Being Involved in Uninvolved Contexts Refugee Parent Involvement in Children's Education Report 2017

In 2016, the Newcomer Education Coalition in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives sponsored a research project focused on  the experiences of parents from refugee and war-affected backgrounds with their children's schools. On April 3, 2017  paper summarizing the research project has recently been published on the CCPA website.

Being Involved in Uninvolved Contexts Refugee Parent Involvement in Children's Education  was authored by Fadi Ennab. An abstract of the paper/report follows.

The involvement of refugee parents in their children’s education is crucial for academic success and community development. Yet, schools often struggle in promoting the involvement of newcomer parents, especially in contexts where there are language, cultural and socioeconomic challenges separating the school system and its staff from the communities and families they serve. While refugee parents are not a homogenous group, they face unique, multiple, and intersecting challenges that can negatively impact their involvement in their children’s education to the point of potentially being uninvolved. This report offers a Manitoba specific analysis and offers recommendations that will increase communication and understanding between parents and educators, and improve newcomer students' performance.

• The full report is available at : https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/being-involved-uninvolved-contexts#sthash.RuIX6VIH.dpuf

• A Executive Summary is available at https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/being-involved-uninvolved-contexts

• Also available on the research page of our website.

NEC wishes to express our sincere appreciation to CCPA, Shauna MacKinnon, and Fadi Ennab for their support and contributions to this project and the parents, students, educators, and community members who contributed their time, experiences, and knowledge.