers. The discrepancies between what parents and teachers consider to be sufficient indicators of school readiness can complicate the ability of children to actually be ready for school.

It is important to see the many influences and items that encompass and conceptualize school readiness as well as the variety of perspectives from which these influences arise if we are to begin to improve school readiness among children, parents, and schools.

The role that parents play in school readiness

The need for parents to be engaged in school readiness is intense, especially in the early years of a child’s education. As Entwisle and Alexander (1995) note,

Younger children are also more physically and emotionally dependent on their families. They need their parents to get them to school, provide the supplies they need, and see that they are properly dressed and groomed. Older students, by contrast, can visit libraries on their own, hold part-time jobs, and in various other ways make up for any shortfall of resources in the home. Older students are tied to their families too, but they have alternative sources of emotional support outside the home—in peer groups, for example—and they also have ways to earn money when income is insufficient. For these reasons, family influences on schooling are probably stronger for elementary than for secondary youngsters. (p. 400)

With this said, there are still a variety of issues related to school readiness in older grades, especially for immigrant teenagers. Despite this controversy over readiness based on age, parents remain essential to the readiness process. The role of the parent in school readiness is common in the research literature; however, this information does not often indicate the school-readiness needs of parents as reported by parents themselves (Giallo, Kienhuis, Treyvaud, & Matthews, 2008). Giallo et al. (2008) note that approximately 70% of parents wanted information about how to help their children prepare for starting school. They suggest that wanting information may be due to feeling unprepared for their child’s transition into school despite their desire to make the transition as smooth as possible. Anderson and Minke (2007), drawing on Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy (1977), explain that parents’ efficacy refers to parents’ beliefs that their involvement in their children’s schooling will positively affect their children’s learning and school success (Bandura, 1977; as cited in Anderson & Minke, 2007, p. 312). Anderson and Minke also note that parents with high efficacy in parental engagement believe they can participate in practices and behaviours that will result in positive academic outcomes for their children. It is important for parents to feel comfortable in being able to assist their children in becoming ready for school and in being prepared to become engaged with the school community themselves.

At the same time, a lack of comfort in schools may exist among parents for a variety of reasons, including negative personal experiences in school as a student, feeling inferior or intimidated by teachers and administration, or having no clearly defined role within the school community. Feeling comfortable and being engaged in the school as a parent are especially important. Englund, Luckner, Whaley, and Egeland (2004) noticed that the quality of a mother’s instruction to her child when the child was 3.5 years old had a direct influence on the child’s IQ and an indirect influence on the child’s achievement in the first and third grades. They also found that higher academic achievement in the first grade led to higher expectations among parents and to more parental engagement and involvement. The combination of higher expectations and increased engagement is associated with the higher academic achievement that students experienced in the third grade (Englund et al., 2004). In a study of mothers and children who attended Head Start programs aimed at assisting low-income families during the early years of a child’s life through various interventions, such as preschool and parenting programs, Parker, Boak, Griffin, Ripple, and Peay (1999) also note that children whose parents spent more time helping them learn skills at home reported higher overall cognitive and language competencies (p. 418). Parker et al. noticed similar results related to play and noted that greater parent-initiated play was associated with increased receptive language in preschool-aged children…when parents understand the importance of play in their child’s development, it is likely to lead to positive gains for children’s readiness for school (p. 420). Further, in their study Parker et al. found that the parent’s ability to facilitate their child’s learning was associated with increased sensory concept activation and increased independence in the classroom (p. 420). On the other hand, Parker et al. noted, the more school-related things parents do or talk about with their child, the less considerate and task-oriented their children were and the more depressed and distractible (pp. 420–422). The study’s explanation for this finding, however, was that a demanding parent, versus an encouraging parent, led to children feeling overwhelmed (p. 422). This point speaks to the need for parents to exercise balance and foresight when engaging with their children in school-readiness discussions and activities. Also, as previously stated, if parents are to engage in positive behaviours associated with school readiness, their perception of their ability to do this, Bandura (1977) suggests, must also be positive or at least must not act as a barrier to helping their children learn at home.

The role of the parent in school readiness can be determined not only by the active approaches that parents take but also by their nature as a parent. Chazan-Cohen et al. (2009) noticed that optimal approaches to learning were related to lower parenting stress when the child was 14 months old, a decrease in parenting stress over time, and an increasingly positive learning environment in the home. In terms of more traditional views of school readiness, parents who were less stressed when their child was 14 months tended to have children with higher vocabulary scores, which in turn were associated with better learning environments and supportive parenting during play (Chazan-Cohen et al., 2009).

Differences between mothers and fathers exist in terms of parental influences on school readiness. A study by Martin, Ryan, and Brooks-Gunn (2010) found that fathers’ supportiveness was associated with children’s school readiness only when the mothers lacked supportiveness. Mothers’ supportiveness, on the other hand, was associated with children’s school readiness when fathers scored low, average, or high on supportiveness. The study concludes that fathers may act as a buffer against unsupportive mother parenting and its association with school readiness (Martin et al., 2010).

The influence parents have on their children’s school readiness should not be ignored. Parents’ needs should be responded to, and their contributions should be noted and encouraged. Since parents are often thought to be a child’s first teachers, keeping parents informed and engaged in the school-readiness process is essential.

Effects of immigration on student success in secondary school

Immigration at a young age can be difficult for children, but the effects of not being well adjusted can carry over into secondary school, where students face a harsher academic environment. As well, many newcomers arrive when their children are old enough to be in high school, regardless of their school readiness or preparation for entering secondary schools.

Immigrant youth often need to learn a new set of norms and customs while also trying to adjust to the world of secondary school. They couple their experiences of a new school with disorientation and a lack of familiarity with readiness (Suárez-Orozco, 2000). Furthermore, secondary schools are often unable to meet the variety of needs that immigrant youth face each day (Suárez-Orozco, Onaga, & Lardemelle, 2010), and the ability to meet the needs of immigrant students becomes even more challenging because relocation may be taking place as families attempt to settle (Suárez-Orozco, Gaytán, Bang, Pakes, O’Connor, & Rhodes, 2010).

A longitudinal study in the United States by Suárez-Orozco, Gaytán, et al. (2010) classified immigrant youth according to various academic trajectories. Participants were recruited at 12 years of age, and data was collected for a five-year term. The researchers noticed five trajectories; of these, two groups improved their academic performance over time: High Achievers (which comprised 25% of the sample) and Improvers (which made up 11% of the sample). The remaining participants either did not improve or ended up declining in measured performance during the study. Of these, 25% were Slow Decliners, who often moved to more demanding schools during their academic career and failed to keep up with the increased expectations, while 27.8% were Precipitous Decliners. This group faced several hardships related to pre- and post-migration, went to lower-quality schools, and often dealt with psychological issues. Another group began with low academic performance and continued to decline in performance. Known as Low Achievers, this group made up 14.4% of the sample group and tended to attend the lowest-quality schools, was the least engaged, and often lived in poverty.

An Ontario study revealed that in the high school grades, 10% of responding schools reported that they had ESL students, but no ESL programs or teachers to support them, up from 4% in 2000/01 (People for Education, 2003, p. 27). The study also states, In 2002, 63% of ESL students failed the test [Grade 10 Literacy Test], compared to a 25% failure rate for all students writing the test (People for Education, 2003, p. 28). The study did not speculate on the role of integrated services in this phenomenon; a few issues may be occurring, however. First, it is possible that although integrated service centres may be useful, the transfer of school responsibility begins to falter once students enter the secondary grades. Second, it is possible that when immigrating as students eligible for secondary school, young people lack services geared toward learning English. The need for positive school-readiness experiences extends far beyond early learning and requires family engagement at all levels of schooling.

Influences that make parents more vulnerable to being unprepared for school

Research focused on the need for parent engagement as an asset in school readiness has highlighted several issues that make it difficult for parents to be engaged. These barriers or predispositions hinder engagement and therefore preparedness. Parent engagement and involvement are important in terms of readiness because, although the child may be in school during parent readying activities, readiness operates on a continuum and parent readiness is important at all points throughout a child’s schooling.

Huntsinger and Jose (2009) note that immigrant status influences both the nature and the level of parent involvement and engagement. Turney and Kao (2009) also support this idea, finding that barriers to parental engagement are more pronounced among minority immigrant parents compared to native-born parents. This difference is especially important given that when racial and ethnic differences are controlled, the gap in school readiness among children is reduced by 25 to 50% (Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005). Lahaie (2008) found that a gap in math scores between children of immigrant parents who do not speak English in the home and children of immigrant parents who do speak English in the home, who were entering kindergarten for the first time, was consistent with a variety of other indicators such as the number of children’s books in the home, the frequency of the child looking at picture books, going to centre-based care prior to kindergarten, going to private school, and that the parent had already met with the teacher at least once (p. 698).

Levine-Rasky (2009) conducted research at an elementary school with a Caucasian population that had always existed in prominence and a newcomer population that lacked deep roots within the school. The study found that the non-immigrant mothers used elements of social capital to stay engaged in the school and in their child’s fate within the school:

Mothers…and others quoted…present the kind of disposition toward the school that enables effective relationships. Their practice and knowledge are aligned with the school. A chief manifestation of this is the warm, even personal, relationships they had with teachers and the principal. (Levine-Rasky, 2009, p. 335)

The study also noted that some of the mothers knew how to work the system (p. 335) to gain special attention for their children and to intervene to produce favourable conditions for their children (p. 336). In contrast, immigrant parents from Eastern Europe interviewed in the study said