Education, Faculty of
Educational Studies (EDST), Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Onipede, Olabanji
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
This thesis tracks how policy stipulations and guidelines concerning refugee education evolved in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario, and how children from a refugee background are represented in current educational policy discourses. Specifically, I undertake a critical analysis of policy discourse in other to reveal or refute instances of pathologizing practices and deficit thinking models in three refugee education policies; the ultimate goal being to make an argument for the consideration of Indigenous approaches to education as a durable solution to the protracted refugee displacement. Therefore, in this thesis, I adopt a decolonial perspective. A perspective which according to Battiste (2000; Battiste et al., 2002), signifies resistance to past and continued experience of colonization. Abdi et al., in (Abdi, 2015) agree with this approach. Although in the context of global citizenship education which is not dissimilar from refugee education, they (Abdi et al.) question the agenda setting of discourses and issues of global implication – oftentimes mostly impacting developing countries – in Western countries thereby stressing the need for decolonial perspectives. For me and in this thesis, a decolonial perspective involves challenging the analytical gaps and biases in mainstream Refugee education studies and discourses, and potentially bringing Refugee Studies into a closer discussion with, and more likely to learn from, Indigenous knowledge and politics. As an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) people, it is thus imperative to clarify the social and legal contexts of the Canadian idea of refugee protection and the implication of these on the historic and continued colonization of Indigenous lands. To do this, I employed van Leeuwen’s (1995) representation of social actors as the tool of critical analysis. Using this tool, I queried how social actors are represented in policy discourses by considering the semiosis of the linguistic and para-linguistic representation of students from refugee backgrounds vis-à-vis their lived experiences. The results reveal that there are traces of deficit thinking models across three provincial documents but for reasons of newness to the dominant Canadian culture – not the refugee experience.
PATHOLOGIZING EXPERIENCES: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF EDUCATION POLICIES OF K-12 STUDENTS FROM REFUGEE BACKGROUNDS IN CANADA. by Olabanji Onipede B.Sc., Babcock University, 2014 LLM., National University of Ireland, Galway, 2018 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2023 © Olabanji Onipede, 2023ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Pathologizing Experiences: A Discourse Analysis of Education Policies of K-12 Students from Refugee Backgrounds in Canada submitted by Olabanji Onipede in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Educational Studies Examining Committee: André E. Mazawi, Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Supervisor Amy Parent, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, SFU Supervisory Committee Member Bathseba Opini, Associate Professor, Department of Education, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Ali A. Abdi, Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract This thesis tracks how policy stipulations and guidelines concerning refugee education evolved in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario, and how children from a refugee background are represented in current educational policy discourses. Specifically, I undertake a critical analysis of policy discourse in other to reveal or refute instances of pathologizing practices and deficit thinking models in three refugee education policies; the ultimate goal being to make an argument for the consideration of Indigenous approaches to education as a durable solution to the protracted refugee displacement. Therefore, in this thesis, I adopt a decolonial perspective. A perspective which according to Battiste (2000; Battiste et al., 2002), signifies resistance to past and continued experience of colonization. Abdi et al., in (Abdi, 2015) agree with this approach. Although in the context of global citizenship education which is not dissimilar from refugee education, they (Abdi et al.) question the agenda setting of discourses and issues of global implication – oftentimes mostly impacting developing countries – in Western countries thereby stressing the need for decolonial perspectives. For me and in this thesis, a decolonial perspective involves challenging the analytical gaps and biases in mainstream Refugee education studies and discourses, and potentially bringing Refugee Studies into a closer discussion with, and more likely to learn from, Indigenous knowledge and politics. As an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) people, it is thus imperative to clarify the social and legal contexts of the Canadian idea of refugee protection and the implication of these on the historic and continued colonization of Indigenous lands. To do this, I employed van Leeuwen’s (1995) representation of social actors as the tool of critical iv analysis. Using this tool, I queried how social actors are represented in policy discourses by considering the semiosis of the linguistic and para-linguistic representation of students from refugee backgrounds vis-à-vis their lived experiences. The results reveal that there are traces of deficit thinking models across three provincial documents but for reasons of newness to the dominant Canadian culture – not the refugee experience. v Lay Summary Current conversations on refugee education have focused majorly on topics relating to access to education for children from a refugee background, and theoretical perspectives on inclusive education. Few have investigated the factors that hinder their access to inclusive and quality education, and even fewer have done so in the context of developed countries. The assumption appears to be that access to the national education systems is the determinant of quality education for refugees in developed countries. This thesis challenges this assumption and considers the roles of refugee education in post-conflict reconstruction. vi Preface The following thesis is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Olabanji Onipede. vii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary .................................................................................................................................. v Preface ............................................................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Overview ................................................................................................................................ 1 Positioning the Researcher ..................................................................................................... 4 Evolving Perspective – Refugee Law and My Current Approach to Refugee Education in the Canadian Context. ................................................................................................................... 5 Contextualizing Education ................................................................................................... 10 Refugee Education in a Global Context ................................................................................ 10 The Canadian Context – Indigenous Views on Education .................................................... 12 Significance of the Study ..................................................................................................... 14 Statement of the Problem ..................................................................................................... 17 Organization of Thesis ......................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2 – Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 20 Forced Migration: Protecting and Educating Refugees ........................................................ 20 Defining the Standards of Refugee Determination ................................................................ 22 Core Content of the Refugee Definition ................................................................................ 23 History of Protecting and Educating Refugees...................................................................... 30 Protracted Refugee Situations and the Permanence of Temporary Solutions ....................... 34 The Canadian Context of Refugee Protection and Education .............................................. 39 Chapter 3 – Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 47 Education for Reconstruction: The Peacebuilding Theory and an Indigenous Approach to Refugee Education................................................................................................................ 47 Theorizing Peacebuilding and Education .............................................................................. 47 A Human Rights-Based Approach to Education ................................................................... 50 Indigenizing Education for the Goal of Peace ....................................................................... 52 Deficit Thinking and the Pathologization of Lived Experiences ......................................... 59 viii Contemporary Manifestations of Deficit Thinking Models .................................................. 64 Deficit Thinking in Discourse ............................................................................................... 67 Relating Pathologizing Practices and Models of Deficit Thinking to Refugees ................... 67 Chapter 4: Methodology ............................................................................................................... 70 The Critical Analysis of Discourses in Policies. .................................................................. 70 Representing Social Actors in Discourse ............................................................................. 73 Categories of Analysis: Representation of Social Actors ...................................................... 74 The Data: Selected Refugee Education Discourses .............................................................. 86 Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narrative ........................................................................... 88 Capacity Building K-12. Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice: .............................................................................................................. 88 Supporting Students from Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools: ....... 89 Procedure for Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 90 Methodological Challenges .................................................................................................. 92 Chapter 5: Data Analysis and Findings ........................................................................................ 94 Contextualizing Policy Documents ...................................................................................... 96 Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narratives (Manitoba). ..................................................... 96 Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice (Ontario). ............................................................................................................................... 98 Student From Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools (British Columbia) ............................................................................................................................................... 98 The Structure and Representation of Authority in Discourse .............................................. 99 Creating Identities: Refugees and Other Categories of Newcomers .................................. 107 Integration Through Language and Culture ....................................................................... 125 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 138 Chapter 6: Conclusion................................................................................................................. 143 Deficit Thinking and Pathologizing Practices as it Impacts Students with Refugee Background ............................................................................................................................................ 143 Research Implications ........................................................................................................ 147 Closing Remarks and Opportunities for Further Research ................................................. 149 References ................................................................................................................................... 152 ix List of Abbreviations BVOR: Blended Visa Office Referred. CESCR: Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. CRC: Convention on the Rights of the Children. GAR: Government Assisted Refugees. GES: Global Education Strategy. GNI: Gross National Income. HPA: Humanitarian-protected Persons Abroad Class. ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ICESCR: International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross. IDP: Internally Displaced Persons. IOM: International Organisation for Migration. IRCC: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. IRPA: Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. JAS: Joint Assistance Sponsorship. LON: League of Nations. NYSC: National Youth Service Corps. PRS: Private Refugees Sponsor. RAP: Resettlement Assistance Program. UDHR: Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNHCR: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNICEF: United Nations Children’s Fund x Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank members of my family for their continued support and encouragement throughout my program. To my parents, Sinmi, and Chidinma, I love you all. Thank you for the kind words, your interest in work, and all your prayers. You have been a source of strength; you have been patient and shown genuine interest in my work. You all are the best. Dr. Andre Mazawi, I owe you a big debt of gratitude. I started my program navigating the transition from legal research and you were patient with me during this period of learning and adjustments. You have been most helpful in all facets of my experience at UBC and Vancouver in general. I consider myself blessed to have worked under your supervision. I would also like to thank the members of my supervisory committee – Dr. Amy Parent and Dr. Bathseba Opini; your support and comment enriched my writing and helped me learn the lessons necessary for completing the project. I appreciate your time and effort. Finally, I thank all my friends and colleagues, you have been helpful in more ways than you can imagine. This project could not have been completed without you all. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Overview This thesis is a critical discourse analysis of K-12 policies on refugee education in Canada. The goal is to reveal possible instances of the deficit thinking model and the pathologizing of the lived experiences of students from a refugee background if it at all exists. This chapter establishes a context for the discourse and details my approach to the inquiry. Current figures show that there is an upward trend in the number of people who have been forced to flee their homes to seek protection in a country other than theirs. To put this trend in perspective, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees1 (UNHCR) reported that, by the end of 20202, about 84.2 million people had been forcibly displaced – this number was 21.3 million in 2015 (UNHCR 20163). UNHCR’s global trends also show that children consistently account for about 50 percent of the total number of displaced persons at any point (UNHCR, 2021). The recent surge in forced displacement can be attributed to a broad variety of reasons including armed conflicts, widespread human rights abuses, crime, climate change, natural disasters, and political suppression among other factors. A full discussion of the factors that cause displacement are not the focus of this research, however, it is important to mention them to provide a clearer picture to explain the numbers of displaced persons that have drastically and consistently increased. It is equally important to note that a lot of the factors that necessitate forced migration have largely remained unsolved, and in cases where these factors have been addressed, they experience a relapse in short order (Kraler et al., 2021). Literature on the subject suggests that most displaced persons, especially refugees, have been in a state of protracted 1 The UNHCR is a specialised agency of the United Nations which is devoted to setting out the access to rights and standards governing the treatment of those recognized as refugees. 2 At the time of this writing this thesis, the most recent figures are for 2020. 3 Full report available at www.unhcr.org/statistics/unhcrstats/576408cd7/unhcr-global-trends-2015.html. 2 displacement4(Kraler et al., 2021; Loescher & Milner, 2009). Specifically, about 76 percent of global refugees are in a state of protracted displacement (Loescher & Milner, 2009; UNHCR, 2021b). Also, recent data show that the average length of displacement is about 20 years in 2021 – up from the 1990s which was 9 years at the time (European Commission, 2021; Loescher & Milner, 2009). Despite the efforts that have been made by relevant actors5 to address the consequences of protracted refugee protection which has now attracted the notoriety of being designated a crisis, the high numbers of displaced persons and the long lengths of displacement have persisted, (Amnesty International, 2020; Loescher & Milner, 2009). The reality, however, is that protracted refugee situations are a result of the combination of prevailing conditions in countries of origin and the insufficient engagement in these situations by the actors (Loescher & Milner, 2009). In other words, failure to address the persisting situations in the countries of origin means that refugees are unable to return home (UNHCR, 2004a, 2004b). Additionally, the unwillingness/inability of the international community – especially countries not directly confronted with the realities of displacement because of their distance from sources of displacement – to support host countries6 increases the likelihood of negative consequences for refugees – consequences such as the restriction of refugees to camps, and limited/inadequate access to education among other violations of human rights (UNHCR, 2004a). Much more needs to be done not only to respond to the immediate needs of refugees but also to seek long-term solutions to other constitutive issues of protracted displacement. 4 In 2004, the UNHCR defined protracted displacement as one in which 25,000 or more refugees from the same nationality have been in exile for five consecutive years or more in a given asylum country”. 5 Responsible actors include state governments, international organisations, individuals, and other non-governmental organisations that support the global effort to seek out solutions to the crisis of displacement. 6 Usually countries sharing boundaries with the countries that are sources of displacement. 3 One of the ways the wealthier countries have attempted to address the refugee crisis is through the creation of resettlement programs to support the countries that take on the highest numbers of refugees. As one of the twenty-seven countries with an established resettlement program, Canada has had a long history of welcoming refugees and currently has one of the largest resettlement programs in the world. Recently, in response to the global humanitarian crisis which has resulted in death, destruction, and the displacement of people, especially the Syrian refugees, the Canadian government began Operation Syrian Refugees in November 2015 and committed to resettling twenty 25,000 refugees by the end of 20167 (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2019). Since then, according to data presented by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada8(2021), the country has scaled up its capacity and welcomed over 162,000 resettled refugees, half of whom are minors under 17 years of age. Aside from resettlement programs, another proposed solution to the refugee crisis focuses on the role of education in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction (Davies, 2011; Loescher & Milner, 2009; Sinclair, 2007). Unfortunately, very little attention has been devoted to an approach that considers the role of education in peacebuilding as a means to address the refugee crisis, and very few researchers have taken an approach that looks at refugee education beyond the widely discussed issues of access to schools. The refugee experience is associated with uncertainty, violence, widespread human rights abuses, and other traumatic life experiences with refugee children being particularly vulnerable. Refugee children are more likely to experience psychological and socio-emotional challenges resulting from anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and depression (Bronstein & Montgomery, 2011). 7Further information available at: WelcomeRefugees: Canada resettled Syrian refugees https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/welcome-syrian-refugees.html 8 Henceforth IRCC 4 In addition, educational challenges compounded with language and socio-cultural barriers expose the children to practices that pathologize their lived experiences. Such practices are grounded in an approach that attributes deficit to refugee children’s experiences, whether cultural, social, or attitudinal. Furthermore, studies in the area of refugee protection and peacebuilding strongly suggest that devoting inadequate attention to education even in cases where access to school is not restricted ultimately results in the vicious cycle of protracted displacement (Kraler et al., 2021; Loescher & Milner, 2009). After all that has been considered, the present research takes a unique, rights-based approach to address the problem of pathologizing the lived experiences of children from a refugee background concerning how they are represented in policies. It further looks at how deficit thinking and the practice of pathologizing the lived experiences of minoritized groups adversely affect the reconstruction of fragile states. The goal here is to assess, in the Canadian context, whether there are any impediments to attaining an education that aids the development and engagement of skills that are critical to peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. Positioning the Researcher In analyzing discourse and its social influence, it is requisite that the positionality of the researcher is clarified. Positioning the researcher acknowledges the subjectivity of the analytical process and the subjectivities that have shaped the researcher’s approach to the subject of the inquiry. It influences what the researcher has chosen to investigate, how the research is conducted, and the research outcome, and captures how the researcher’s perspectives have evolved (Darwin Holmes, 2020; Kipnis et al., 2021). In a decolonial framework, it also identifies, honors, and shows reverence to the Indigenous Nations, land, and waterways that the researcher lives in relation with, while also occupying due to settler colonialism. As such, I 5 humbly recognize that I wrote this thesis while living on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) people. With the understanding that the social, historical, and political experiences of a researcher influence the entire research process, it is in the interest of rigor to detail my experiences. These should then be integrated throughout the research to contextualize my approach to certain issues and clarify my assumptions in these instances. To this end, I will describe how I became interested in refugee education, and why I have chosen to approach the study the way I am. Evolving Perspective – Refugee Law and My Current Approach to Refugee Education in the Canadian Context. I am from the Yorùbá community in Western Nigeria. I come from a closely-knit family consisting of siblings and cousins. That was not unique in any way, most people in my community and culture live in households comprising nuclear and extended families. My parents taught me from an early age the centrality of family relations to our existence and to also appreciate the great value of my Yorùbá culture and the value of staying connected to Yorùbáland and community as defined by the omoluabi9 essence (Adeniji-Neill, 2011; Mimiko, 2017). Yorùbáland or Ile Karo Ojire in Yorùbá terms connotes that the Yorùbá culture and values are one with the Land (Falola & Akinyemi, 2016). It indicates that, even in the face of colonization, migration (forced in some cases), and cultural suppression, the Yorùbá people still value their Indigenous culture, are not opposed to embracing new ideas from others, but 9 According to Adeniji-Neil (2011)Yoruba of western Nigeria say that a person is not merely human by being born, that we are human beings because of the deeds and actions that connect us to others: to families to friends to community to nation. Omoluabi connotes the respect for self and others. Omoluabi is a person with honour who believes in hard work, respects of the rights of others and gives selflessly to the community in deeds and in action. It is a concept that expresses the essential feature of the Yoruba sense of a total and holistic being. 6 maintains the sacredness of the homeland as the origin and source of Yorùbá people. This idea is solidified by the African adage that “a river that forgets its source soon dries up” meaning that sustenance is contingent on being connected to your source. I maintain a strong connection to my homeland and culture in my approach to academics, daily life, and in my sojourns. In late 2014, I completed an undergraduate degree in International Law and Diplomacy at Babcock University, Nigeria with a strong focus on Boundaries and Migration Law and Human Rights. Based on requirements set by the Nigerian government for graduates, I was posted to serve as part of the national youth service program. Officially called the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), the program is a one-year undertaking, which started in May 1973. It is a continuing legacy of Yakubu Gowon10’s military regime and is a part of the 3R Program – Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, and Reconciliation. It was created in 1970 after a bitter war fought along ethnic lines. The youth service was created to bridge ethnic and religious divides and foster the spirit of Nigerian nationalism (Egunyomi, 2017). The service consists of three major components: a regimented military camp supervised by the Nigerian Army, and a Community Development Service (CDS) group which runs concurrently with a primary assignment. For my service year, I was posted to the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, Abuja. My interests in refugee protection and forced migration, broadly speaking, began during my service. Through the CDS component and as a member of the Education Development community group, I was actively involved in a special project that aimed to assess the educational realities of children displaced by terrorist activities of Boko Haram11 from the North- 10 Yakubu Gowon was the 3rd head of state of Nigeria. He held this position from 1966 to 1975, and presided over the deadly civil war. At the end of the war, he took to a number of steps in an effort to promote healing and reconciliation including the creation of the youth service corps, and his popular ‘no victor, no vanquish’ declaration. 11 Boko Haram, also referred to as Jama’atu Ahl as-Sunnah li-Da’awati wal-jihad is a religious extremist group operating out of Northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram means “western education is forbidden” which explains their 7 eastern part of Nigeria to neighbouring States including the federal capital territory in Abuja. Similar to the approach to education for refugees on a global scale, relief materials available for IDPs generally excluded education. This is despite the very long periods of displacement which at the time could reach 10 years. During that period, I had many discussions with people who have been displaced but a particular conversation with a mother of three school-age children captures the gist of these discussions. Her concern as well as those of others was that her ‘homeland’ had been destroyed with no hope of reconstruction since all three of her children and tens of thousands more who are scattered across camps in Abuja had missed years of schooling. I did not realize the connection she made between schooling, returning home, and restoration at the time, but I did get interested in the issues surrounding forced migration. I have become more aware of the humanitarian crisis that is refugee protection and all its ramifications. I have since been involved in projects and studies around these challenges including a Master of Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), dedicated to researching human rights, conflict, post-conflict reconstruction, and refugee law. I researched how the right to education is implemented for children from a refugee background and the obligations these rights impose on a state12. I also investigated the possible intersection between education and the reconstruction of a country torn apart by armed conflicts. I found that the substantive laws and their judicial interpretation allowed a considerable amount of discretion on the side of the states, some of ideological underpinning. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the kidnap, death, and destruction of people, properties and infrastructure across the northwestern sub-region of Nigeria. 12A state as used in this context describes central authority governing a geographical space and is widely considered the most important actor in human rights. States dominate conventional discourses in international relations and are widely considered the primary duty holders in international law. States have the legal obligation to protect and promote human rights, including the right to social security, and ensure that people can realize their rights without discrimination. The overall responsibility of the State includes ensuring the due provision of benefits according to clear and transparent eligibility criteria and entitlements, and the proper administration of the institutions and services. Detailed information available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-and-mechanisms/international-human-rights-law and https://socialprotection-humanrights.org/key-issues/governance-accountability-and-democracy/responsibility-of-the-state/ 8 which had restricted the rights of education for children from a refugee background. I also found that not only was education connected to reconstruction, but it was also essential and underscored most of the steps in the reconstruction process. And so, this has led me to further investigate education for children from a refugee background, hence, my present research at the University of British Columbia located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation. Since coming to the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, I have been introduced to qualitative methodologies – critical discourse analysis, in my case – which is very different from legal research. One major aspect of this is the idea in legal research that a researcher should not feature in the research in any way other than simply reporting what the law says. On the contrary, qualitative research encourages and perhaps mandates a researcher to include their positionality. By applying this to my thesis overall, I became aware of a lot of things I had taken for granted or wrongly assumed. I did not realize for example that I had viewed forced migration against the backdrop of strong connections to my homeland. Similarly, I had not thought about the possible consequences of being dispossessed of my homeland considering that Nigeria and most of Africa had been colonized by Britain and European powers. These same colonial European powers currently operate some of the most constrictive asylum systems which are characterized by the restriction of access to mainland Europe for asylum seekers under the guise of push/pull factors (Universiteit Maastricht et al., 2016). In other words, European countries limit access to education for example, because it is considered a pull factor for asylum seekers who are fleeing to save their lives. Unfortunately, colonization is not exclusive to Africa as parts of North America, including Canada, had been colonized. The colonization of Indigenous lands and the horrific legacies of 9 the residential schools continue to be a reality that demands great care and compels a thoughtful approach to issues such as those relating to education, peacebuilding, boundaries, and admission of people to colonized lands. I took this into account as I conducted this study and as part of my continued decolonial process. At the heart of refugee protection is the issue of land, citizenship, and statehood. By definition, a refugee seeks protection in a state other than his/her home country with permission from the government of the state where they seek protection. Considering Canada’s colonial history and a system that has dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands, a similar question asked by Jodi Byrd comes to mind. Byrd, an Indigenous scholar, and citizen of Chikashsha I̠yaakni (Chickasaw Nation), in a 2011 publication he/she or they? questioned the possibility of exercising a claim to democratic justice without pushing Indigenous land dispossession toward a vanishing point (Byrd, 2011). Byrd’s question summarizes the moral and ethical dilemma of my study and problematizes the constitutive relations between a refugee’s educational integration and the problem of Indigenous colonization. This dilemma extends beyond a refugee’s migratory experience but includes my journey to Canada as an international student researching forced migration and education and my professional engagements in Indigenous research ethics and Indigenous education policies. My approach to this research has been refined as a result, and through guidance, I have come to see the disservice and harm we continue to maintain when we fail to acknowledge Indigenous ways of knowing. Besides, I risk perpetuating the settler-colonial mentality woven into the fabric of immigration if I do not acknowledge that Indigenous Peoples in Canada have been and continue to be dispossessed of their lands by settler-colonial entities which have also instituted a body of migratory regulations predicated on the very systems that propagate and maintain the 10 dispossession of Indigenous lands for the conjectured ‘common good’ of the world (Chatterjee & Das Gupta, 2020). I take responsibility to implement this viewpoint throughout my research to avoid perpetuating the settler-colonial mentality woven into the fabric of the system. Contextualizing Education Refugee Education in a Global Context In global affairs and international refugee protection particularly, the term, education, is usually employed to describe access to schools. In several instances, the UNHCR has measured education in statistical terms that associate higher enrolment rates with successful educational policies with less emphasis on education outcomes and learning (UNHCR, 2020a; UNHCR Canada, n.d.-a). My intention here is not to offer any criticism of the approach to refugee education at the global level. Instead, I aim to clarify my position on education as it is employed in the context of this study. In 2012, the UNHCR introduced the Global Education Strategy (GES) which focused on access to quality and inclusive education for refugees. To achieve this goal, the GES advocated that refugees be included in the national educational systems as appropriate and as guided by ongoing consultation with refugees (UNHCR, 2012b). The GES direction was a departure from earlier recommendations that education should be aligned as closely as possible with the country of origin (INEE, 2004; UNHCR, 2003, 2009). The approach of the UNHCR to refugees has not changed much since the formation of the GES. The Global Framework for Refugee Education is the most recent UNHCR publication that shows the organization’s vision for refugee education until 2030 (UNHCR, 2019). This change was markedly different from the approach before 2012 and for this reason, has drawn considerable academic interest. One such, by Dryden-Peterson et. al (2019) found that there were five reasons for this shift – they are: “the protracted nature of 11 conflict, emphasis on access to quality education, presence of refugees in urban areas living among nationals, need for education to facilitate social cohesion, and persistent shortfall and unpredictability in funding” (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019, p. 353). It appears to me that this shift and the rationale behind it proves that the approach UNHCR views the inclusion of students from a refugee background in national education as a means to achieving quality and ultimately inclusive education. In order words, quality education is attained if children from a refugee background are successfully included in the national schooling. Dryden-Peterson et al. (2019) agree with my position and challenge the underlying assumption of UNHCR’s approach. The assumption is that inclusion guarantees access to quality education, and by implication, that every national educational system can offer quality education that benefits every individual (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019). The study by Dryden-Peterson et al (2019) only captures the problems associated with the national education system of developing countries or countries with a low gross national income (GNI), being that these countries host the highest numbers of refugees. One of the challenges identified in the study is that inclusion in national educational systems reflects the host nation’s vision for refugees. In many instances where children from a refugee background are included, they are prepared for a future of resettlement. A future of resettlement implies that learning is tailored towards resettling refugees in highly sought-after developed countries. I, however, make no assumptions about the purported quality of education in high GNI countries and its ability to provide quality education for children from refugee backgrounds. My observation is that the refugee experience may be pathologized and viewed as a deficit. If this is the case, the literature suggests that pathologizing practices and deficit thinking models adversely impact educational outcomes (Sharma, 2018; Valencia, 2019; Williams, 2022). 12 The Canadian Context – Indigenous Views on Education The Canadian educational system generally operates at a provincial level except for First Nations students on-reserve and in some cases, off-reserve schools which operate under the jurisdiction of First Nations authorities; and/or self-governing agreements which identify various authority and governing structures for education among First Nations and their treaty partners (i.e. Westbank First Nation Self-Government Agreement (2003), Nisga’a Final Agreement (2000). The Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement in the province of Ontario, for instance, recognizes 23 Anishinabek First Nations’ control over Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 Education on and off-reserve. It is federally funded to operate a stand-alone Anishinabek Education System which is parallel to the provincial system, and governed by representatives of participating First Nations (Kinoomaadziwin Education Body, n.d.). A similar agreement in British Columbia recognizes First Nations’ rights to make laws regarding the education of their children including curriculum development, graduation requirement, and teacher certification, among others. It is federally recognized and codified federally as First Nations Jurisdiction over Education in British Columbia Act (2006) and provincial as the First Nations Education Act (2007). The British Columbia Tripartite Education Agreement between Canada, British Columbia, and the First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) recognizes the committee’s capacity to administer education programs on behalf of First Nations and First Nations Schools in BC (First Nations Education Steering Committee, n.d.). There are several other instances of such agreements between provincial/federal government, and of course policies and protocols within the First Nations educational authorities across “Canada” which I believe could be of interest, notwithstanding, my analysis is of the educational discourses on refugees in Canada as they appear in and are administered provincial authorities. 13 Thus, for this study, I take the approach to quality education that is defined in human rights documents and the general comments of the various committees on the right to education. To avoid vain repetitions, however, my description of quality education will be discussed in later chapters along with the roles of education in post-conflict reconstruction, and an exploration of the Canadian education system. However, it is necessary to mention here that in pondering the Canadian context of education, it is beneficial to also consider Indigenous approaches to education, especially aspects of it that has to do with peacebuilding. Indigenous approaches to education are culturally diverse and no one-size-fit-all description will properly describe these approaches. However, Indigenous communities share epistemological and ontological paradigms that help ground an understanding of Indigenous approaches to education. Grayshield et al (2010), drawing inspiration from Vine Deloria Jr., stated that “what can be known [in the Indigenous conception of the universe] is always subjective and in constant change regardless of empirical scientific evidence” and further that the conscious awareness of the life of Indigenous cultures has “maintained thousands of years of existence on [their] lands without wide-scale violent acts of war, or causing harm to their respective environments” (Grayshield et al., 2010, p. 5). To briefly clarify, Drs. Grayshield and Mihecoby are from the Wá∙šiw (Washoe), and Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche) tribes respectively, truly illustrating the diversity of Indigenous nations, and histories. It should therefore be noted that the claim here is a generalization that does not apply to every Indigenous nation. There are several nations, for instance, that will beg to differ on the fact of the historic violent acts of war. For example, there have been significant acts among the Northwest Coast Nations of British Columbia. Notwithstanding, as a multidimensional body of lived experiences, and a complex matrix of holistic awareness of the whole life, Indigenous education is culturally rooted in generational 14 practices of socialization with structured systems of learning, teaching, and living which are grounded in a strong connection to the land (Huaman, 2011; Tuck et al., 2014). Indigenous approaches “puts Indigenous epistemological and ontological accounts of land at the center, including Indigenous understandings of land, Indigenous language in relation to land, and Indigenous critiques of settler colonialism” (Tuck et al., 2014, p. 13). The benefit of aligning peace education with Indigenous education is that it illuminates other resourceful ways to build peace for historically and continuously colonized or minoritized groups as is the case of the Indigenous peoples of Canada (Huaman, 2011). Peace here, therefore, is such that enhances reconciliation and coexistence based on human rights, and social, economic, and political justice as defined by local cultures (Murithi, 2007). According to Murithi (2007), culture is important in Indigenous approaches to peacebuilding because people derive their sense of meaning and purpose from their cultures and communities and are shaped by the values that their societies embrace. For this study, I adopt a combination of both the global approach to peacebuilding as well as an Indigenous approach. Together, the two perspectives consist of a set of initiatives that are often elemental to post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation, and rehabilitation. They are broadly understood as a complex, integrated and multidimensional process encompassing an effort to simultaneously improve military (restoration of law and order), political (governance), economic (rehabilitation and development), and socio-cultural solidarity (peace, justice, and reconciliation) (Murithi, 2007; Tzifakis, n.d.). Significance of the Study Current conversations on refugee education have focused majorly on topics relating to access to education for children from a refugee background, and theoretical perspectives on inclusive 15 education. Few have investigated the factors that hinder their access to inclusive and quality education, and even fewer have done so in the context of developed countries (Dryden-Peterson, 2016; Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019; McIntyre & Abrams, 2020). In instances where the quality of education has been questioned, it has been in the context of low-income countries. Even though those working in the field of refugee education in high-income countries are often torn between fulfilling the demands of highly meritocratic and performative national education systems and their commitments to quality education that takes refugees’ lived experiences into account (Dryden-Peterson, 2016; Ratkovic et al., 2018). Moreover, the assumption appears to be that access to the national education systems is the determinant of quality education for refugees in developed countries. This thesis challenges this assumption and considers the roles of refugee education in post-conflict reconstruction. Thus, the relevance and justification for this study are twofold. Firstly, it challenges the assumption that mere access to national education systems is sufficient to account for quality education for refugees in high-income countries like Canada. This is done by applying the concepts of deficit thinking and pathologized practices to the critical analysis of educational policies about refugees in Canada. These concepts, when considered in the context of the instant research clarify how children from a refugee background are described in educational policies vis-a-vis their lived experiences. To angle this appropriately – on one hand, the circumstances surrounding forced displacement are mostly characterized by hardship and situations of extreme suffering (Guterres, 2008; Vince et al., 2020). On the other hand, literature on the subject suggests that pathologizing practices and deficit thinking models predict a negative educational outcome for students whose lived experiences have been viewed as such (Shields et al., 2005; Valencia, 2010; Young, 2017) – this project strikes at the intersection of both issues. Challenging 16 this assumption, however, does not translate to the vilification of the Canadian education system. Rather, subjecting policies and guide documents to such critical analysis is in itself a challenge regardless of the outcomes, and a way to uncover instances of poor practices and a way to rectify them. Secondly, by considering the role of education in post-conflict reconstruction, this thesis enriches related discourses and brings new approaches, including Indigenous perspectives on peace, to the problem of protracted displacement. While numerous work has been done on the roles of refugees in post-conflict reconstruction and the tasks necessary for reconstruction, very few have delved into the education of refugees as a possible solution to protracted displacement (Carment & Calleja, n.d.; Horst, 2019; Koinova, 2018; Tzifakis, n.d.). Academics who have investigated the role of education are of the view that education is an infrastructure and system that needs to be rebuilt as an aspect of the practices involved in the reconstruction of a fragile state, to which refugees may return (Dryden-Peterson, 2016; Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019). Thus, the education of refugees when considered in research about post-conflict reconstruction is mostly neglected, and the refugees themselves are not viewed from of position that acknowledges their strengths (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019; World Bank, 2005). Put simply, the perspectives on the issues of refugee education show education as a means to social and economic recovery that occurs within a fragile state (AUSA & CSIS, 2002; World Bank, 2005). My argument is that quality and inclusive education, especially for refugees, underscores the overall reconstruction of fragile states and goes further than possible socio-economic gains. By arguing for this broader approach, I bring a fresh outlook to the topic of the post-conflict reconstruction as a means of attaining a lasting solution to the problems associated with protracted displacement as well as an increased role for refugees. 17 Statement of the Problem This study aims to track how policy stipulations and guidelines concerning refugee education evolved in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario, and how children from a refugee background are represented in current educational policy discourses. These discourses are in the form of policies and guide documents about the education of refugees resettled in Canada. For this thesis, I will be critically analyzing three policies from these provinces. They are Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narrative (Government of Manitoba, 2015): Capacity Building K-12. Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016); and Supporting Students from Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015). The reason for undertaking the critical analysis of policy discourses in the context of this thesis is to reveal or refute possible instances of pathologizing practices and deficit thinking models in refugee education policies. Thus, the key problem identified for this study is to examine whether these policies result in pathologizing practices or whether they engage a deficit thinking model. The research questions guiding this analysis therefore are: 1. What would a critical discourse analysis of educational policies relating to K-12 students of refugee backgrounds in Canada reveal about policy discourses on refugee students’ lived experiences? 2. Given differences in cross-provincial historical, social, and educational contexts, what different modalities of discourse might emerge among provinces in Canada in terms of the construction of the practices concerned with the lived experiences of students of refugee background, and 18 3. What could these forms of discursive representation mean for the educational future of children from a refugee background? Organization of Thesis Chapter 1: Introduction Introduce the topic and clarify important concepts related to the study. Chapter 2: Literature Review Following the introduction, the literature review will provide the history of refugee protection. Here, I will provide a background on refugee protection and what obligations it creates for states under international law. Following this, I will show how international refugee law operates in Canada, especially the resettlement programs. I will then explain what post-conflict reconstruction is and how it is connected to the education of resettled refugees in Canada. Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework This chapter will provide a framework for understanding the role of the education of resettled refugees and how it impacts post-conflict reconstruction. Since this thesis is done within the context of Canadian systems of immigration and education, the framework of reference will be, firstly a decolonial perspective to education – giving due consideration to Indigenous land ownership and sovereignty in the topic of migration and the legacies of residential schools. Secondly, a rights-based approach to the topic of education will be discussed, as well as the statutory obligation it creates for countries. Furthermore, the deficit thinking model will be explored along with the implications of pathologizing the lived experiences of minoritized groups including refugees. 19 Chapter 4: Methodology Here, the methodology chapter will start by briefly restating the problem the research investigates, and justify the choice of methodology and its possible limitations. I will describe my choice of methodology and how it appropriately answers my research questions. The chapter will also mention how the methods I employed to analyze the chosen policy documents by critical analysis of discourse (CDA). I will then explain my approach to CDA – the Representation of Social Actors (van Leeuwen, 1996), and the analytic process involved in my analysis. Chapter 5: Analysis and Findings This chapter will detail the analysis of the policies and discuss the findings in terms of how children from refugee backgrounds are included or excluded in discourse vis-à-vis their lived experiences. It also describes how the instances of inclusions/exclusions may be possibly viewed as instances of the deficit model. Chapter 6: Conclusion Offer concluding remarks following the result of the analysis, and comment on the implication of the studies, the possible limitations, and opportunities for further studies. 20 Chapter 2 – Literature Review Questions surrounding the construction of refugee personhood, and the representation of refugees in educational policy discourses, in addition to the understanding of forced migration, are central to the inquiry undertaken in this thesis. As a field of study, forced migration is broad and resulting discourses are often extended to various research areas including education, international politics, human rights, humanitarian law, and development studies among others. The implication is that it is necessary to contextualize studies on forced displacement. Thus, I clarify my approach to the understanding of refugee protection and other relevant accompanying fields of study particularly as it relates to the representation of refugee education policy discourses in Canada. This chapter reviews the literature on forced migration and refugee protection, and the current Canadian discourses relating to the education of children from refugee backgrounds. To achieve a concise review, the chapter will be divided into two interconnected sections. The first section addresses refugee protection and forced migration. Here, the historical context of refugee protection will be clarified, as well as the implications of refugee status for the education of a refugee population. The second section will introduce the discussion about refugee protection within the Canadian context and extends this discussion to the current state of refugee education policies in Canada. The crux of this thesis sits at the convergence of both sections and clears the path for the conceptualization of refugee education and the reconstruction of societies following conflicts. Both sections will be foregrounded by discussions about educational provisions as part of the protection of refugees and their rights. Forced Migration: Protecting and Educating Refugees The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) defines forced migration as the migratory movement of people, which although can be driven by various reasons, involves force, 21 compulsion, and coercion (IOM Glossary on Migration, 2019). The term forced migration is used to describe people who are displaced locally within their countries of origin (internally displaced persons), or internationally in other countries (refugees), and in some cases has been used to describe victims of human trafficking. Largely due to issues of semantics, the adoption of the term ‘forced migration’ has been the subject of debate in international law and draws widespread criticism. One such criticism is that forced migration does not account for the nuanced differences between internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees and may undermine international legal protection (Migration Data Portal, 2022). The strength of this position arises out of the reality that international refugee protection is an established area of law with a clear definition of who a refugee is. Not all forms of forced trans-frontier migration evoke refugee protection. The 1951 Refugee convention offers a very specific definition of a refugee and by extension those who qualify for protection. Several factors have been deemed as responsible for this specificity, most of which are reflective of the recognition of a state’s territorial integrity and the responsibilities that the recognition of a person’s refugee status imposes on hosting states as duty bearers under international human rights law (Bindenagel Šehović, 2018; Lagoutte, 2019). The provisions of refugee protection and international human rights law indicate that a state must assume all responsibilities for the protection of the rights of refugees within its territory as it does for its citizens. Taking up such responsibilities has sparked debates about so-called positive and negative13 human rights obligations, and accompanying issues of state resources (Gewirth, 2001; Lavrysen, 2016). The positive/negative obligation 13Human rights law imposes two different types of obligation. On the one hand, there are negative obligations that forbid the state from interfering in right-bearer’s affairs. On the other, there are positive obligations that require the state to act, generally to protect citizens against threats to their human rights. Generally speaking, positive rights can be costly since they require that a state commits resources to the protection of those rights. The right to education for example requires resources for the provision. See Lavrysen (2016) and Gewirth (2001) for a deeper exploration of this issue. 22 debate particularly has significant implications for the protection of refugees because positive obligations like those required by the right to education can be expensive and have been restricted or denied for forced migrants pending their application. In some instances, also, refugees with confirmed status have been deterred from accessing the education system of host states or have been subjected to discriminatory practices. Although a refugee application cannot be denied on the grounds of available resources, there are strong arguments for the influence that the availability of resources has on the restrictive application of the refugee definition particularly among developed countries. These restrictions are usually under the pretext of the possibility of bogus asylum claims by dubious persons who seek to take advantage of available resources or as a route for economic migration (Universiteit Maastricht et al., 2016). Thus, as a point of departure, I will briefly describe this restrictive application of standards and follow up with the historical context of refugees’ right to education. Defining the Standards of Refugee Determination I should note from the onset that the 1951 Refugee convention does not set out the procedure for determining the requirements of refugee status. The assumption is that such procedures would be decided by contracting state parties and with due consideration for the legal, constitutional, and administrative arrangements in place in individual states (Bhuiyan, 2013). What I intend to do here, therefore, is to spell out the mechanism of protection provided by the 1951 Refugee convention, and how the strict application of convention definition standards reflects the discourse about limited available resources. The Refugee Convention (1951) defines a refugee as a person who, … owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is 23 unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. (Article 1(a)) The definition above solidifies the move away from the previously held notion of concern for group disenfranchisement and towards the relationship between an individual and the state. This shift is not total, however, since application and status determination are still conducted as a group in which recognition as refugees is determined by an evaluation of the situation in their country of origin that compelled them to flee. Particularly in cases of mass influx, it will be unreasonable if not impossible that status determination is done on an individual basis. In instances like this, a status determination is done on a prima facie basis of group membership (Bhuiyan, 2013; UNHCR, 2005). Regardless, a status determination is done on the basis of the 1951 Refugee, specifically according to the definition of a refugee as provided above and in cognizance of the individual situation of applicants. These standards are by no means simple but require careful unpacking. With large-scale displacement being the norm rather than the exception, issues of resources have become even more prominent. I will show a few instances of how the strict application of the definition has been in concert with arguments about the economic, social, and cultural rights of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the posture of Canada in this. But first, I will clarify the refugee definition according to the 1951 Refugee Convention and why it has proven to be malleable to other ends besides protection. Core Content of the Refugee Definition The UNHCR acknowledges the subjectivity of fear, and so from the onset, the definition of refugee involves elements of subjectivity (UNHCR, 1992). The determination of a person’s refugee status and the judgment of their application is based on an evaluation of their statement, 24 not just events in the country of origin. It is for this reason that the term “well-founded” was added to qualify the subjectivity of fear (Bhuiyan, 2013). The role of the refugee status determination officer, therefore, is to balance subjective fear with the objective reality of events in the country of origin (UNHCR, 1992). This implies that the determination of refugees requires not only the frame of mind of the persons concerned but also that this frame of mind must be supported by observable reality (Bhuiyan, 2013). Following the element of objectivity, the applicant is required to demonstrate an actual risk of persecution, and in this regard, the subjective element is required to demonstrate an emotional state of fear concerning that risk. As earlier mentioned, the Refugee Convention does not dictate the status determination procedures. Case law shows that the concept of well-founded fear is similarly applied across different countries although with slight modification. For instance, the Supreme court of Canada held per Justices Sopinka, Cory, Iacobucci, and Major that: The claimant, to establish a well-founded fear of sterilization, must demonstrate subjective fear of persecution, and establish that this fear is well-founded in the objective sense, both on a balance of probability. A refugee claimant must establish to the Board's satisfaction that the alleged fear exists in his or her mind in order to meet the subjective aspect of the test for a well-founded fear of persecution (Chan v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1995). Similarly, Judge Finnegan of the High Court of Ireland held that: "Fear" is subjective so that determination of refugee status will primarily require an evaluation of the applicant's statements rather than a judgment on the situation prevailing in his country of origin. The fear must be well founded, and this implies that the applicant's frame of mind must be supported by an objective situation (Zgnat’ev v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, 2001). 25 There is a growing sentiment among legal scholars that this bipartite objective/subjective approach to status determination puts refugee applicants at protection risks that are in dissonance with the purpose of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Denying refugee status to applicants who may not have expressed fear in their statements is possible under the subjective-objective approach (Bhuiyan, 2013). I tend to agree with this position, and I believe that seeking refuge in and of itself is, in a way, an expression of fear. The realities of forced migration and the hazards associated with such irregular movement across state borders, in my opinion, may constitute an expression of fear. I am equally of the opinion that this approach to the concept of well-founded fear is indicative of the economic migrant14 narrative and the consideration for the push-pull15 factor in refugee migration (Foster, 2007; Universiteit Maastricht et al., 2016). Similarly, the 1951 Refugee convention retains vagueness and offers no clear-cut definition for the term persecution even for the determination process. The impression of scholars is that this omission was intentional because it was deemed imperative to have a concept flexible and malleable enough on account of unforeseen forms of persecution. This is perhaps to allow a level of discretion or creativity in applying the standards of persecution (Bhuiyan, 2013; Robinson, 1968). The Refugee Convention provides that discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion should always be deemed as persecution (The Refugee Convention, 1951, Article 33). Being the anchor of refugee law, persecution bears enough severity to render harm to applicants or make them susceptible to 14 The term “economic migrant” as used in refugee protection discourses usually suggests that applicants for refugee protection are doing so for other reasons besides a well-founded fear of persecution – in this case, for economic reasons. Foster (2007) discusses this in detail. 15In both area of origin and destination, there may be factors that act to hold, retain, or attract people (pull factors) or those that repel people (push factors). Hence when invoked in refugee protection, push/pull factor suggests that although there are factors that necessitate migration, certain factors also attract migrants to specific countries. See Lee (1966) and Universiteit Maastricht et al. (2016) for a deeper exploration. 26 systematic and discriminatory conduct. Persecution in the context of refugee law also includes serious violations of non-derogable human rights such as the right to life, the right to freedom from torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, the right to be free from slavery and servitude, the right not to be subjected retroactive criminal penalties, the right to recognition before the law, and the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. In other words, grave violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) would be considered persecution. The violation of economic, social, and cultural rights could also culminate in persecution when such violations are discriminatory on the aforementioned grounds (UNHCR, 1992, paras. 51–53). Persecution must, however, be distinguished from punishments for common law offenses. The UNHCR Handbook stresses this point by noting that persons fleeing from such punishment are not refugees and do not qualify for refugee protection based on the provisions of the Refugee convention. By making this point, the UNHCR makes a clear distinction between prosecution and persecution. Thus, a refugee is a victim or potential victim of injustice and not a fugitive from justice(UNHCR, 1992, para. 56). Nonetheless, a person facing punishment for a criminal offense may be considered for protection under the refugee definition if they can prove that the authorities are weaponizing criminal law/ or procedures as a tool for persecution (Bhuiyan, 2013). Another key component of the definition of refugee protection is the issue of citizenship or nationality. Part of the requirements to qualify for refugee protection is that an applicant is outside their country of nationality, and in the case of a stateless person, that they are outside their country of habitual residence. The connection between a person and their country of citizenship denotes a special kind of relationship that translates to special responsibilities owed 27 by one side to the other (Bhuiyan, 2013). In other words, the state owes certain responsibilities to its citizens – including the responsibility to protect the rights of citizens – and in the same way, citizens owe their state certain duties including partaking in the democratic system and military services. It is a general requirement for refugee protection that a person who has a nationality is outside their country of nationality. This condition is without exceptions since international protection cannot be invoked as long as such a person is within the territorial jurisdiction of their home country (UNHCR, 1992). And so, during the refugee determination process, a person alleging fear of persecution in relation to a country must prove that they, indeed, hold the citizenship of that country. It is implied, therefore, that an applicant’s well-founded fear of persecution must be in relation to their country of origin. In the case of a stateless person, the approach is very similar except that the standard is applied to their country of habitual residence. This again ties back to earlier explorations of the connection between positive rights – in this case, the right to education – and refugee protection. Subjective Application of Definition Standards It is the case that in situations of forced migration, countries in close geographical proximity to the source of such forced migration usually host a larger majority of migrants. For various reasons, some of which have been discussed previously in this work, the large numbers of migrants often overwhelm the host state. As a result, there have been several calls by concerned international actors for a more equitable and predictable responsibility sharing16 among countries 16 The idea of burden/responsibility is not a recent development in refugee protection. The preamble to the 1951 Refugee acknowledges that “the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation”. Global refugee responsibility sharing has also been mentioned in various UN Resolutions, Regional instruments, Executive Communities among others. 28 of the world to help alleviate the negative circumstances surrounding forced migration and offer refuge to asylum seekers. Although a reasonable initiative, very little success has been achieved. On the contrary, the bid for responsibility sharing has been associated with instances where protection has failed. In these instances, it is argued that countries have reconfigured worthiness17 in the context of asylum claims (Shiff, 2020). The concept of worthiness has allowed for a subjective categorization of worthy asylum seekers as juxtaposed against illegal immigrants seeking to take advantage of the refugee policies. Along the same line, the refugee definition can be deployed as a mechanism for excluding asylum seekers from protection based often on subjective and arbitrary rationales. Under ideal circumstances, acknowledgment of refugee status should be conclusive throughout the phase of protection except for the fact of gravely implicating discoveries which could include dishonest representation of facts among other things. However, this is not the case in increasing numbers of developed countries that have come up with creative ways to deflect, intercept or transfer asylum seekers arguably in an attempt to minimize their responsibility under the 1951 convention (Foster, 2008). These policies have resulted in several prominent practices summarised as the protection elsewhere policies and agreements – including the safe third country agreements18, the first country of asylum19 , or 17 The argument generally revolves around the idea that worthiness in the context of asylum has shifted from the circumstances that motivates a person to flee and come to focus on the immutable features on account of which a person has fled. The implication is that the concept of immutability provides lawmakers with the conceptual template for determining deserving asylum seekers as separate from illegal immigrants. See Shiff (2020) for deeper exploration. 18 Safe Third Country agreements take different forms depending on the countries involved. However, the principle is identical, and it is that an asylum seeker should make their application for protection in the first safe country they enter. A country engaged in a safe third country agreement would usually return an asylum seeker to a third country designated as safe on account of the agreement. 19 The first country of asylum is quite similar to the safe third country agreement. A first county of asylum is either the country where the applicant was granted refugee status which is still valid, or country where the applicant enjoys sufficient protection from refoulment. The expectation for asylum under this concept is that they remain in the state of first asylum. 29 offshore processing20 policies – which according to its naming, refers to situations where a state or its agency acts to shift the protection needs of a refugee to a state other than the one where the refugee has sought or intends to seek protection; a recent example of which is the policy agreement between the United Kingdom and Rwanda that sends asylum seekers who attempt to cross the English channel to Rwanda for processing (“What Is the UK’s Plan to Send Asylum Seekers to Rwanda?,” 2022). Unfortunately, these agreements may apply after asylum seekers have overcome or successfully navigated hurdles constructed by states such as carrier sanctions, interception, and interdiction among others which essentially aims to discourage unsolicited refugee applications. The nexus I attempt to establish between a stricter application of the refugee convention and the discussion in this section so far is that there is a subjective application of the refugee definition. Depending on the countries involved and the forms of protection elsewhere policies/agreements operating in those territories, an applicant may stand a better chance at receiving refugee protection in one country versus the other. In other words, depending on the country an applicant finds him/herself, the application for protection may be successful or not based on existing state policies and regardless of the globally accepted definition of a refugee. For example, the UNHCR reported in 2005 that a Chechen transferred from Austria to Slovakia see their chance at refugee go from 80 percent to 0 percent. Similarly, a 2007 report by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles notes that the recognition rates for Iraqis varied from 0 percent in Greece 20 Countries like Australia which is isolated from the rest of the world have adopted a mechanism that deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. Offshore processing involves the transfer of asylum seekers to countries who are partner in such arrangement to have their asylum application processed. Australia for example, is party to the Pacific Solution, an agreement with Nauru and Papua New Guinea to transfer asylum seekers to these islands for processing. Under these circumstances, refugee applicant who arrive for processing at these offshore sites would be considered a “good” asylum seeker. Those who arrive on Australian territory are viewed negatively. Fleay and Hoffman (2014) does a deeper dive into this. 30 and Slovenia to 87.5 percent in Cyprus (Foster, 2008). These types of practices are quite common in developed countries with various justifications for applying such subjective standards. Although paved with good intentions, protection remains quite elusive under the operation of protection elsewhere policies. History of Protecting and Educating Refugees Although the practice of offering asylum to people fleeing perilous circumstances dates to antiquity, refugee law as it operates in current times evolved out of several earlier iterations by the League of Nations. Despite this, international refugee protection has largely remained the same, and issues such as citizenship, state territory, human rights, and responsibility sharing have remained salient and at the core of international agreements (Labman, 2010). The devastation from the First World War, the earlier Balkan wars, and the subsequent wars21 in the near east caused severe suffering and grave humanitarian crises, especially in the Russian empire, not the least of which was the large numbers of Russian refugees that fled war-affected areas to safety in countries in Europe, Central, and East Asia. At the time, emergency relief was provided mainly by charitable organizations (the most noticeable being the International Committee of the Red Cross) which could only offer material assistance with very little emphasis on education as a response to displacement – inadequate resources contributed to this. To address these shortcomings, the international committee of the Red Cross and League of Red Cross Societies convened a conference of responsible organizations in February 1921. At this conference, participating members discussed and subsequently appointed a High Commissioner to define the status of refugees, to secure their 21 The Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the first world war (1914 to 1918), the Caucasus campaign (1918-1921), and the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). 31 employment outside Russia or their repatriation, and to better coordinate the assistance of the refugees (Feller, n.d.; Jaeger, 2001; Labman, 2010). The League of Nations which had previously been founded in 1919, played a prominent role in the conference, and in September 1921 Dr. Fridtjof Nansen was appointed the High Commissioner by the President of the Council of the League of Nations (Holborn, 1938; Labman, 2010; Weis, 1982). This marked the first instance of international cooperation on Refugee matters in the 20th century. As for the displacement caused by earlier wars, there were several facultative mutual agreements between the parties to the conflict that aimed at facilitating population exchange. These agreements were in the form of several bilateral treaties including the Treaty of Constantinople (1913), the Turco-Bulgarian Treaty (1913), the Greek-Turkish agreement (1914), the Treaty of Neuilly (1919), and the Treaty of Lausanne (Jaeger, 2001). In 1924, the mandate of the High Commissioner was extended to Armenian, Assyrians, and other Christian refugees from the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish republic, essentially bringing the coordination of refugees under a single governing body. However, the task of international protection under the framework of the League of Nations was based on international legal instruments and dealt mainly with the provision of identity documents for refugees in the form of a travel document known as the “Nansen Passport”, most of the other issues largely remained within the purview of individual states. The involvement of the League of Nations in international refugee protection was borne out of the widely held opinion that the organization “combined the moral authority to represent the rights of refugees with a practical appreciation of the problems of the state which lodged them” (Holborn, 1938, p. 683). Refugee protection evolved along these lines throughout the lifetime of the League of Nations and continued with the creation of the United Nations. Although 32 education had been an issue of substantial concern for international actors before the United Nations – evidenced by the creation of schools for children in emergencies by organizations like Save the Children during the second world war – it was not until 1945 that the belief in the power and necessity of education was expressed (Dryden-Peterson & UNHCR, 2011). As outlined in the preamble to the 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO, 1945, para. 2). It was at this time that a coherent field of refugee education began to develop. The budding field of refugee education developed alongside the human right to education in general as provided for in human rights documents. Beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, compulsory primary education became recognized as a universal entitlement. Subsequently, Article 13 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) reaffirmed the right to education as enshrined in the UDHR. Throughout the evolution process, the right to education retained two key provisions of the right to an education that was of significant influence on refugee education. Firstly, the right to education as codified in the ICESCR retained the commitment of education to peace efforts. Specifically, the article mentions that state parties …further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic, or religious groups, and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966, article. 13). 33 Secondly, it retained the urgency to implement the right to education based upon the role of education in the life of the individual and society as a whole. The opening statement of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights communicated the role of education as …both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights. As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999, para. 1). Therefore, it suffices to say that the subsequent development of refugee education has been a result of international instruments, institutional relationships, and the evolving understanding of education (Dryden-Peterson & UNHCR, 2011). The content of the 1951 Refugee convention on education essentially directs state parties to accord refugees the same standard of education as its citizens (The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, art. 22). Although it adapts to new realities of refuge protection, this remains the position of the UNHCR on education. According to Dryden-Peterson (2011), the most recent adaptation of the UNHCR has been influenced by; firstly, the recognition of the protracted nature of conflict and in essence, protracted refugee situations which means that education received by refugees during displacement is increasingly becoming their main shot at education; secondly, the increasing number of refugees in an urban setting that has resulted in policies and programs that facilitates and improves the integration of refugees into national schooling systems; and thirdly, that education can both mitigate and exacerbate conflicts. These influences summarize my approach to education in this thesis – in other words, how effective the refugee education policies in Canada are in mitigating conflicts, as well as their possible impact on solving the problem of protracted displacement. Therefore, as is the case with most aspects of refugee protection, 34 education is best understood in the context of individual countries. I will do this in later headings, but first, I will explain the implication of the protracted nature of displacement for refugee education. Protracted Refugee Situations and the Permanence of Temporary Solutions At its onset, the international protection of refugees was an issue built on temporary and geographically bound frameworks, perhaps because the displacement of persons had not been thought to continue after the circumstances that forced them to migrate. It could however also be that the temporality of refugee protection was maintained because the movement of people between states, whether as refugees or as voluntary migrants, takes place in a context in which state sovereignty remains sacrosanct – specifically, aspects of sovereignty that entitles states to maintain territorial integrity, and its ability to decide who among non-citizens are allowed to enter and remain, and who shall be refused entry (Goodwin-Gill, 2021). What is clear though is that the creation of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950 and the 1951 Refugee Conventions, limited the mandate of the office of the High Commissioner and the application of the convention to events occurring in Europe before January 1951 (Article 1(A)(2), The Refugee Convention, 1951). It was not until 1967 that the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees finally confronted the reality that refugee displacement was worldwide and not time-bound. Additionally, it was in December 2003 that the temporal limitation on the continuation of the Office of the High Commissioner was lifted by Resolution 58/153 thereby creating a permanent framework for the protection of refugees “until the refugee problem is solved” (Labman, 2010, p. 11). I say all these to suggest that the international law of refugee protection did not envisage protracted refugee situations. 35 The search for a permanent solution to the refugee crisis has continued, and despite the recognition of the importance of a durable solution, these solutions have been elusive. As a result, refugees continue to face increasingly extended periods of displacement. Protracted refugee situations had previously been defined by the UNHCR in terms of the length of stay in exile and the number of people displaced. In 2004, the UNHCR defined protracted refugee situations as “one in which 25,000 or more refugees of the same nationality have been in exile for five years or longer in any given asylum country”(UNHCR, 2004b). The problem with this definition is that it is restrictive and does not account for the situation of refugees who had been in exile for over 5 years but who numbers fewer than 25,000. For example, a 2011 UNHCR report shows that there were about 11,500 Liberian Refugees in Ghana, and another 10,000 Sudanese Refugees in Egypt all of whom have been displaced for over a decade (UNHCR, 2011). It was highly beneficial therefore when in 2009 the UNHCR finally acknowledged the problems associated with this quantification and removed the statistical limits of the earlier definition (UNHCR, 2012a). This updated iteration is adopted for this thesis. Thus, a protracted refugee situation is one where refugees have been in exile for five years or more after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for the implementation of durable solutions (UNHCR, 2012a). The trend of protracted refugee situations continues and as the refugee agency notes, about 16 million people are in protracted refugee situations representing approximately 76 percent of all refugees displaced worldwide (Loescher & Milner, 2009; UNHCR, 2021b). While each situation of protracted refugee situation has its unique causes, the growing prevalence of such cases is a result of similar sets of challenges. From the perspective and based on its involvement, the UNHCR has argued that: 36 …protracted refugee situations stem from political impasses. They are not inevitable but are rather the result of political action and inaction, both in the country of origin (the persecution and violence that led to flight) and in the country of asylum. They endure because of ongoing problems in the country of origin, and stagnate and become protracted as a result of responses to refugee inflows, typically involving restrictions on refugee movement and employment possibilities, and confinement to camps (UNHCR, 2004b, p. 2). It is reasonable to infer from the quote above that the conditions in the country of origin and the responses of refugee-hosting countries are two salient factors that clarify the proliferation of protracted refugee situations. Indeed, many situations of prolonged displacement originate from several so-called fragile states such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Liberia, and a lot of other countries in the global south, where armed conflict and ineffective state institutions have been the main drivers of displacement (Milner, 2014). It is not always the case, however, that all protracted refugee situations are a result of failing state institutions. Some are a result of the persecution of minority groups or particular types of government as is the case with Myanmar and Venezuela (Chaves-González & Echeverría-Estrada, 2020; Milner, 2014; Ty, 2019). Moreover, it is curious also that the worsening problem of protracted displacement over the past two decades has coincided with the introduction of restrictive asylum policies by the industrialized countries of the global north. The UNHCR itself is not without faults. Much like the criticism of the 1951 Refugee Convention for lacking accountability or enforcement mechanism, the UNHCR, and the United Nations have been criticized for their incompetent handling of protracted refugee situations (Loescher & Milner, 2009). In fact, the established mode of a humanitarian response to protracted displacement has been implicated in contributing to the problem of protracted displacement, and the UNHCR’s response particularly has been described as facilitative and catalytic, persistent 37 and partially successful, ineffective, and irrelevant (Loescher et al., 2008a, 2008b). The UNHCR also claims that: In protracted situations, the UN Refugee Agency moves beyond the initial emergency phase - where the focus is on lifesaving protection and assistance - to ensure refugees residing in refugee camps and urban settings are protected during all stages of their exile. This includes reinforcing shelters and local infrastructure, improving the quality of basic services, - such as water, health, and education facilities - delivering skills training programs, boosting livelihood opportunities, and promoting integration with local communities (UNHCR, 2020b). Immediately preceding the above excerpt within the same publication, the UNHCR acknowledges that protracted situations require durable solutions for refugees that ensure that they rebuild their lives with dignity. The Refugee Agency further states that the three possible durable solutions to protracted refugee situations are: voluntary repatriation, resettlement to a third country, and local integration (UNHCR, 2020b). This oxymoronic juxtaposition defines the substance of the criticism of the UNHCR, that is, calling for durable solutions even though the organizational approach to the issue is the reinforcement of temporary apparatus. Except for local integration – which usually translates to perpetuating protracted situations in the setting of a refugee camp– the response of the UNHCR has been these forms of reinforcements. On the issue of education, again, the approach of the UNHCR essentially has been to support the hosting state’s policies on refugee education except in situations of voluntary repatriation which essentially falls within the jurisdiction of the refugee countries of origin. However, education opportunities in local integration and resettlement settings greatly depend on the contextualized version of inclusion and could vary from; no access to government schools (no inclusion), to cases of partial inclusion, and then to full access and inclusion in government schools (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2019). This approach to access has serious implications for refugee futures and 38 opportunities. As Dryden-Peterson’s (2019; 2011) inquiries about refugee education have shown, partial or no access to education – usually in instances of local integration – offers a sense of temporality for refugees and in a lot of cases, school-age children are prepared for a future of resettlement elsewhere which tends to be a more permanent arrangement. To circle back to voluntary repatriation, the UNHCR is more directly involved in coordinating the reintegration of returned refugees and harnessing the power of the education of school-aged children for post-conflict reconstruction. In clearer terms, the UNHCR handbook on voluntary repatriation suggests that assisting host country governments to ensure the introduction of refugee education programs, and elements of education for peace and human rights that recognize the role of refugee education in post-conflict reconstruction is a paramount aspect of its mandate (UNHCR, 1996). On a separate note, and in light of durable solutions, the UNHCR on one hand acknowledges that persisting conditions in refugee countries of origin hinder voluntary return and directly contribute to protracted refugee situations (UNHCR, 2004b). On the other hand, it claims that the voluntary return of refugees to their countries of origin is a durable solution to protracted refugee situations. In other words, voluntary return doubles as both the problem as well as the solution to the problem. I strongly disagree with this approach. Although I agree that voluntary return is desirable if not essential, I am rather of the view that voluntary return will be the embodiment of a successful application of durable solutions. The third proposed solution – resettlement – is largely within the purview of individual countries. I will describe Canada’s commitment and approach to resettlement vis-à-vis education. 39 The Canadian Context of Refugee Protection and Education The resettlement of refugees globally is done under the coordination of the UNHCR and is based on the objective needs of refugees rather than the desires of the refugees. Resettlement criteria are determined by the UNHCR and are usually based on a myriad of both legal and physical protection needs. In discussing Canada’s resettlement system, it is important to recognize that resettlement in the Canadian context takes place within a broader national and international context. It is composed of Canada’s immigration policies, engagement with refugees globally, asylum system at the country level, and settler colonial history, among other issues that have been the subject of extensive debate (Labman, 2019). However, an honest point of departure in discussing the resettlement system would be Canada’s geographical location. Canada’s location far away from refugee-producing countries has been described as an advantage and a luxury since it allows the country to fashion its immigration system based on careful selection criteria and a focus on resettlement over spontaneous in-country asylum processes (Hyndman et al., 2016; McNally, 2020). While 1979 is considered the official launch of Canada’s sponsorship program, refugees had previously been resettled to Canada under economic immigration programs as well as through government resettlement programs and pre-cursors to private sponsorship. As I had iterated earlier, countries in close geographical proximity to refugee-sending countries bore most of the responsibility of hosting refugees – Canada, shared some of these responsibilities even before the launch of its sponsorship program. Between 1923 and 1930, the Mennonite Central Committee assisted in the resettlement of about 21,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada. In the years following the Second World War, between 1947 and 1952, 250,000 displaced persons from Central and Eastern Europe were resettled in Canada. Not unlike most resettlement countries, 40 many of those who resettled at the time was selected to meet Canada’s labour needs. Religious organizations played a major role in sponsoring the resettlement of European refugees, but of course under the authority of the government of Canada and through bulk labour and close relative programs. This laid the foundation for subsequent sponsorship initiatives (Labman, 2010; McNally, 2020). In 1969, the government of Canada ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. Following this in 1971, the federal government announced the policy of multiculturalism which acknowledged the reality of pluralism in Canada and encouraged Canadians to participate in this way (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2010). Following extensive consultation in 1976, the government passed the Immigration Act which among other things, aimed at establishing the country’s approach to its international legal obligations with respect to refugees (Immigration Act, 1976). The combination of these marked events shaped the Canadian resettlement system and allowed the government to introduce regulations for refugee sponsorship by organizations or individuals. Although the Immigration Act incorporated the 1951 Refugee Convention’s definition of refugee and the principle of non-refoulment, the reality remains that Canada is bordered to the west, east, and north by oceans and to the south by the United States of America. This translates to less emphasis on the in-Canada refugee determination process as access is heavily restricted because of its geographical location (Hyndman et al., 2016; Labman, 2019). And so, the dominant approach to refugee protection remains the selection of refugees overseas by Canadian visa officials from pools of individuals already in countries of first asylum. A review of the legislation in 1984 noted that: the advisory committee [tasked with assessing the validity of in-Canada refugee claims] had no role to play for individuals outside of Canada claiming to be bona fide refugees seeking to gain entry to this country. Verifying these claims to refugee 41 status was a responsibility left to the immigration officers in the overseas posts. The exclusion of overseas claimants from the advisory committee process has not been a particularly contentious issue either at the time the 1976 legislation was being debated or since (Dirks, 1984, p. 290). It is not unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination to say that ratification of the 1951 Refugee convention and the 1967 Protocol has not impacted the overall approach of the Canadian government to refugee resettlement. On the contrary, it solidifies resettlement as the primary mode of admitting refugees. Additionally, Dirks’ (1984) review of the legislation concludes that refugees seeking permanent residence in Canada are evaluated in light of criteria developed for assessing the adjustment potential of immigrants, and so neither the authoritative administrative structure nor the formal legislation guarantees compassionate refugee admission programs (Dirks, 1984; Labman, 2019; McNally, 2020). The programs have however been criticized for focusing heavily on integration that trumped protection needs because it operates a refugee program that is arguably indistinguishable from its immigration policies. Further on this point, it is worthy of note that the Immigration Act has undergone numerous amendments. In its current form, the amendment drew heavily from the 1997 legislative review titled Not Just Numbers: A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration. The review acknowledged the differing goals of Immigration being a matter of National interest, and that of refugee protection being Canada’s international legal obligation, both of which were unified under the Immigration Act. By highlighting these differing goals, the authors of the review recommended the separation of the legislative act to reflect this dichotomy. Counter to these recommendations, however, immigration and refugee decisions remained within a single act – the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) 2001. 42 Despite criticisms, from a global responsibility-sharing perspective, Canada has contributed significantly to the resettlement of refugees and continues to do so. Following the Liberation of Saigon and the eruption of the Indochinese crisis in 1975, Canada admitted large numbers of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees – approximately 60,000 refugees – between 1979 and 1980 alone (Labman, 2019; McNally, 2020). In total, Canada resettled over 150,000 refugees between the eruption of the Indochinese crisis in 1975 and 1986 when the citizens of Canada were awarded the Nansen Medal for their contribution to the refugee cause. Although mostly by private sponsorship, this period marked the height of refugee resettlement in Canada. Since 1980, the country has resettled over 700,000 refugees including Ugandan-Asian, Tibetian, Chilean, Iraqi, Rwandan, Sierra Leonian, and more recently Syrian and Afghanistan refugees (UNHCR Canada, n.d.-b). Under the current comprehensive immigration plan, Canada resettles Convention refugees, Humanitarian-protected Persons Abroad Class (HPC), and persons admitted under public policy consideration. Convention refugees are persons whose asylum claim has been assessed and found to satisfy the requirement of the 1951 Refugee Convention for protection. HPC on the other hand are not Convention refugees but are in refugee-like situations. The persons admitted under public policy consideration are vulnerable groups within their country or third country but require protection through resettlement due to the compelling nature of their particular situation. As administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Canada currently operates a resettlement program that is based on how responsibilities are shared between the government and private sponsors. On one end of the spectrum is the Government Assisted Refugees (GAR) program where the government provides full income support for a year under 43 the Resettlement Assistance Program22 (RAP). On the other end is the Private Refugees Sponsor (PRS) program where private sponsors provide full income support and settlement services for sponsored refugees. In between these two are the Blended Visa Office Referred (BVOR) program and the Joint Assistance Sponsorship (JAS) program where responsibilities are shared between the government and private sponsors (UNHCR Canada, n.d.-b). The BVOR and JAS programs are very similar, except for some nuanced differences. Specifically, under the BVOR program, Convention refugees referred to Canada by the UNHCR receive some financial assistance from the Government and some from private sponsors. The JAS on the other hand is intended for Convention refugees who have been selected for the GAR program but have higher-than-normal settlement needs. Under the JAS, the financial responsibility is fully borne by the government, however, private sponsors provide the emotional and social support needed for settlement (Labman, 2019; UNHCR Canada, n.d.-b). Canada only considers applications for resettlement if referred by the UNHCR, designated referral organizations including nongovernmental organizations, faith-based organizations, communities or groups of individuals, and private sponsors. In addition to being either a Convention refugee or a Humanitarian-protected Persons Abroad Class, an applicant must also have no reasonable prospect of a durable solution within a reasonable period in any country other than Canada. Furthermore, subject to applicant vulnerability and the urgency of their protection 22The Resettlement Assistance Program funds the provision of income support to government-assisted refugees as well as other eligible clients, including Blended Visa Office-Referred refugees who receive a combination of Resettlement Assistance Program and private sponsor support, and persons who are admitted to Canada as permanent residents under humanitarian and compassionate grounds and under public policy considerations. The goal of the Resettlement Assistance Program and comparable private sponsorship support is to meet basic needs in support of the ultimate outcome of having resettled refugees live independently in Canadian society. See Canada’s Resettlement Handbook for further information. Handbook is available at https://www.unhcr.org/3c5e55594.html 44 needs, applicants must show the potential to become self-sufficient and successfully integrate into Canadian society within a period between 3 to 5 years (McNally, 2020). The aim to successfully integrate refugees into Canadian society has severe implications for all aspects of their daily lives including the education of school-aged children. Despite the implicit expectation for parties to the refugee convention to adopt the organizational strategies, programs, and minimum international standards on refugee education, research has found that Canada falls short of a lot of such expectations (Brewer, 2016; Dryden-Peterson & UNHCR, 2011; Schutte et al., 2022). Studies show that education policies do not recognize the specific needs of school-aged refugee children. Specifically, Brewer (2018, p. 18) mentions that: Refugee students continue to experience socio-psychological challenges in Canadian schools. Teachers, resettlement officers, and policymakers often lack cross-cultural competencies, a social justice focus, and transformative leadership skills. Teachers and policymakers are more comfortable discussing multiculturalism than critically examining the inequities immigrants face in the Canadian education system. From a rights-based perspective, Canada’s ratification of the United Declaration of Human Rights and the 7 other major human rights treaties – notably the Convention on the Rights of the Children (CRC), and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – has implications for the education rights of refugees as much as it does for Canadian citizens. On this front, Canada’s human rights reports on educational provisions for refugees leave much to be desired. The most recent report on Canada’s implementation of the CRC makes no mention of refugee education, and neither reports the ICESCR. The CRC report23 for instance, only mentions the aspect of the right to education 23 This report which was presented in 2019, records Canada’s response to the Committee’s 2012 Concluding Observations on the Convention on the Rights of the Child the 2006 Concluding Observations on the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and the 2012 Concluding Observations on the Optional 45 which may be broadly applicable to refugees; specifically the Indigenization of the classroom with reference to the education of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit peoples of Canada (Government of Canada, 2020). Although this connection was not made in the report, my opinion, and one which is central to the aim of this thesis is that Indigenous perspectives can positively impact the lives of refugees, especially to help to provide durable solutions for protracted refugee situations. I cannot say with any level of certainty why Indigenous perspectives were not considered; my guess is that perhaps a failure to acknowledge Indigenous knowledge and frameworks as legitimate knowledge that ought to inform policy and perspectives has not been thought to be beneficial for the wider Canadian population besides Indigenous peoples. The ICESCR report24 is quite similar to the report of the Committee of CRC in that there is also no mention of education in the context of refugees. The broadly applicable concepts of the report which may be extendable to refugees were measures made on the provincial level to address issues around multiculturalism in education, equity and inclusion in education, and the implementation and development of new courses that reflect Indigenous knowledge and culture (Government of Canada, 2013). It appears, therefore, that there is no clear consideration for the specific circumstances of refugees beyond integration and access to education. The culmination of these shortcomings associated with the creation and implementation of refugee policies among Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. As at the time of the writing of this chapter, this is the most recent report on Canada’s compliance with, and response to earlier remarks of the Committee of the CRC. 24The present report which was presented in 2013 outlines key measures adopted in Canada from January 2005 to December 2009 (with occasional references to developments of special interest that have occurred since) to enhance its implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Although there is a requirement to provide periodic report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it has not been consistently done. And so, the instant report is quite old and may not account for current realities. 46 other reasons mentioned throughout this chapter makes a strong case for the questioning of Canada’s policies on refugee education. The contexts of these policies require elucidation; this will be done in the chapter on research methodology in a discussion about data sources. To conclude this section, the procedures associated with refugee resettlement, the refugee experience itself, and the education of school-age refugee children – especially in the Canadian context – are indeed daunting. In the next chapter, I will describe and establish a theoretical framework for further understanding this thesis, as well as the connection between refugee lived experiences, the role of education in post-conflict reconstruction, and how they all translate to potential solutions to protracted refugee situations. 47 Chapter 3 – Theoretical Framework The first two chapters have examined themes around refugee experiences, the education of the refugee population, and post-conflict reconstruction. In this chapter, I will establish a theoretical framework for understanding the very broad discourses around these themes, as well as a framework for the analysis that follows. Education for Reconstruction: The Peacebuilding Theory and an Indigenous Approach to Refugee Education In the chapters leading up to this, I have alluded to the connection between education and the reconstruction of post-conflict societies as a distinct approach to addressing the problem of protracted refugee situations. There are myriads of ways to engage in this conversation, particularly the aspect of it that deals with the educational approach to post-conflict reconstruction. My approach which will be presented subsequently has developed out of my experience as a scholar of international law and institutions, and my lived experience as a Yorùbá man that was born and raised in post-colonial Nigeria and who currently works and studies on ancestral Indigenous lands in Canada. The perspective born out of the fusion of both experiences shapes the framing of the analysis undertaken here. Theorizing Peacebuilding and Education The role of education in conflict-affected countries began to attract significant global attention in the early 2000s due to how important it was to the achievement of the educational aspects of the Millennium Development Goals (Smith Ellison, 2014). Accordingly, a study conducted by Bush and Saltarelli (Bush et al., 2000) on behalf of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) outlined the dual role education plays in conflict. The study dwelled on the ‘two faces’ of education and its influence on conflict either as a mitigating force or as one which exacerbates 48 conflict. Instances cited by Bush and Saltarelli include the use of education as; a weapon for cultural repression as was the case with the refusal to allow the Kurdish minority in Turkey to use their language in schools; a weapon of war as was the case with the destruction of schools in Mozambique and the closure of Palestinian schools by Israel; and as a tool for manipulation by weaponizing textbooks to reinforce negative stereotypes between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda (Bush et al., 2000). Although these examples highlighted the negative aspects of education policy and programming when employed as a conflict-exacerbating tool, the argument here is that there is an avenue for education to serve as a positive and mitigating factor for conflict. This approach to education is directly influenced by Galtung’s (1975) distinction between negative peace (the absence of violence), and positive peace (structural changes on social justice issues). While negative peace which manifests in the end of hostilities is essential particularly as a prerequisite for positive peace, Galtung’s postulation regarding positive peace was that education can play a role in addressing group inequalities, encourage new forms of power relation and the potential for education to support security reforms, transformation of political institutions, economic regeneration, and social development. The practice of peacebuilding at its initial phase featured well-funded international interventions designed to socially re-engineer conflict-affected societies in relatively short timeframes. The current situation – at least one which is emerging among researchers – indicates that there is a growing recognition that peacebuilding is a necessarily long-term process of reconstructing both societies as a whole and improving inter-group relations. Reconstruction in this form is driven by citizens of conflicted-affected countries themselves and supported by outsiders (Mulimbi & Dryden-Peterson, 2018; Taylor & Werner, 2017). Within this vision of peacebuilding, the role of education for peace is paramount and provides the foundation for a more inclusive and 49 participatory peacebuilding process across all levels of society (Mulimbi & Dryden-Peterson, 2018; Taylor & Werner, 2017). Thus, the purpose of education in peacebuilding is to help move a society from a culture of war to a culture of peace (Ashton, 2007). With the renewed commitment to the prioritization of education for post-conflict reconstruction, its contributions have been theorized by several scholars in the field of education and conflict studies (Ashton, 2007; Ross, 2001; Smith Ellison, 2014). One perspective I found to be relatable to the role of education within the context being discussed in this thesis, applies change theory to the discourse on post-conflict reconstruction. Framing the discourse in this manner conceptualizes the role of education in post-conflict reconstruction. Specifically, Ashton (2007) enunciated ways in which education plays a role in reconstruction, two of which are of major significance to the result of this thesis. Firstly, education, “with established program philosophy and content, and tailored pedagogical methods and content” (Ashton, 2007, p. 43) could “affect conflict behavior or change attitudes toward conflict” (Ashton, 2007, p. 47). Secondly, that education could enhance “cultural competence and result in appropriate interaction with other cultural groups and evidenced by a measurable increase in tolerance (attitude), acceptance (behaviour), and understanding of differences (knowledge)” (Ashton, 2007, p. 98). Smith Ellison (2014) had a similar view on the role although with nuanced differences. For Smith Ellison, education may encourage critical thinking and analysis of choice which makes people less likely to engage in armed conflict when encouraged to do so by unscrupulous leaders. Also, that education may contribute to a broader social transformation and cultural acceptance. Between both perspectives, I have found that their relevance to this thesis can be summarized to reflect that education in post-conflict reconstruction could extend the school to support broader societal transformation in the political, social, and economic sectors, and influence positive change in 50 relationships and behaviors. Additionally, educational inclusion lowers motivation for participating in armed conflict, encourages critical thinking and analysis of choices which ultimately makes people less likely to be manipulated to the ends of charismatic leaders. A Human Rights-Based Approach to Education A derivative of the theoretical perspective outlined above is that schooling, as a means of education, is available and accessible to every child without exceptions as a matter of human rights. Thus, a rights-based approach is rooted in respect for international law. It places a responsibility on contracting state parties to respect their obligations under international human rights law and defines what the right to education entails. These are found in international human rights treaties and customary international law. The United Nations’ International Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966) provides for a right to education and its aims. The ICESCR states that: The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic, or religious groups, and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (Article 13(1)) Although the provisions of this article do not explicitly mention refugees, the right to education is applied on a non-discriminatory basis to everyone including refugees and people in a similar situation. The 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education25 of the United Nations 25 Canada has not ratified the Convention against Declaration in Education because of its federal structure which grants exclusive legislative responsibility for education to the Provinces and Territories in accordance with the 51 affirms this and centers on a non-discriminatory approach to the full realization of the right to education. Furthermore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states in article 2 that all its provisions, including the right to education (article 26) shall apply to everyone without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, or any other status (UDHR, 1948). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) has a similar provision; Article 28(1) of the convention mentions that the right to education should be progressively achieved on an equal opportunity basis. It is important to make clear that the provision against discrimination is not subject to the progressive realization of rights or the availability of resources. It is a core legal obligation a state must comply with. That is, the principle of non-discrimination cannot be separated from the right to education. To this point, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in adopting the general comments on education mentions that not only is education a human right in itself, but also an indispensable means of realizing other rights, and a vehicle by which marginalized adults and children can fully participate in a free society (CESCR, 1999). Ultimately, education “enables all persons to participate effectively in a free society, and it shall promote understanding among all ‘ethnic’ groups, as well as nations and racial and religious groups” (CESCR, 1999, para. 4). Beyond non-discrimination, a rights-based approach to education extends to state obligation under international law to the realization of the rights to education to the best of the state’s capabilities, towards the achievement of its aims, and in the best interest of the child. On one hand, the principle of the best of the child as codified in article 13(1) of the CRC provides that “in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare Constitution Act of 1867. However, Canada respects the Recommendation against Discrimination in Education which has no binding force. 52 institutions, the courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”. On the other hand, by directing education towards the achievement of its objectives, the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights states that: “educational objectives reflect the fundamental purposes26 and principles of the United Nations as enshrined in Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter… and that education shall be directed to the human personality’s “sense of dignity”, it shall “enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society”, and it shall promote understanding among all “ethnic” groups, as well as nations and racial and religious groups” (CESCR, 1999, para. 4). Thus, in addition to non-discriminatory access to education, a rights-based approach will contribute to the development of the human personality and enhance effective participation in a free society with due consideration for the best interest of the child – all these towards attaining the objectives of the United Nations which fundamentally is international peace, security, and tolerance. Indigenizing Education for the Goal of Peace Indigenous perspectives on peace and education are not commonly used approaches in refugee protection, particularly aspects of it that deal with post-conflict reconstruction. Yet, Indigenous approaches to education inherently embody many of the principles of peace which in the instance of this thesis is the goal of education. As established in the first chapter, the Indigenous approaches are numerous although with important shared features. But as it relates to peace 26 The fundamental purpose of the UN as provided in Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter are to maintain international peace and security, and to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace. 53 education, Huaman (2011) identified aspects of peace education that could benefit from Indigenous ways of knowing and conceptualizing. To properly contextualise some of the lessons discussed here in this section, it is important to reiterate that I am an uninvited Settler on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) land where I live, and work. For this reason, and to keep up with best practices for Indigenous education, I will bring in examples from the teachings and works of local Coast Salish land-based educators. Education when employed as a tool for knowledge recovery and propagation helps to bring devastating histories to recognition while encouraging individual and communal responsibilities. In the face of numerous complicated social issues, Indigenous education for knowledge recovery when applied in this way helps “restore community access to a good life”27 by employing culturally based programs that guide the reconstruction of communities (Huaman, 2011, p. 248). In various Indigenous cultures, these lessons are passed down in various ways and through different stories across different nations. Dr. Gwendolyn Point (2015), for example, tells her story of displacement which encapsulates the survival of the Stó:lō people against assimilation through the Indian Act. Knowing the culture and retelling these histories amid the current fight for Indigenous lands and resources helps to create an understanding of how to live together with mutual understanding and respect. Similarly, engaging Indigenous approaches to education revitalizes community through Indigenous languages. Language is viewed as a critical piece to the recovery, revitalization, rebuilding, and maintenance of Indigenous cultural priorities. The specific link between 27 Which of course is not uniform across all First nations communities because the living principle of the “good life” is expressed in different ways in various Indigenous languages and cultures. 54 language, power, human rights, resistance, and peace education is its usefulness of language as a means through which a diverse group of Indigenous people has a strong voice when articulating their concerns, and their vision of what it means to be human, as well as when participating in peace efforts. There are several examples of this in Coast Salish teachings in the works of Stó:lō Indigenous researchers such as the late Stelomethet, Dr. Ethel Gardner (2009), and Khelsilem Rivers (2014) who have undertaken vital work to revitalize Halq'eméylem and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) languages in “British Columbia”. Through the process of an internal search for understanding, both language researchers/advocates recount numerous stories to reemphasize the necessity of the revitalization of languages to continue breathing life into Indigenous cultures. Language revitalization is of course immensely beneficial for students with refugee backgrounds as it helps them create ways to sustain their language while away from their native lands, particularly in English/French-speaking Canada. Another way Indigenous education would benefit peace education and reconciliation is through oral stories in which lessons are taught while also describing social history. Origin stories are of fundamental importance to Indigenous cultures and are the socio-historical translations of their existence. By recounting one’s history as a ceremonial practice, Kawagley (2006) recounts that it reminds listeners of important issues including ecology, chronology, conflict, and practices needed for resolving conflict. The practice of sustaining these stories and being sustained by them is both content and a method for teaching core values related to Indigenous knowledge and ways of being (Huaman, 2011; Kawagley, 2006). Several origin stories share the wisdom about the understanding of human proclivity to violence and war, while also encouraging peaceful means to conflict resolution which I believe captures how Indigenous ways of knowing benefits peace education. These stories help us understand and conceptualize humanity and by 55 implication the propensity toward violence. For example, Dr. Richard Atleo’s (2004; 2011) publications are a valuable depiction of these lessons specifically in the telling of Nuu-chah-nulth origin stories and the connections made to current and historical colonial structures and activities including the struggle for Indigenous land control and nationhood. Furthermore, a critical engagement of education for this purpose sheds light on the ideological linkages between Indigenous ways of knowing and learning, and education for peace which illustrates a ‘we’ rather than ‘us’ versus ‘them’ relationship. Because Indigenous communities grapple with the histories of violence as well as contemporary manifestations of colonization – while not identical to the experiences of refugees, has been described in similar terms with both groups (refugees and Indigenous people) having the shared experience of displacement (Arat-Koc, 2021; Huaman, 2011) – applying a critical lens to peace education is useful for a refugee population when education is contemplated as inextricable from social transformation. Therefore, to examine the benefits of an Indigenous approach to education as appropriate for this study, I will do two things. First, I will clarify any linkages that might exist between Indigenous peoples and refugees. Second, I will explain how Indigenising education for the goal of peace could be an onset of positive interaction and mutual benefit for both groups. My intention is not to pit one side against the other. Rather, I hope to create a pathway for contemplating a contentious yet promising relationship. Connecting Sides: Indigeneity and Refugeehood In Chapters 1 and 2 of this thesis, I suggested that there are possible benefits to adopting Indigenous ways of knowing for the benefit of refugees and towards the goal of peace through education. While this is true, there remains a need to clarify the contentious connections between refugees and Indigenous communities. Due to the focus of this thesis being on what has 56 colonially been referred to as “Canada”, my discourse in this section will be done within this context. It should be clear at this point that the refugee experience can be extremely challenging and traumatic. However, despite disparate histories and variations in their positionalities, refugees and the various Indigenous communities have both experienced displacement and a problematic relationship with the state. The contentious relationship in consideration stems from the shared problematic relationship with the state, and issues of sovereignty and territory (Bauder & Breen, 2022). The admission of refugees into states relies upon the assumption that states have control of their border and by extension who is admissible or denied entry into its territory. This assumption unfortunately erroneously and violently disrupts Indigenous perspectives of land and belonging. In Canada, refugees have been thrown into this mix to contend with the historic and ongoing contemporary manifestation of setter colonialism, as well as their hopes for safety and stability. Canada’s multiculturalism and policies on immigration, specifically refugee protection, have attracted diverse racialized groups and cloaked prevailing settler-colonial systems with the good intention of offering protection (Bauder & Breen, 2022; Parasram, 2019). Regardless, immigration policies are built on a territorial understanding of the land and in view of an understanding of sovereignty where governance of bounded territory is under the exclusive authority of the state. This fundamentally differs from Indigenous views, principles of international law (St. Denis, 2011), and the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014) on sovereignty and land ownership where, titles, relationships, and interdependencies are acknowledged and connected to land rather than an abstract territory (Bauder & Breen, 2022; K. McNeil, 2019). Moreover, despite attempts to uncover and address the colonial legacies of the 57 illegal Canadian state authority, Indigenous voices have remained largely excluded from discourses surrounding immigration policies. Within the current construction of sovereignty and territorial control by countries of the global north (so-called developed countries, including Canada), refugees and Indigenous people are construed as outsiders. In the same vein, the shared histories of colonialism, racialization, and displacement connect many refugees with Indigenous people (Arat-Koc, 2021). It is also not farfetched to observe that refugee issues in discussion as well as the solutions offered are of political, geographic, and security expedience to the developed countries. This observation stems from the fact that despite an overwhelming majority of refugees originating from and living in developing countries, most of the research centers and conversations on solutions to protracted refugee situations are conducted in countries of the global north a further illustration of the power they possess. The result of such a north-centric approach to refugee issues is a narrative controlled by developed countries (Canada in this case) in which culpability is denied and a discourse of charity and gratitude is created (Bauder & Breen, 2022). To briefly elaborate, the dominant view of the causes of forced migration emphasizes the irrational and uncontrollable nature of conflict assumed to be rooted in ethnic or cultural differences where the population of refugee-sending countries is unable to govern themselves. Also, the proliferation of terms such as “failed or rogue states” to describe refugee countries as well as terms like “humanitarian intervention” or “responsibility to protect” to describe the responses of developed countries suggests that there is a consensus in the perception of countries of the developing world as the main sources of violence and a threat to countries of the global north (Arat-Koc, 2021). And along the same line, these descriptive terms perceive developed countries as saviors that offer much-needed help to refugees for which they should be grateful, without acknowledging the role 58 of the developed countries in the root causes of displacement28. In other words, as Arat-Koc (2021, p. 378) succinctly puts it; “in the absence of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist perspectives… refugees are perceived either as threats and burdens or as helpless victims dependent on Northern charity”. In the absence of such decolonizing perspective, refugees much like Indigenous peoples, are arguably constructed as colonial subjects and are re-colonized in a second way after the violence of their displacement and dispossession. This of course does not minimize the benefit of Indigenous knowledge that comes with their presence on Indigenous lands regardless of the mode of migration. However, challenging this analytical gap can potentially bring refugees into closer relations with Indigenous people and provide an opportunity to benefit from others’ knowledge and politics, and from the development of genuine, deep relationships. A Decolonised Approach to Peacebuilding Indigenous knowledge could inform a place-based episteme that challenges the current dominant discourse and logic on refugees and inform an alternative vision of possible solutions to protracted refugee situations. By introducing Indigenous perspectives, I attempt to decolonize the realm of refugee education for peaceful ends. Theorizing Indigenous ways of knowing for peaceful ends is relevant because it reinstates the desire for social transformation, and aligns the purpose of schooling and its structures with social justice and the multiple dimensions of Indigeneity including philosophies, languages, traditions, and contemporary practices (Huaman, 2011). This approach draws on the generational practices 28 There are numerous instances where the intervention by developed countries in internal affairs of the countries of the global south have been directly implicated in or at least has exacerbated the conflicts/unrests that follow. Much of this is conveniently omitted to perpetuate the position of countries of the global north as the benevolent and gracious. Some instances are the wars in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan etc. Please see Chimni and Elich (1998; 2002) for deeper exploration. 59 of socialization and amounts to a systematic structure of living, teaching, and learning which challenges western approaches to education, and reinstates the internalized intention of supporting the sustenance of future generations of Indigenous people and humans (Grayshield et al., 2010; Schellhammer, 2022). The goal of education from this perspective is the elimination of direct, indirect, structural, and ethnic violence, as well as a practice that provokes reflection and actions using local knowledge and realities that focuses on social transformation (Bajaj, 2008; Huaman, 2011). My argument here is that it is extremely beneficial for refugees in Canada to inculcate Indigenous ways of knowing since Indigenous communities, as cultures of resistance, have developed ways to solve the problems of settler colonial imposed formed of violence using their ideas and knowledge bases that include a capacity building that allows for various sources and forms of self-determination (Bajaj, 2008). In other words, a purposeful and transformative education that addresses oppression, inequality and other forms of injustice will benefit a refugee population in a settler-colonial system like Canada. Unfortunately, the dominant model of education in Canada often reflects the colonial history and mistruths on which it is built while Indigenous approaches to education are placed on the periphery if at all (Huaman, 2011). Regardless, Indigenizing education for peace and ultimately the reconstruction of countries crippled by conflict is worth pursuing considering that not many positive outcomes have been achieved using the dominant Western ideas of post-conflict reconstruction. Moreover, it offers further arguments for the wider adoption of Indigenous ways of knowing. Deficit Thinking and the Pathologization of Lived Experiences In addition to reconsidering the role of education in post-conflict reconstruction, this thesis also challenges the assumption that mere access to the national education system amounts to quality 60 education for refugees in high-income/developed countries like Canada. The assumption that access translates to quality education becomes problematic when considered in terms of the conversations around the lived experiences of refugees which has been extensively discussed throughout this thesis, and the settler-colonial history of Canada. The concepts of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices lend credence to the skepticism expressed in this work. My thought is that the refugee experience may be viewed as a deficit that needs to be cured and that despite the good intentions of policymakers, such practices could result in questionable education outcomes and ultimately hinder the goal of peace. The practice of pathologizing the lived experiences of people is often deeply rooted in colonial and imperial history. Describing the socially, culturally, and ethnically different is a common theme in colonial discourse. Historically, the extensive critique of the physical and cultural features of racialized groups was rampant and so was describing them in vile terms (Ellingson, 2001). Some scholars have even gone as far as rationalizing what they perceive as racial differences in intellectual abilities between the European colonizers and colonized in terms of geographical and genetic factors (Gould, 1996). This creates what Bhabha (2004) calls a regime of truth about the “Other” that is structurally similar to realism. And so, colonial regimes serve the function of a buffer between the distinct realm of civilization on one hand, and savagery on the other while also describing perceived differences in deficit terms. Deficit thinking, being a product of long-term power imbalances pervades most of the educational discourse relating to issues of differences. At its core, deficit thinking is an issue of representation and a regime of truth about the Other. It is a struggle over the representation of the lived experiences of a minoritized group as promoted on the one hand by the group itself, and on the other hand by those who seek to promote their understanding of them (Shields et al., 2005). 61 According to Foucault (1980), the establishment of a body of knowledge is deeply rooted in power dynamics. Thus, knowledge about the Other which is purported to be authoritative, and is based on pseudoscientific truth is a product of privileged discourses. At its core, the theory of deficit thinking reflects an endogenous construction of the Other. Its position is that students who do not perform to the standard or who fail at school do so because there are internal reasons for it. These reasons usually manifest in various forms including perceived limited intellectual capabilities, limited language skills, lack of motivation, and ‘immoral’ behavior (Valencia, 2010). Presently, behavioural, and social scientists have heavily criticized the theory of deficit thinking and argued that; it ignores the role of systemic factors that contribute to school failure, lacks empirical verification, is ideological rather than based on scientific evidence, is grounded in classism, sexism, and racism, and offers self-defeating prescriptions for school success (Valencia, 2010). Yet, deficit thinking models persist because of their mutable nature and have become increasingly difficult to detect. This difficulty is tacitly confirmed by Portelli and Koneeny’s (2018) description of inclusivity vis-à-vis deficit thinking. They posit that embracing any alternative to deficit models would be erroneous without the understanding that inclusive education is sporadic, spontaneous, and radically dependent on anticipatable contextual facts (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018). In other words, attempts at inclusive education would fail without considering the shifting contexts of deficit models. Notwithstanding the mutability, there are key features that may help identify deficit thinking (Valencia, 2010). I briefly describe them below: • A Language that Blames the Victim: Valencia (2010) exposes the ideological base of deficit thinking, and how it translates to action. At the outset, victim blamers identify a social problem, then conduct a study to reveal how the disadvantaged and advantaged are different. Once identified, the differences are defined as the cause of the social problem 62 and then mechanisms are set in play to correct the differences. The derivative of victim blaming is a parsimonious approach to a complex problem. Because of its endogeneity, the deficit thinking framework roots poor schooling performance in the students’ alleged cognitive and motivational deficits. The praxis of a deficit model, therefore, shows that students experiencing similar circumstances may be judged differently depending on stereotypes associated with their socioeconomic position, race, migration status, or culture (McNeil, 2016; Dei et al., 1997). The implication of this is that deficit thinking runs on the assumption that educability largely depends on an individual’s intellectual ability and that the social, economic, and political conditions within the schooling system have no influence on a student’s learning and academic performance ( Dei et al., 1997). Thus, it is assumed that the attitudes, behavior, culture, and mindset of a minoritized individual/group block their potential for success (Gorski, 2018). • Oppressive by Nature: Victim-blaming amounts to a form of oppression, the unjust and cruel use of authority and power to keep a group subjugated. To speak in historical terms, macro and micro-level educational policies, and practices are littered with egregious instances of deficit thinking that is fuelled by class/racial biases (Valencia, 2010). As such, the power imbalance that permits oppression stems from the belief that anything deemed to be different is less valuable or unworthy (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018). • Based on Pseudoscientific Claims: The deficit thinking model manifests signs of embedded negative biases towards minoritized groups that are based on ideology rather than science and are pursued in methodologically flawed ways with the results presented in ways that suggest an attempt to convert. This pseudo-scientific condition is based on the values of the dominant class which then serve as a yardstick against which all 63 marginalized people are compared and are required to aspire (Sharma & Portelli, 2014). An attempt to explain poor academic success among immigrant children that relies solely on the science of numbers without consideration for any other factors is an example of the manifestation of a pseudoscientific approach to education. In this instance, aggregating the academic outcomes of immigrant children subjects them to the yardsticks put in place by the dominant class and by so doing encourages immigrant children to aspire to these standards.29 The described features above provide an essential insight into the contemporary manifestations of deficit thinking. It exposes two overarching issues that rely on the sound application of a methodology to study deficit thinking. First, considering that deficit thinking models have become tacit, the proper choice of methodology is essential for uncovering as well as perpetuating deficit thinking models. In other words, the misappropriation of methodology, an ideological approach to issues of difference, and “a process of false persuasion by scientific pretense” (Blum, 1978, p. 12) are responsible for deficit thinking models in the first place (Valencia, 1997). It suffices to say, therefore, that to successfully challenge deficit thinking models, there must be a careful and sound choice and execution of methodology. Otherwise, researchers risk perpetuating the very power structure they hope to challenge. Secondly, because of its pseudoscientific/ideological nature, deficit thinking is greatly influenced by the era and the spirit of the era (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018). That is, the ideological and research climate influences how deficit thinking is manifested. Additionally, its protean nature means that deficit thinking does not manifest in a basic static characteristic. Rather, the perceived pointers of the 29 For fuller discussions around pseudoscience in deficit thinking, see Ganem, J. (2018). The robot factory: Pseudoscience in education and its threat to american democracy. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77860-0 64 alleged deficits metamorphose and lead back to the issue of a sound choice of methodology. Thus, methodologies cannot be restricted to a particular variant of deficit thinking but should be capable of uncovering deficit models in whatever forms they are present. The methodological approach should be such that it is not limited to an assessment of deficit models based on one variant or the other. Since the deficit model is rooted in dominant norms and inclusive practices of the powerful (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018), an appropriate methodology should reveal how a social actor is represented vis-à-vis their lived experiences (van Leeuwen, 1995). To put it succinctly, the methodological approach should be concerned with how relations of power in the real world are reproduced or resisted in micro-textual sites, and how certain social actors in such texts are represented in comparison to others. Contemporary Manifestations of Deficit Thinking Models Deficit thinking has evolved and depending on the time in history, it is rooted in and categorized into three variants as espoused by (Valencia, 1997, p. 160). These are: genetic pathology; culture of poverty; and the at-risk model being a by-product of cultural and accumulated environmental deficits”. In contemporary times, however, it is difficult to place deficit thinking under any of the rubrics named above. This is the case since contemporary deficit thinking features an assortment of all three. To make deficit thinking visible in contemporary times, I will briefly describe all three models. Genetic pathology This model has its roots in the 1920s United States and coincides with the rise of intelligence testing. It is a particularly harmful form of deficit thinking because of the highly flawed belief among early hereditarians that intelligence was fixed at the point of embryonic formation and thus, unmalleable during the life cycle. It holds that intellectual inferiority among a group and 65 intellectual superiority among other groups is genetically based. Although the genetic pathology model in the context of deficit thinking has been widely critiqued, it remains in existence so we must be vigilant as it continues to surface on occasion (Valencia, 2010). The connection between colonialism and the genetic pathology model implicates this model in the discourses involving refugees. Examples provided earlier show that countries of origin with the highest number of refugees are usually low-income countries- most of which had been colonized in the past.30 Colonialism on the other hand had been justified by attributing what is perceived to be the intellectual difference between the European colonizers and colonized communities to genetics and geography (Gould, 1996). Similar moral justifications have been offered for the occupation of Iraq (Mcmahan, 2009) or military intervention in Syria and Libya. This being considered, it is plausible that policies directed at refugee education may be tainted with instances of deficit thinking based largely on ancestry. Deficit Thinking Based on Culture This is a model driven by the assertion that the poor are the products of their material disadvantages, deprivation, and school failure. Throughout the history of humankind, inequality in terms of social and economic opportunities has persisted, leading to attitudes that can be characterized as suspicious and dehumanizing in which the economic advantage blames the other for their inferior position (Gmelch & Kuppinger, 2018). A term coined by cultural anthropologist, Oscar Lewis, “culture of poverty” invokes a powerful pathological image of the poor as a people with self-imposed, transgenerational problems (Valencia, 2010). Although largely refuted, the culture of poverty model continues to receive considerable attention in 30 According to UNHCR statistics, 68% of refugees are from these five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar. All of five of them are former colonies, and all except Venezuela are involved in wars with one form of foreign military intervention or the other. See https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/ 66 contemporary times. Similar to the model of genetic pathology, the culture of poverty model31 could reflect a deficit approach to refugees since most refugee countries of origin are low-income countries with high rates of poverty. Differences in academic performance between refugee and non-refugee students when one is aggregated against the other may therefore be explained as a cultural issue. The “at-risk” model This model is a bit more pervasive than the two discussed earlier. This variation is broad since being at risk could be extended in meaning depending on how it is applied. Lewis’ 1959 Culture of Poverty is formulated in such a detached fashion that it became easy for scholars of the time to appropriate it as an absolute truth claim. As the culture of poverty persisted, it became refined as cultural defects and weaknesses (Valencia, 2010). The development of the ‘culturally deprived’ child was then believed to be influenced by an alleged cultural and accumulated deficit in the family and environment (Valencia, 2010). In contemporary times, the at-risk model has been extended to include any perceived deficiencies as a by-product of an individual’s lived experience. Therefore, depending on events occurring in an individual’s life, they are deemed at risk. In the instance of refugees and forced migrants in general, the circumstances surrounding displacement are usually characterized by difficult and traumatic events (Valencia, 2019). Discourses could therefore excuse perceived differences or blame them on the lived experiences of refugees. 31 For further exploration of the culture of poverty and contemporary manifestation of deficit thinking please see: (Ford et al., 2001; Sharma & Portelli, 2014; Valencia, 2019; White, 2014) 67 Deficit Thinking in Discourse Discourses are central to both the development and implementation of educational policies and guidance documents. From the initial framing of the problems to the debate, negotiations, and the decision-making necessary in the policy-making process, talk and text serves as the primary mode through which the policies are made visible and understood (Boden, 1994; Lester et al., 2017). Similarly, talk and text also shape the ways that policy ideas are disseminated and appropriated within organizations and in the context of educational practice. Thus, language is both constructive and constitutive, and “creates, codifies, and conveys policy while at the same time macro and micro features of language – from broad rhetorical techniques to specific word choices – shape meanings and understandings of policy” (Lester et al., 2017, p. 2). Policies, shaped by words and texts are therefore capable of perpetuating discourses of differences and pathologies not only in thoughts expressed in talk and text but also in ideas left out or not expressed and may be created and applied to respond to issues of diversity and differences in schools. When students are theorized in terms of their perceived differences, the idea of the Other is perpetuated in discourse. In describing the role that discourses play in shaping social realities, Foucault (1980) states that words go further than expressing thoughts or ideas and could also inspire/necessitate action (cited in Shields et al., 2005). When viewed together, discourse and deficit thinking have wide-ranging implications for the organization and management of schools. They determine the dynamics of relationships, and how differences are reinscribed within the schools and classrooms (Shields et al., 2005) Relating Pathologizing Practices and Models of Deficit Thinking to Refugees For refugees, a deficit model might be extremely difficult to detect perhaps more so than other minoritized groups. I take this position because the circumstances surrounding their forced 68 displacement and the mere fact that they now must be settled into different societies and cultures create the need for a response that promotes inclusivity. However, care should be taken not to fall prey to the ‘us versus them’ power binary where those on the outside are brought in and included by those already inside (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018). As Biesta (2009) points out, it is incredibly important to keep in mind that the concept of inclusion innately creates this binary that could spiral into models of deficit thinking. This is the case especially when there is a clear power dynamic as the one that exists between resettled refugees and the states. In other words, there is a thin line between a so-called inclusive education policy and a deficit thinking model. And so, as a point of departure, it should be understood that it is impossible to challenge deficit thinking without understanding the colonial grounding of refugee protection. Canada’s settler-colonialist history and the general context of refugee-sending states speak to the need to analyze policies for possibilities of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices. The Othering of the Indigenous peoples of Canada by European colonizers featured a deficit thinking model which characterized them as dysfunctional and referred to them as “barbarians” and “savages” (Valencia, 2019). According to the literature on the subject, this historical practice of pathologizing and demonizing Indigenous peoples of Canada laid the foundation for contemporary deficit thinking with regard to the Indigenous communities of Canada, and subsequently towards immigrant ethnic groups of colour. The outcome for Indigenous people is a marked achievement gap between Indigenous peoples and Whites which consequently results in very limited upward mobility, reduced quality of life, as well as other socio-economic implications (Valencia, 2019). In fact, according to Satzewich and Liodakis (2010), a 1965 study by John Porter is said to capture the ‘vertical mosaic’ that is the Canadian society where the British and French are at the top and all other groups are at the bottom of the social, 69 cultural/ethnic and political structures. Although ethnicity is still an important predictor of such practices, more recent studies have found that socioeconomic status has become an even stronger indices for predicting academic achievement gaps through colonial lenses which remains in existence however subtly in contemporary Canadian colonial structures (Toulouse, 2016; Valencia, 2019). There are important lessons to draw from the colonization and the continued marginal treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada and globally, which could inform this analysis. That is deficit thinking often gets translated into policy and eventually practice leading to achievement gaps in the social, economic, and political milieu. Differences in power relations and access to power persist and often prop deficit thinking attributed to those with lesser power. These understandings necessitate a deeper interrogation of policies on refugee education. However, and in line with what the literature has shown, I anticipate that deficit thinking in current times would not necessarily be as glaring or blatant in a lot of situations as has been the case with Indigenous communities in recent decades. Thus, my analysis requires a careful and intentional choice of methodology to reveal possible instances of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices. Precisely, I will engage in a critical analysis of policy discourses about K-12 students of refugee backgrounds to reveal how they are represented in discourse vis-à-vis their lived experiences, as well as to uncover what different modalities of discourse might emerge among Canadian provinces. 70 Chapter 4: Methodology In the course of clarifying the context and theoretical framework for this study, the literature revealed that the deficit thinking model and the practice of pathologizing the lived experiences of minoritized/racialized groups have evolved to be latent and more subtle than they were at their earlier phases so that it required a careful and intentional choice of methodology to reveal them (Valencia, 1997, 2010, 2019). This is especially so since instances of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices could be traced back to the misappropriation of methodology in which an ideological approach to issues of difference, and “a process of false persuasion by scientific pretense” (Blum, 1978, p. 12) is responsible for deficit thinking models (Blum, 1978; Valencia, 1997). And so, it is imperative that I carefully seek out a methodology that is not only capable of uncovering instances of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices in all its forms but also one that does not perpetuate the very power structures it aims to challenge. It should be capable of uncovering deficit models in whatever forms they are present. All these considered; I settled on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The Critical Analysis of Discourses in Policies. van Dijk (1986) describes critical discourse analysis as a domain that asks further questions about responsibility, interest, and ideology starting from “prevailing social problems, and thereby chooses the perspective of those who suffer most” (quoted in Wodak, 2001, p. 1) rather than focusing on purely academic or theoretical problems. CDA critically analyses those with power and those who are responsible for solving those problems and aspires to uncover the consequences of political actions. It is fundamentally concerned with the analysis of structural relationships and interconnections in the chain of cause and effect which are based on dominance, power, and control. These relationships and interconnections manifest in language 71 and ways often distorted from observation (Wodak, 2001). In other words, CDA investigates social inequalities as it is constituted or legitimized through language in ways that may be otherwise hidden. It takes into account that the discourses are historically produced, interpreted, and legitimized by ideologies of powerful groups, and situated in time and space. Developing out of the works of a network of scholars in linguistics as well as through the launch of academic journals and books like Language and power by Norman Fairclough (1989), CDA has been described as a paradigm “bound together more by a research agenda and program than by some common theory or methodology” (Wodak, 2001, p. 4). The research agenda of this thesis aligns with Fairclough’s view on social institutions – including schools and ministries of education – “as containing diverse ideological-discursive formations’ (IDFs) associated with different groups within the institution… with one dominant IDF” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 25). According to Fairclough (1995), the norms of institutional subjects are tailored by norms of dominant ideologies which is characterized by the capacity to win acceptance as non-ideological common sense. The denaturalization of these dominant ideologies is the goal of critically analyzing discourse through methods that show how social structures determine the properties of discourse and vice versa. As a method in social scientific research, CDA incorporates a view of language as necessarily implicated in the material elements of the social process, as well as a view of semiosis as an irreducible part of said processes (Fairclough, 1995; Wodak, 2001). Hence, CDA analyses the dialectical relationship between semiosis and elements of social practice. According to Fairclough (in Wodak, 2001) semiosis, which includes all forms of meaning-making broadly features in three ways in social practices; as part of social activity within a practice, in the representation of social actors, and in the performance of particular positions within the social 72 practices. Semiosis may also constitute genres of social discourses and forms a part of a diverse representation of social life in which actors see and represent social life in different ways (Wodak, 2001). For example, discourse about the education of children of refugee background would vary depending on whether the such discourse is in the context of international organizations, governments, or other relevant social actors, and could further vary depending on the classification of the social actors; the government of developed or developing nations. There are several approaches to engaging CDA as a method of analysis, which in most cases answer specific questions about language and social practices. James Gee’s approach to discourse analysis, for example, draws upon social and cultural frameworks – including situated meaning, social languages, figured worlds, and discourse – to understand how people use language to accomplish actions (Gee, 2014; Rogers, 2011). Employed as tools of inquiry, these frameworks help an analyst to question what sign systems are used to accomplish social goals. Distinctly, Norman Fairclough’s(1995) approach to CDA relates to questions of mediation between the textual and social world. His approach consistently employs orders and the interdiscursive relationship between discourse, interdiscursivity, and dialectics as key concepts and analytic tools for studying social change. This is done by exploring the kinds of semiotic resources that people draw on in their attempt to design and interpret social practices through genres (ways of interacting), discourse (ways of representing), and style (ways of being). Thus, the analyst attempts to describe, explain, and interpret the relationship between texts and social practices on various scales. Despite the availability and usefulness of the tools mentioned above (and others not mentioned here), I have chosen van Leeuwen’s (1995) representation of social actors. The decision to adopt this mode of analysis was not reached because one approach is better or superior to the other. 73 Instead, compared to other approaches, the questions around lived experiences and education outcomes in the way it is presented in this thesis are best addressed through an analytic tool that queries how relevant social actors are represented in possible instances of racialized discourse. In other words, this approach offers a unique advantage in that it questions how the population of interest is represented within specific discourses and social contexts – education policies of Canadian provinces, in this case – as well as the implication of such representational choices. In my view, questioning the representation of refugee children within the context created in this study is key to van Leeuwen’s classification of the representation of social actors will be explained below, however, two caveats should be noted. The first is that engaging in this discourse analysis does not imply that the policy documents being analyzed were created with the intent to pathologize the experiences of children of refugee backgrounds. Rather, as earlier stated, there is only a thin line between inclusivity and deficit thinking (Beista, 2009). The second point is that the policies in question may not translate to practice. I will address these issues as I move on but first, a clarification of van Leeuwen’s (1995) methodical approach to critical discourse analysis – the representation of social actors. Representing Social Actors in Discourse van Leeuwen’s (1995) approach to CDA questions how social actors are represented in English discourse and the options offered by the English language for referring to people. The representation of social actors queries the intricacies of the existing relationship between social actors in racist discourse – a discourse in which children from a refugee background and their experiences are represented in a language of deficit – a deficit that must be cured. This method of analysis “draws up a sociosemantic inventory of the ways in which social actors can be 74 represented… and to establish the sociological and critical relevance of proposed categories” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 32). van Leeuwen (1995) theorizes that since language lacks biuniqueness – the dichotomy between linguistic and sociological categories in which the “sociological categories can be realized in various ways and the reverse can be true as well – and because meaning belongs to culture rather than to language and cannot be tied to a semiotic, language can represent social actions impersonally” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 33). For instance, social actors may be represented as agents or as patients in a discourse, and this representation will not necessarily follow a linguistic pattern. Thus, it is beneficial, if not essential for the analysis of the discourses done in this study to consider the semiosis of linguistic representations. In contemplating semiotics, para-linguistic signs such as punctuations and paragraphing, along with extra-linguistic signs like the context or setting of a situation, help understand what the author wishes to convey about the K-12 students of a refugee background vis-à-vis their lived experiences since a discourse involves more than words and sentences. This is specifically the issue surrounding continued evolution of deficit thinking models and the difficulty in detecting deficit thinking models in text. Nevertheless, the categories of analysis proposed by van Leeuwen is grounded in linguistic representations of social actors and are tied to specific and rhetorical realizations. Categories of Analysis: Representation of Social Actors In his (1995) book chapter which has been discussed here, van Leeuwen puts together an inventory of sociosemantic categories for the critical analysis of a feature article in The Sydney Morning Herald titled “our race odyssey”. The “our race odyssey” article described as a racist discourse about immigration in the Australian context employs these categories to show how social actors are allocated different roles, how they have been included or excluded in the social 75 processes identified in the text, or how they categorized, identified, and specified. Although van Leeuwen used these categories in a discourse about immigration, it has also been utilized in various ways and different contexts further proving the versatility of their application. For example, Post (2009), Rasti and Sahragard (2012), and Machin and Mayr (2013) all used these categorizations to analyze the representation of people in presidential campaign speeches, news reports, and television crime reports respectively. I provide brief descriptions of the categories below. The categories described here will serve as the method for analyzing the text selected for this study. All descriptions are drawn from van Leeuwen’s (1995, pp. 38–65; 2008, pp. 28–51) publications. Exclusion As an important aspect of CDA, representations may include or exclude social actors in discourse depending on the interests of the writer or the purposes of the text in relation to the population it is intended for. Excluding social actors in discourse may not necessarily be with negative intentions. Often, exclusions are in the forms of details that the reader is assumed to know already, or which is deemed irrelevant to them. In some cases, however, the exclusion could be tied to a propaganda strategy that aims to create a narrative about the social actor in consideration. For example, it may be in the interests of the white colonizer newspaper editors in colonized countries to exclude the police as perpetrators of violence in an account of the use of force against demonstrators in a riot. By excluding the police in this case, the author(s) of the text could show that the regimes and their agents were left with no choice but to play the role of the authoritative figure that promotes progress, law, and order, and eliminates social evil and conflict (van Leeuwen, 2008). 76 In texts, representations may be completely excluded, leaving no traces of both the actor and activity. In this situation, the exclusion is only visible when such text is compared with others of similar context. In other instances where the activities are included, some or all the actors are included leaving traces of the exclusion. Under such circumstances, actors are either suppressed or backgrounded. When an actor is suppressed, there is no reference to the actor(s) anywhere in the text vis-à-vis particular action. Backgrounding on the other is less radical; social actors may not be mentioned in relation to certain activity but are mentioned elsewhere in the text, possibly to minimize their influence or their agency with regard to that activity. In this study, the exclusion will be used to reveal the context or instances where social actors are suppressed or backgrounded in the selected discourse. Of course, the exclusion category is much broader than the other categories explained subsequently, and it could even be argued that all other categories stem from an instance of either inclusion or exclusion. However, as a point of departure, this category benefits this thesis by offering a view of the contexts in which refugees are excluded and allows for a comparison with instances of how other social actors are represented. The suppression or backgrounding of social actors can be done in different ways. On one hand, suppression could be realized in the following ways: deleting the passive agent; using non-finite clauses which function as a grammatical participant; deleting the beneficiaries of an activity, through nominalization and the use or process nouns; coding an activity in the middle voice, and by adjectivizing a process. Backgrounding, on the other hand, can “result from simple ellipses in non-finite clauses with -ing and -ed participles, in infinitival clauses with to, and in paratactic clauses… or in the same way as suppression, but with respect to social actors who are included elsewhere in the text” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 41). Under both circumstances, the realization of 77 exclusion reduces the number of times social actors are explicitly referred to with implications for the context or action for which they are included. Role Allocation When social actors are included in discourse, they are given roles to play in representation. Role allocation shows how social actors are represented in discourse, either as ‘agents’ (Actors) or as ‘patients’ (Goal) with respect to a given action. This question is salient to distinguish between the roles that social actors play in social practice and the ones allocated to them in the text. An actor can either be a goal or the actor of the activity. However, in textual representations, these roles could be reallocated or rearranged to reveal a different social relationship between the actors (van Leeuwen, 1995). When roles are reallocated, a new version of ‘reality’ will be produced. The version that best corresponds with reality is, of course, an impossible task for textual analysis, however, it offers a method for investigating why certain options are taken in a different institutional and social context, as well as the interests and purposes they serve. According to van Leeuwen (1995, 2008), representation could either allocate social actors to active or passive roles. Activation is when an actor is represented as an active, dynamic force in an activity, passivation on the other hand represents actors as undergoing the activity or as being the subject of such activity. Grammatically, they are presented by “transitivity structures in which activated social actors are coded as Actor in material processes, Behaver in behavioral processes, Senser in mental processes, Sayer in verbal processes or Assigner in relational processes”(van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 44). Active roles are realized through participation in an activity but could be realized in numerous ways. Activation may be realized by circumstantialisation whereby prepositional circumstantials are used to express the spatial or temporal relationship between an actor and the activity (e.g., ‘from’ or ‘by’ in; New arrivals 78 received a warm welcome from the locals). Also, activation could be realized using possessive pronouns to activate an actor (e.g., our intake). Passivation on the hand is realized in more highly transformed ways and requires clear distinctions as aspects of it overlap with the activation of actors. Generally speaking, passivation represents social actors as subjects or beneficiaries of the activity and treats them as the objects of the representation. Like activation, passivation could be realized “by ‘participation’ when the passivated social actor is the Goal in a material process, Phenomenon in a mental process, or Carrier in an effective attributive process” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 45). Like activation also, passivation can be grammatically realized through circumstantial prepositions (e.g., ‘against’ in; Discrimination against new immigrants), or through the use of a prepositional phrase postmodified with ‘of’ (e.g., extending the work permits of everyone with an expiring document). However, as opposed to activation, actors are the subject of the activity. A passive actor who is beneficalised participates in the activity as a recipient or as a client in relation to the activity being discussed. In this thesis, activation or passivation will offer a broader look at instances where the refugees are represented either as actors or as goals of certain activities. The reason for this is that the role they are allocated in discourse, i.e., activities they are deemed capable of carrying out as juxtaposed against actions they are subjected to, could lend a peak into the broader view of how refugees are perceived in general, and especially with regard to activities relating to their forced migration. Thus, the role allocation category would search out instances where refugees are passivated or activated within the context of the specific activities they are involved in. 79 Genericization and Specification The genericization or specification of social actors is quite straightforward; actors could either be represented as classes or as specifically identifiable individuals. Representation along these lines can be observed in how social actors are represented by different sectors of the population. Whether an actor is genericized or specifically mentioned in texts is dependent upon the view of the author about the group being represented or of the dominant narrative about the said group. While the reason for such representation may not be obvious in certain contexts, making a distinction between genericization and specification opens the door for questioning the dominant narratives by taking into consideration the context of the instances of these representations. Even though general references are expected in a text, not all actors are genericized in similar circumstances. For instance, general references could act to symbolically remove an actor from the immediate experience of the reader or could mention certain actors concerning specific activities. The choices available for such representation and the implication of the choices taken are at the heart of this category. Genericization benefits my analysis because it gives me a glimpse into the dominant/accepted narratives surrounding the refugee population being addressed, their compelled migration, and topics relating to the education they receive. van Leeuwen posits further to this point “that ‘elaborated codes’ give access to ‘universalistic orders of meaning’, while restricted codes give access to ‘particularistic orders of meaning’, and that access to these codes is class-determined” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 47). Equally, he approvingly quotes Virginia Woolf dictum that “general ideas are always the General’s idea” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 47) further supporting the position that the point of identification in these ways is that specifics do not exist in the world of the governed, rather it exists in the world of governors; the world of General. Thus, for my analysis, 80 elaborated codes will help me determine – depending on who is genericized or specified – who is the General (governor) or who is the general (governed). Grammatically, genericization may be identified in plural form without article, or in singular form through definite or indefinite articles. Conversely, specification is achieved by making specific reference to the social actor. Assimilation Following closely from genericization, assimilation refers to individuals as groups even in instances where the criteria for assigning these individuals to the said groups are unclear, and in some cases, despite obvious or stated differences. Assimilation could take two forms: aggregation or collectivization. On one hand, aggregation quantifies a group of actors and represents them statistically through definite or indefinite quantifiers. This is quite crucial since aggregation plays a large role in society ranging from the democratic process of electing representatives to arrive at joint decisions affecting a wide range of people. The aggregation of the majority voice is to attain legitimacy. On the other hand, collectivization represents a group, not as statistics, but would reflect assimilation to the group by appropriating a feature or utterances of a segment of the group to signal agreement and expertise. Assimilation proves helpful for my thesis in two major ways. First, it helps to determine what is considered a statement of fact or an expert opinion based on the aggregated majority opinion about the refugee experience and their education. Secondly, it helps to uncover what ‘groups’ school-age refugee children are assimilated into, as well as the expert or factual statement purportedly made by the children themselves. Grammatically, assimilation may be represented by plurality, by a mass noun, or by a noun representing a group of people – with due regard for context, of course. 81 Association and Dissociation Social actors may also be represented as part of a group in a process called association. Association in this case refers to groups formed by actors or groups of actors without any express mention of the formed group. The association made here is represented as an alliance that only exists in relation to specific activities, ideas, or opinions. Association is grammatically realized through parataxis, through accompaniments like ‘with’, or through possessive pronouns where verbs like ‘have’ and ‘belong’ make association explicit without naming the group. Conversely, dissociation unforms relationships between unnamed groups. In some cases, relationships are formed and unformed between groups as the text unfolds to capture developing and ceasing relationships. By applying association and dissociation as a tool of analysis I can determine other social actors the population of interest is grouped with, not as a stable, institutionalized entity but one where they are represented as allies to a specific goal or interest. Association would thus be deployed to show the social actors that are purported as having common interests as children from a refugee background as well as what those interests are. Also, it would create an observable pattern of associations and dissociation as well as the context of such association or dissociation. Indetermination and Differentiation Indetermination occurs when social actors have represented unspecified or anonymous individuals or groups. It is typically realized when indefinite pronouns are used in nominal functions with the supposed identity of the social actor considered irrelevant to the reader. Indetermination may also be realized by an exophoric reference made to social actors not named in the text. Differentiation, on the other hand, distinguishes a social actor(s) from similar actor(s) or group(s) (determinate/indeterminate actor or groups), thereby creating differences between the 82 self and the other, or creating us versus them dynamic. In the instance of this thesis, differentiation is helpful as it offers a way of discovering whether children of refugee backgrounds are differentiated from other social actors mentioned in the text particularly as it pertains to their migratory or schooling experience, as well as how the differentiation is achieved and sparks the conversation about the implication of such differentiations. Functionalisation and Identification Functionalization involves referring to a social actor in terms of an activity or something they do e.g., an occupation or a role played within a specified environment. Put simply, functional categories assign people to groups based on their activities and essentially assign them group qualities. It is realized in text in any of the following ways: First, by a noun formed through verbs with attached suffixes such as -er, -ant, -ent, -ian, -ee (e.g., stocker, interviewer, guardian, etc.). Secondly, through a noun formed from another noun associated with a tool or place with the inclusion of suffixes such as -ist, -eer (e.g., mountaineer, pianist, etc). Thirdly, functionalization may be realized by merging nouns that denote a place or tools that are closely associated with an activity, together with highly generalized nouns such as man, woman, person, etc. (e.g., cameraman). Identification on the other hand occurs when social actors are identified in terms of what they permanently or unavoidably are. van Leeuwen (1995) distinguishes between three types of identification namely; classification, relational identification, and physical identification. In classification, social actors are assigned and referred to in terms by which a given society or institution distinguishes between classes of people, including age, gender, class, wealth, race, ethnicity, religion, and others. Relational identification represents social actors in terms of their personal, work, or familial relationships. They are realized by nouns and accompanied by 83 possessive pronouns that denote relations e.g., my friends, his aunt, our grandmother, etc. Furthermore, physical identification represents social actors in terms of physical features that uniquely identify them (e.g., black, redhead, cripple, etc.). It can be realized through; nouns that denote physical characteristics, adjectives, or prepositional phrases – with or without – which postmodifies generalized classification such as man, woman, child, etc. (e.g., a child with a grey patch of hair). It is worthy of note that van Leeuwen stresses the point that identification categories are culturally and historically variable. My understanding of this is that an identification category in one period or culture may be represented as a function or as doing. Conversely, the same action may be represented as a more or less fixed identity in a different period. The import of this point relates to the intersection between functionalization and classification, and how a transition is made between temporality and permanence. Specifically, the intersection of both classifications is of immense necessity for the thesis as its application allows for the query of the decision to group children from refugee backgrounds into either the category based on function or one that is based on identity. It also helps reveal the possible power relations at play in making these decisions, and the types and group qualities of categories created. Personalization and Impersonalization The discussion leading up to this point has offered an exploration of the representational choices offered to authors of the text specifically, and discourse in general. These representational choices either personalize social actors by representing them as human beings “realized by personal or possessive pronouns, proper names, nouns (sometimes adjectives, as, for example, in ‘maternal care’) whose meaning includes the feature ‘human’”(van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 59). Representation could also impersonalize social actors by representing them as other things, “for 84 instances by abstract nouns, or by concrete nouns whose meaning does not include the semantic feature ‘human’” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 59). van Leeuwen distinguishes between two types of impersonalization: abstraction and objectivation. Abstraction represents social actors through a quality assigned to them by the author of the text and adds connotative meanings – which feature abstracted from the actor –to interpret or evaluate them. Conversely, objectivation which is quite metonymical on its surface occurs when social actors are referred to by a thing or place closely associated with their person or an activity, they are said to be engaged in. Generally speaking, impersonalization is quite common in the language of bureaucracy as it constitutes human activities in ways that allow for the denial of responsibility or by representing their procedures as ones in which, when put in place, are impermeable to human agency. To summarise, impersonalization; backgrounds the identity/role of an actor; grants impersonal authority to activities or utterances of a social actor; or adds a negative or positive connotation to the activities or utterances of an actor. Impersonalization as an analytic tool would be employed in this study with some interest in mind. In one way, the instances and contexts of impersonal authority expressed in the actions or utterances of authority figures regarding the expectation for the education of children from refugee backgrounds would reveal any reference made to their lived experience, if any, and the authoritative narrative created around these issues. In another way, abstracting the feature or qualities of the children would uncover and help to interpret aspects that connote either a negative or positive representation of their lived experiences or education. Overdetermination Overdetermination occurs when social actors are shown to be participating in multiple social practices at the same time. The implication of overdetermining the roles of social actors in 85 discourse is that it attempts to connect a social actor to a particular narrative, assign them to groups, or assign them features that they do not possess. Overdetermination does this by connecting a social actor to at least two social practices which then comes to symbolize the actors as subjected to the practices and indeed all practices that produce similar outcomes. To further explicate this point, van Leeuwen gives an example of a feature character drawn from a Dutch story called ‘The Unknown Solider’. In the story, the Unknown Soldier who van Leeuwen thinks is “maybe 18 years old but looks more like a boy than a man”(van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 61) is connected to two social practices, warfare, and schooling. The ‘Unknown Solider’ came to be subject to both practices and all practices that produce victims and underdogs since the narrative created around being a soldier and a student is one that reflected victimhood. Similarly, the hero of this story, Magnus, overdetermined himself since he is both a little child and ‘Magnus’ (translated from Latin to English as great) which transcends what adults or children can do. Overdetermination is distinguishable in four major ways, which also represent how overdetermination as a category may be identified. They are inversion, symbolization, connotation, and distillation. Inversion is a form of overdetermination that connects an actor to two practices that are fundamentally opposing ideas. The example of Magnus – the man who is also a child – is quite relevant in explicating this. Symbolisation occurs when non-fictional social actors are represented as fictional social actors or groups of social actors in non-fictional social practices. The fictional character, often mythical and distant, allows the social actors and the activities they engage in to be relatable to several non-fictional actors and practices. In simple terms, it creates a current reality for social actors that is based on historical fictional characters. Connotation occurs when a unique connotation – naming or physical identification – is used to represent a social actor or group of social actors in a way that classifies or functionalizes them. 86 An example of this is associating tall people with sports and then projecting the image of a sportsperson along with all other societal traditions related to sports on a tall social actor regardless of whether they enjoy or engage in sporting activities or not. Finally, distillation which is realizable by a combination of generalization and abstraction is a form of “overdetermination which connects social actors to several social practices by abstracting the same feature from the social actors involved in these several practices” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 64). As an analytic tool in the context of this study, overdetermination exposes the multiple roles assigned to children from a refugee background, the feature of those roles, and any patterns that may become visible as a result. Also, the application of overdetermination would reveal the characteristics that the children are deemed to possess, as well as the activities or practices they are subjected to for reasons stemming from their experience of forced migration. The Data: Selected Refugee Education Discourses In this section, I offer a brief review of the documents I have selected and explain the rationale for choosing to review these documents. To reiterate, I aim to analyze three policy documents related to the education of children from refugee backgrounds. Considering the provincial coordination of education in Canada, the policies are chosen from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Manitoba. These documents were? written in the English language32 between January 2012 and the beginning phases of this thesis in June 2021 and are directly 32It is important to emphasize the point about the language of the document because the method of analysis I have employed for this study is based in linguistics of the English language. And since I not a French speaker, I am not equipped to analyse French texts, Furthermore, analysis of any document not originally written in English will pose addition layers of challenges because the accuracy and conciseness of the translations will become an issue. In fact, van Leeuwen’s representation of social actors has been employed in the analysis of the accuracy of the translation of an English novel to Arabic – see Babaii & Rashed (2017) . In the article, Babaii and Rashed concluded that in the course of translation, the original form of representation is lost. My point is, the same thing is possible if a policy document is translated from one language to another, which will be the case if I were to analyse a document from the province of Quebec. 87 formulated with the learning needs of students from refugee backgrounds in mind. They are Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narrative(Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015); Capacity Building K-12. Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016) and Supporting Students from Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015). These documents offer guidance to educators on how to approach the education of students from refugee backgrounds. I believe that the content of these policies would provide clearer insight into how students are represented in relation to their lived experiences as forced migrants. The provinces where these documents originate host the largest numbers of refugees besides Quebec and Alberta and consistently account for a significant percentage of refugees resettled in Canada (IRCC, 2016). Specifically, the Province of Ontario has welcomed sixty-six thousand refugees which is the highest number of refugees resettled to any province, while the provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba have welcomed over thirteen thousand and eleven thousand refugees respectively (IRCC, 2016). All the other provinces that are not represented here – including Alberta and Quebec – either have documents dating before and including 2012 or have documents that were not created for and do not directly address the learning needs of students with refugee backgrounds as its core focus. Moreover, there tends to be a practice of policy sharing among the Canadian provinces. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the chosen policies will have some influence on subsequent policies of other provinces (Ratkovic et al., 2017). Nonetheless, the choices made here make a stronger case for the relevance and appropriateness of the documents chosen for this study (Ratkovic et al., 2017). I offer a brief context for the policy documents below. 88 Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narrative This document was created by the Government of Manitoba through the Ministry of Education and Advanced Learning to help strengthen the capacity of school communities at the K-12 level to provide an appropriate and supportive school environment for refugee and war-affected learners and their families. At its core, this document is the stories or ‘learner narratives’ of eleven young Canadians of refugee or war-affected backgrounds who were interviewed about their experiences before coming to Canada and their immigration life since then, with emphasis on their education pathways. The document is a unique approach to providing support resources for schools and staff working with children of a refugee background as it is authored around the belief that collecting, documenting, and publishing the individual experience of the children themselves would provide insights into their needs. Thus, the purpose of the document is stated as follows: 1. To make refugee students more visible and provide an avenue for their voices to be heard. 2. To obtain insights about resiliency and more effective ways to offer support and educational programs for students of a refugee background. 3. To strengthen programming and school support by providing educators and schools with resources for professional learning and school planning purposes. Capacity Building K-12. Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice: This document is authored by the Ontario Ministry of Education as part of the Capacity Building Series. The series is produced to support leadership and instructional effectiveness in K-12 schools in the province. It offers a framework for reflecting on current practices and taking a 89 whole-school approach to the successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds in the school community. The approach to refugee education in this document is communicated through five frameworks for responsive practices which appear to cover all aspects of education or at least aspects that the Ministry of education considers most important. The identified frameworks address the following issues: 1. How the development of academic English can go hand in hand with learning the curriculum. 2. How to ensure that students see themselves in the learning environment. 3. How to encourage students to invest their identities in learning. 4. How to ensure that newcomer students acquire the confidence they need to express their opinions. 5. How to translate beliefs about holding high expectations for all students into instructional practice. Supporting Students from Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools: I must mention at the onset, that the version being analyzed in this thesis has since been replaced in 2022 by another guide document titled ‘Students with Refugee Experience: A Guide for Teachers and Schools’. The replacement document is reported as an update of the version in consideration here, and so, I anticipate significant similarities between both guides since the purpose for their creation remains similar if not identical. Regardless, I believe analyzing both documents would produce an extremely beneficial insight into how the language surrounding refugee education may have changed or not, thus, offering an opportunity to compare both versions. 90 The ‘Supporting Students from Refugee Backgrounds’ guide document, developed by the British Columbia Ministry of Education, aims at teachers and school personnel to assist them in welcoming and supporting students, and families who have come from a refugee background. It is designed to provide background information about the refugee experience, offer support strategies and suggestions for teachers and other members of the school community who will be working with these children and youth and their families, and provide information about resources that teachers and other school and district personnel may find helpful. This document is a revised version of the 2009 document of the same title which was drawn up for similar purposes. The current version contains some new information that has been incorporated to augment the 2009 content. The authors of this guide believe that the understanding of the refugee experience of K-12 students, awareness of cultural differences, and appreciation of their strengths as individuals will help the receiving communities create a positive first impression of schools in British Columbia and encourage learning and success. Thus, the purpose of the guide document as prescribed by the authors is as follows: 1. To provide background information about the refugee experience. 2. To offer support strategies and suggestions for teachers and other members of the community who will be working with the children and families. 3. To provide information about resources that teachers and other school and district personnel may find helpful in preparing for the arrival of students and their ongoing support. Procedure for Data Analysis An offshoot of the methodological and theoretical flexibility afforded by CDA is that it does not state a systematic micro-approach to data analysis and categorization. Michael Meyer (in 91 Wodak, 2001) acknowledges that methods of CDA have a problem with the operationalization of theoretical concepts – how the methods translate their theoretical claims into instruments and methods of analysis. Precisely, I speak of the nexus between “grand theories as applied to society at large and concrete instances of social interaction” (Wodak, 2001, p. 18). As far as the representation of social actors and the analysis conducted in this thesis is concerned, I am relying on grounded theory traditions to help bridge the gap between broader theoretical and methodological frameworks, and micro-level data analysis. According to Martin and Turner (1986, p. 141), grounded theory provides an “inductive theory discovery methodology that allows the researcher to develop a theoretical account of the general features of the topic”. Although grounded theory does not generally encourage a priori-determined assumption and what to look for in the data, the Straussian school of grounded theory allows such a priori assumptions. Strauss and Corbin (1998, 1990) stipulate that without prior constructs and an established research focus, a researcher may become overwhelmed by the volume of the data opening up the space for random sampling that disables formulation of theoretical constructs. Thus, my adoption of grounded theory is to allow for analyzing the selected policy documents within the broader theoretical framework established in the third chapter of this thesis and to group them into meaningful concepts that can be studied. My inclination towards grounded theory stems from the reason that it allows the creation of knowledge through interpreted constructions, that is, the rendition of “a reality that cannot be known but is always interpreted” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 22). Therefore, by engaging the three basic steps of analysis proposed by Strauss & Corbin (1990) I coded my research data to reflect the theoretical underpinning of the study before examining and interpreting it within the CDA framework. I used the qualitative research data software package NVivo to seek out the 92 contents of the documents in consideration. Contents relating to refugees, refugee experiences, educational programs, other actors, and activities relevant to refugees. The software specifically helped me to organize the data and create a platform through which to implement the steps proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1990). These steps are: • Open Coding: as applied to this thesis, the initial coding process allowed me to break the data down analytically to offer new insights into the data by breaking through standard ways of thinking about or interpreting data. • Axial Coding: after the initial codes were derived, I employed axial coding to relate similar codes to each other. Similar codes were grouped, and from this grouping, the context, actions/interactions, and consequences were related to a category. • Selective Coding: typically occurring in the later phases of the analysis, selective coding helped me to unify all categories around a core theme. Selective coding helped me to validate and confirm that the categories were related to the main ideas pursued by the study. Methodological Challenges The challenges I talk of in this section are those relating to the methodology of choice as well as those relating to the outcome of the analysis. Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodological approach generally faces questions about its rigor. Since van Leeuwen’s representation of social actors is a socio-linguistically oriented form of Critical Discourse Analysis, my research had to account for this challenge as well. In other words, I addressed the question of whether my biases determined the forms of relationships I spotted and whether my perspectives influenced how those relationships were linguistically mapped. Fairclough (1995) offers a useful suggestion to address this question. He noted that researcher must properly delineate their position within the 93 research they have undertaken. A researcher must be cognisant of potential influence and the perspectives that shape their world. As such, these influences must be clearly stated. Although I have done this in the Researcher Positionality section of the Introductory Chapter, I will continue to reflect on my positionalities as I go through the process of analysis in the next chapter. Similarly, another challenge that I shall address more so as a caveat than a challenge is the translation of the selected documents to practice. Thus, how social actors are represented in discourse does not necessarily imply that those relationships – in whatever form it takes – are replicated in practice. I contend that at the very least, this thesis offers a much-needed critical lens to the scrutiny of the refugee policies of a system of education built on colonial institutions. I believe that it leaves the door open for further inquiry into refugee policy discourses in Canada – perhaps one that investigates the translation of the text to practice. 94 Chapter 5: Data Analysis and Findings In this chapter, I shall analyze and present the findings of my analysis. My approach to the analysis has been detailed in the chapter on research methodology, however, I will briefly explain how the analysis is organized and offer a way of reading the research findings for easier comprehension. I employed Grounded Theory as a method for organizing and streamlining the data considering the length of the documents and the range of issues it covers. Since this thesis queries specific issues relating to the representation of social actors in educational discourse about refugees in the contexts of Canadian provinces, I sought out and grouped sentences that showed the relationships between refugees and other social actors, as well as discourses surrounding refugee experiences and education. The process began at the very basic level of identifying various actors, activities, and related concepts before further building them into ideas and themes that help to answer the research questions being considered. This exercise was done concurrently for each document, all towards the same aim. I believe this approach is appropriate in this case because although the policies operate in different jurisdictions and societal contexts, they address an issue of significant national importance. The result of the use of grounded theory as a process of data organization via NVivo is the development of three interrelated topics of analysis through which I shall engage the selected policy document. These topics of analysis are a product of the application of the three thematic coding steps identified in Strauss and Corbin (1990) and reiterated in the preceding methodology chapter. They are; Identifying Actors and Patterns of Inclusion; Contemplating Associations and Dissociations of Actors and Activities; and The Refugee Experience and Related Discourses. I will briefly discuss each theme below. 95 1. The Structure and Representation of Authority in Discourse: It makes sense that the first step would be to identify social actors within the discourse since a big aspect of the research is how actors are represented. However, in the instance of the current documents, actors exist within the broader context of an observed hierarchical structure. Precisely, I speak of a structure in which certain actors (the Ministries of Education equally acting in the capacity of the author) hold the authority and control certain narratives within the discourses (the narratives around the educational needs of students with refugee backgrounds as well as the accompanying programs). Thus, the focus under this theme will be the identification of the authority, the parties that exercise such authority, the actors who are the subject/beneficiaries of the expression of the authority as well as the context in which they are expressed. Additionally, this topic helps to identify actors whose roles are inconspicuous without appropriate textual analysis. 2. Creating Identities: Refugees and Other Categories of Newcomers: upon identifying actors and the various assigned roles, the relationships and possible connections between various actors and their activities are analyzed to reveal the categories through which refugees are represented. There is great benefit in revealing the instances where different actors are associated or dissociated as well as the context of the representation and activities, they are purported to engage in. One such benefit is that by revealing the groups that children with a refugee background are associated with and the activities they are engaged in, the authors’ impression of the refugee population and education can be gleaned and further discussed. 3. The Goal of Integration Through Language and Culture: analysis done in this section will be centered on the refugee experience and the consequences of certain observed 96 relationships and patterns of representation. In other words, because of the complexity of the policy documents and the web of ideas put forward, the issues addressed under this heading are those in which reference is made to the goals of education programs for refugees, the perceived needs of refugees, and the role that culture and language play in achieving these situations. The analysis is done in the order in which these topics have appeared here because one process feeds the next, and the discussion in an earlier section is fundamental for discussions in subsequent sections. I should mention at this point that since the context of each document is different, the details of accompanying sub-topics are different also. The sub-topics will be explained in the context of each policy document, at the point where the document is analyzed. Notwithstanding, the topics shown above cut across all documents. I should mention also that the frequency of reference within individual texts is of little or no consequence if at all. Rather, the context and issues surrounding the mention of actors and correlating activities are of primary significance. Thus, the critical analysis of the policies that follow, would be done on account of each document and with a properly contextualized framing. However, I bring the issues across the different documents into conversation with each other by discussing the implication of overarching issues along the lines of each theme. Below, I offer the overall contextualization of each of the policy documents as a piece, complementary to scenario-specific contextualization that is built into the findings itself. Contextualizing Policy Documents Building Hope: Refugee Learner Narratives (Manitoba). The Building Hope document is unique in its approach to refugee education and support. The document aims to strengthen the capacity of school communities at all levels to provide a 97 supportive and suitable school environment for refugee and war-affected learners in the province of Manitoba. This is done by anchoring on the stories of youths and young adults who came to Manitoba as refugees and have gone through the schooling system, and in some cases gone on into various careers – with the emphasis being their education pathways. The rationale is that these stories will provide insight into the needs and experiences of children with a refugee background while also showing what works and what does not work regarding refugee education programming. As a result, the document mostly contains the stories of eleven young adults with refugee backgrounds, who have spent at least 2 years in a school program in Manitoba although with partial edits and reorganization to “ensure authenticity as well as maintenance of the learners’ voices” (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 7). The analysis that follows will be mostly restricted to sections written by the authors of the text, that is, the Ministry of Education, rather than the sections containing the refugee narratives. My thoughts are; since my thesis analyses how policymakers represent refugees in policy discourses, extending the analysis to utterances of refugees themselves would be beyond the scope of the research. The extent of the partial edits and reorganization are unknown, so it is impossible to accurately determine the actual statements of refugees interviewed versus those of the policy writers. Thus, a preliminary recommendation would be that the extent of the edit and reorganization be further explored as it is valuable data that could offer a path to understanding how the Ministry has chosen to represent refugees. Unfortunately, this process falls outside the scope of this thesis and would require more detailed exploration which I believe should also include deeper questions around the choice of approach to refugee education program support and policy. 98 Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds: A Framework for Responsive Practice (Ontario). The Supporting students with Refugee Background document is part of a wider range of resources collectively known as the Capacity Building series. The series was produced by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat of the Ontario Ministry of Education to support leadership and instructional effectiveness in Ontario schools. The Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds document contains strategic information that is helpful for educators and teachers who work with children and youth from a refugee background. The synopsis of my impression of the document is that it communicates a guide by the leadership of the Ministry of Education to teachers and all other educators on how to approach issues relating to the “successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds in the school community” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). Student From Refugee Backgrounds: A Guide for Teachers and Schools (British Columbia) I should mention at the onset that the update to the Student From Refugee Background document has resulted in a version slightly different from the one that existed when I began the preliminary stages of my thesis. Therefore, my approach to analyzing the British Columbia document will change slightly to accommodate this new development. I will simultaneously engage both documents although to varying degrees. The focus remains on the 2015 version of the text. However, the updated (2022) version will be occasionally referenced to show the extent of the change in the representation of actors in the text as well as to uncover what the amendments say about social actor representation in its current form. I should mention also that the amendments 99 were not drastic and that the document in its updated version largely maintains the content of the previous one although it is condensed and organized differently. The policy addresses teachers and members of the British Columbia Ministry of Education as the title claims and offers guidance on a wide range of issues ranging from welcoming students from refugee backgrounds, transitioning from violence, and every experience that comes with forced migration to settling into normalcy in their new community. At first glance, the structure of the document shows very specific references and details about what the refugee experience is, the impact of these experiences, and the kinds of support needed. For instance, there are specific headings dedicated to understanding the refugee experience, distinguishing between immigrants and refugees, listing the psychological effects of the refugee experience, resilience, and the stages of adjustments among other things. The specificity of this reference as well as the references made to academic research papers make this document read more like an academic research paper about the socio-psychological state of refugees than a guide that is intellectually accessible for all members of the school which should ideally include K-12 students. Regardless, it offers helpful insights into the image of students from refugee backgrounds as it is portrayed by British Columbia’s Ministry of Education. The Structure and Representation of Authority in Discourse The key actor in these documents are children from refugee backgrounds and policy writers. However, several other actors feature in the texts. To identify these actors and patterns of representation van Leeuwen states that “it is necessary to bring the various ways in which each category of a social actor is represented under a common denominator” (1995, p. 41). These denominators are not, of course, a transparent or accurate depiction of the actors. They serve to meaningfully anchor and calibrate the analyses that follow. Thus, for this analysis, I shall call the 100 authors of this text ‘Authority’, and those who they have written about I shall refer to as ‘Newcomers’. The decision to group these actors as ‘authority’ and ‘newcomers’ is not arbitrary; it reflects a macro perception of the relationship between the social actors. However, there are nuances in the role of authority in the different provinces. In Manitoba, ‘Authority’ describes the actors sympathetic to the lived experiences of refugees and simultaneously responsible for the management, administration, and control of immigrant’s educational programming (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015). They include the Provincial Government of Manitoba, the Ministry of Education, school districts, and all other agents acting on behalf of the Ministry of Education. In Ontario and British Columbia on the other hand, ‘authority’ describes actors who are informed and have authoritative and oftentimes ‘expert’ views regarding the support needed for the successful integration of refugees and the procedures for offering this support. The Authority is the Ministry of Education as well as the teachers and educators who the documents address. Although there were very few instances of clear reference made to the policymakers as actors in the context of the Manitoba document, the instances in which such references were made showed the Ministry of Education as providing much-needed assistance to children from refugee and war-affected backgrounds. In Excerpt 1.1, Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning (Ministry of Education) is coded as actors in the material process of recognizing the importance of providing educational opportunities for children whose education has been interrupted by war and armed conflict. To offer context, the purpose of this document as well as the decision to collect, document, and publish the stories of refugees as a resource for refugee education (as excerpt 1.2 shows), is built around the authors’ belief that the text will be insightful for better practice. 101 Excerpt33 1.1: Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning recognized that the provision of a real opportunity to obtain an appropriate education for those whose education was disrupted or denied by war, conflict, and other factors is one of the most important things that may be offered to these young people (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 5). Excerpt 1.2: We believe that collecting, documenting, and publishing the individual stories of young Manitobans from war-affected and refugee backgrounds will provide invaluable insights as to the variety of needs and experiences of learners from such backgrounds in Manitoba’s schools (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 6). On one hand, the authority recognizes that the provision of a real opportunity to obtain appropriate education is important for children with refugee and war-affected backgrounds. On the other hand, the authority has collected, documented, and published the stories of individuals based on the belief that sharing the narratives will be insightful to the needs and experiences of children with refugee backgrounds. The limited naming of the Ministry of Education as an actor is not restricted to Manitoba alone. Although with slight distinctions, both Ontario and British Columbia share this feature with Manitoba. In all three instances, there is of course referring to the Ministry as the author of the document, but none of the statements made appears to be directly attributable or regarded as a pronouncement of the Ministry. Instead, they are heavily suppressed authority figures whose recommendations are based on one form of expert34 opinion or the other; all three provinces express authority differently. 33Excerpts are drawn from the texts they referenced from. To avoid confusion and for the ease of comprehension, the excerpt are numbered differently for each document. The Manitoba policy document are numbered as 1, Ontario as 2, and British Columbia as 3. 34In Manitoba, the ‘expert’ opinion is that of the interview participants whose experiences are the impetus for creating the policy. In Ontario and British Columbia, the experts are professional individuals and bodies. 102 In Manitoba, the use of the ‘we’ pronoun as in excerpt 1.2 to represent those whose belief it is to collect, document, and publish refugee narratives raises this issue. It could be easily taken for granted that ‘we’ refers to Manitoba’s Ministry of Education, however, there is a legitimate argument regarding this choice of reference. One perspective could simply be that the readers are expected to know who ‘we’ is in this context since a further reference to Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning could be over-communicative. Another perspective could be that it is intended to be a means of genericization in which the pronoun, ‘we’ describes the ministry-wide agreeance with the belief expressed. I am sympathetic to the latter perspective. By collectivising the belief as seen in Excerpt 1.2, the authority is imbued with impersonal authority and a sense of representing the majority-held view. This argument is especially legitimate considering that there are no indications or reasons offered as to why this belief that collecting, documenting, and publishing the lived experiences of students with refugee backgrounds might be a valid approach to providing valuable support considering also that these experiences have been modified to unknown extents. There is an added layer to the exercise of the Ministries’ authority with significant implications for the province of Manitoba especially. While describing the data collection process for the Manitoba policy, the writers represented ‘the participants’ as subjects of the activities of the authority as seen in excerpts 1.3 and 1.4. Excerpt 1.3: The participants were asked about their journey and life experiences before coming to Canada and after arriving in Canada, and their prospects and hopes for the future (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 7). 103 Excerpt 1.4: The participants were asked to share details about their experiences that were relevant to and influenced their educational needs (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 7). Again, it could simply be interpreted as the interviewers asking the interview participants these questions. However, it could also represent the notion of deliberately and carefully crafted questions of the distant authoritative force that believes that collecting, documenting, and publishing refugee stories will provide invaluable insights into their needs and experiences. This feeds back into the authority of the ministry as not only understanding the schooling needs of children from refugee and war-affected backgrounds but also knowing the intricate details and what to do to attain appropriate school programs. When we also consider that the authors acknowledged that they made minor edits and reorganization (the extent of which is unknown), there seems to be complete control and overall direction of the narratives in this work; an important point to note going forward. Excerpt 2.1: Classroom educators together with ESL/ELD support staff should spend time uncovering the language demands in content area learning (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 3). Excerpt 2.2: Making opportunities to listen and learn the “story” of the student’s life enables educators to plan meaningful tasks that are culturally responsive and build on the student’s prior experiences (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 4). Excerpts 2.1 and 2.2 paint a picture of the suppression of authority in the Ontario document. In both instances, educators were instructed to carry out various activities, however, there is a suppression of the actor(s) who have given guidance in these excerpts and in other instances where instructions or suggestions are offered under each framework. With due diligence, it might be possible to postulate that the actor in this instance is the Ministry of Education, however, the 104 decision to suppress them in these contexts is of greater importance. Throughout the document, the voice of guidance/instruction, that is, the voice through which ‘guidance/instructions are given’ are excluded, leading me to believe in, and in agreement with van Leeuwen, that the suppressed actor should not be further examined or contested – perhaps, their utterances should also not be contested or questioned (van Leeuwen, 1995, pp. 63, 69). Thus, I must draw attention to the association of classroom educators with ESL/ELD support staff, cumulatively referred to as Ontario educators35(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). Both groups share the feature of carrying out or being asked to carry out the directives of the suppressed actor. When this is read in consonance with the suppression or backgrounding of the authority figure, it can be argued that the authority of educators to adapt their practice to how they are told is derived from the incontestable proclamation of the ministry. Considering also that the authority of the ministry rests largely on heavily nominated and titulated experts, the relationship between the educators and the ministry does not suggest an equal partnership or even complete agency. Speaking of titulation and nomination of actors, certain actors who are quoted in arguments for the framework for responsive practices play a complementary role and lend an authoritative impetus to the instruction handed down the chain of command. Excerpts 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 are a few of the many instances of such representation36. Upon closer observation of excerpt 2.3 especially, the titulation of Jean Clinton (with the ‘Dr.’ title) gives an outlook of an expert, perhaps an expert in issues of trauma, considering that ‘Jean Clinton’ was named as well in excerpt 2.5 although with emphasis on a different issue. These actors I believe, are 35While this is not expressly stated, it is not beyond the stretch of any imagination to conclude that ‘educators’ as used in the examples presented in the Ontario document cumulatively refers to ESL/ELD and classroom educators. 36Considering that these excerpts are from the context of rationalizing the recommendations that follows. 105 nominated/titulated in a different context, possibly in areas where they are deemed as knowledgeable. Excerpt 2.3: Dr. Jean Clinton (2015) emphasizes that in order to provide the support necessary for newcomers to feel valued and develop a sense of belonging in our schools, we need to become “trauma informed” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 2). Excerpt 2.4: As stated by Cummins and Early (2015), “language is infused in all curricular content, and we are missing significant opportunities to accelerate students’ progress if we don’t reinforce students’ grasp of academic language as they learn subject-matter content”. Excerpt 2.5: Jean Clinton reminds us that “every kid needs at least one person whose eyes light up when they walk in the door” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 3). In British Columbia, excerpt 3.1 shows the suppression of the specific actor who has developed this guide. This of course cannot be determined with a single instance of such representation but will become clearer as the analysis continues. In excerpt 3.2 on the other hand, there is a complete detachment between the creators of the guide on one hand and the purpose that the guide serves on the other. Rather than presenting the guide as a tool designed for certain persons or groups of persons, the document appears to take on a life of its own by presenting the guide as focusing on goals. It eliminates the fact that the guide was created by an actor(s) and addressed to another group of actors. In both instances (excerpt 3.1 and 3.2), my impression is that there is an attempt to obscure the text from the view of teachers, support staff, or educators whose role it is to implement the content of the document with the 2022 version being more radical than the other. It is perhaps inferable that the Ministry of Education is the author of this text, however, the 106 Ministry of Education does not represent a specific unit or individual whose identity and motivation for creating the document can be assessed. Excerpt 3.1: This Guide has been developed for teachers and other school personnel to assist them in welcoming and supporting students, and families who have come from a refugee background. It is designed to: • provide background information about the refugee experience, • offer support strategies and suggestions for teachers and other members of the school community who will be working with these children and youth and their families, and • provide information about resources that teachers and other school and district personnel may find helpful as they prepare for the arrival of new students and families – and for their ongoing support (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 7). Excerpt 3.2: This guide is for educators with a focus on three goals: • to provide background information about those with refugee experience. • to support all school staff in their work with children and youth with refugee experience. • to offer strategies for teachers working with children and youth with refugee experience and their families (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 2). When discussing the roles of members of the school community, especially teachers and support staff, the authority to define these roles is accentuated by the suppression of the Ministry of Education from whom the guide emanates. Moreover, with the referencing of “experts” like publications by the National Center for PTSD (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 11, 2022, p. 18) and Dr. Andrade (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, pp. 10, 12, 14, 2022, pp. 18, 29), the impetus for expressing this authority in the different contexts they are 107 expressed is reinforced. Although these experts are not nominated in ways seen in previous documents, it serves similar purposes. Of course, there is a benefit to referring to experts in issues that require some form of expertise, especially since the recommendations provided directly correlate with the experts’ opinions. It remains the case that these pronouncements are authoritative and represented as sacrosanct with the authority stemming from the views of experts. And as such, the language directly addressing the teachers is less definite as to what needs to be done and is presented more as a suggestion, a guide rather than a hard and fast rule. In all these cases, the authority of the ministry is clear and visible in the nomination, titulation, collectivization, and the suppressed yet activated37 representation of the actor which according to van Leeuwen “blocks access to detailed knowledge of a practice… or represent them as something not to be further examined or contested” (1995, p. 41). To illustrate, nuanced questions and conversations about the suitability of adopting approaches that have developed out of specific expert opinions may be hindered when the authority of the Ministry and the opinion of the experts is represented as something not to be further examined of contested. Creating Identities: Refugees and Other Categories of Newcomers According to van Leeuwen, one way that actors are identified or represented is by grouping them with other actors with whom they share certain features (1995, p. 50). This allows a look into the portrayal of specific actors based on the individuals they are associated with or dissociated from as well as the activities they are represented as undertaking. These features may not be apparent but could be derived by careful analysis and contextualization. Therefore, I anchor the analysis that follows on the section immediately preceding this, as well as the authority and perpetual 37Activation according to van Leeuwen is the representation of an actor as the active, dynamic force in an activity as opposed to passivation in which actors are represented as undergoing an or as beneficiaries of it. 108 activation of the ministry doubling also as the author. I shall discuss the formation of refugee categories and identities as distinguishable from those of newcomers in general. From my position, the newcomer as described in the Manitoba policy is not restricted to immigrants or refugees per se. Although refugees are described as newcomers, not all newcomers as represented in the Building Hope document have moved to Canada from foreign countries. The associations made between refugees and other groups paint a different picture and have severe implications for its purposes. In excerpt 1.5, students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds are grouped and categorised as a growing portion of Manitoba. In this example, the authors create an association between students from immigrant backgrounds on one hand and students from refugee backgrounds on the other as separate groups of newcomers although with the common function of contributing to the growth of Manitoba. This representation is quite curious considering that refugees are immigrants who have left their home countries under tough and dangerous circumstances. There is a clear attempt to dissociate immigrants who could have voluntarily moved from refugees who must satisfy certain criteria that prove forced movement. I suspect that this dissociation arises out of the particular lived experiences of refugees that immigrants who do not satisfy the 1951 convention definition of refugees might not have had (The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951). Excerpt 1.5: Students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds are an important and increasingly growing portion of the learners present in Manitoba’s schools (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 5). The premise of this supposition is the representation of children from refugee and war-affected backgrounds shown in excerpt 1.6. Written in a context describing the decision behind the choice of a storytelling method, excerpt 1.6 is an instance where students of refugee and war-affected 109 backgrounds are categorised as being from Africa and other war or conflict-torn areas of the world. This is not to suggest that there are no African immigrants who are not of refugee backgrounds, however, there are implications for representing refugees in this way. First, there is the subtle genericization of the countries of Africa by referring to them simply as Africa even though the authors reference at least 7 African countries throughout the text. Secondly, there is the nomination of Africa as compared to other ‘war-affected countries’ from unstated continents thus bringing a level of specificity to the refugee population. Together, it ultimately grants the entire continent of Africa the characteristic of being a war-torn area of the world along with other areas not specified, in other words, excluded. This of course is demonstrably false. In fact, many asylum seekers have had their refugee claims denied (particularly in countries of the global North) because merely being a citizen of a so-called war-affected area does not mean there is a well-founded fear of persecution or extreme violations of human rights.38 They must demonstrate that the entire country is unsafe or that they are unable to avail of their state’s protection, and in some cases that they had not bypassed a safe country to seek refuge in their country. This, in addition to the fact that despite the geographical proximity to theatres of war, students with a refugee background may have not experienced war and have varying experiences of displacement (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 8), a case can be made that war and conflict are not the only common feature Africa shares. Excerpt 1.6: Many of the students are new Canadians of refugee and war-affected backgrounds from Africa and other various war- or conflict-torn areas of the world. There is also a strong First Nations presence in the school as well as students from 38 Case law of countries in the global west including Europe, Canada and the USA have shown that asylum seekers have been made to prove well-founded by showing that the circumstances under which they have moved directly impacts them. This approach to the refugee determination process has birthed arrangements like the Safe Third Country Agreements, First Safe Country principle and other inter-government agreements that limit asylum access in some cases. See Bhuiyan (2013) and Lülf (2016, 2019). 110 diverse cultural backgrounds (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 10). Further to this point, in excerpt 1.6, there is a mention of a strong First Nations presence in the schools although with no mention of the percentage of First Nation students compared to others. To be clear, this comment was describing a similar instance where storytelling had been utilized in one of Manitoba’s high schools as a means to “break down barriers of misunderstanding and stereotypes” (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 10). At first glance, there is the obviously erroneous reference to First Nations students in the schools simply as First Nations, and an overdetermination of the roles of students in schools as if to imply that the students represent every First Nations community. In this scenario also, ‘First Nations’ is activated by a postmodifying process noun – presence, thereby granting them agentive roles in their school attendance. Again, I find it curious that the only observed association between children with refugee and war-affected backgrounds, and the First Nations community is within the context of agentive school attendance. In the same example, there is a connection made between ‘new’ Canadians, First Nations, and students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The choice to associate First Nations and students from diverse cultural backgrounds with ‘new’ Canadian students, in this case, could imply that First Nations students and students from other cultural backgrounds are new, or at least were new at some point in the past. Thus, my perspective about this representation of refugees and other associated actors is that perhaps newcomers are not simply immigrants but anyone new to the dominant Canadian culture. Their shared feature arguably is ‘newness’ which is very problematic, particularly in the instance of First Nation students. Members of the First Nations communities are not new to Canada. In fact, their presence in the entity now known as Canada predates colonialism and the dispossession of the Indigenous communities of their lands. Thus, associating First Nations students with new 111 Canadians and migrants as seen in the excerpt being described buttresses my point about the newness not being an issue of geographical presence, but rather of culture in Manitoba at least. Ontario’s representation of refugee identities is manifold, layered, and requires careful unpacking. There is frequent reference made to trauma and the negative experiences endured by refugees. In some instances, these experiences and trauma are what differentiate refugees from other categories of actors with similar functions and features. Excerpt 2.6 shows one of these instances where ‘many’ refugees are represented as sharing the experience of violent conflict (similar to the portrayal of refugees as being from war-affected backgrounds in Manitoba), loss of home and country, and interruption of education. In this example, the refugees are collectivised to reflect that these experiences are common for refugees. Similarly, refugees are represented as a distinct group of English learners suggesting that all refugees are prima facie English language learners as excerpt 2.7 shows. Excerpt 2.6: Many refugee students have experienced violent conflict, loss of home and country and the interruption of their education (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). Excerpt 2.7: Among the thousands of English language learners who attend Ontario schools, there is one group of students who bring both very specific challenges and very special gifts. These are students who, with their families, have fled war, conflict, and environmental catastrophe and arrive in Ontario as refugees (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). Excerpt 2.8: With each new world crisis and wave of refugees, they [Ontario Educators] have been called upon to adapt their practice (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). 112 Perhaps a more subtle yet problematic representation of refugees is in excerpt 2.8 where the world crisis is associated with the ‘wave’ of refugees resettled or seeking resettlement in Ontario. Again, this representation and the specific metaphoric referencing of refugees as a wave (perhaps signifying large numbers) paints a picture of an emergency, a threat, or danger. While there is indeed a range of issues and unrest around the world that has resulted in incredibly high numbers of forced displacement, most displaced persons reside in countries bordering theirs or are displaced within their own countries (UNHCR, n.d., 2021a; UNHCR Canada, n.d.-b). Considering Canada’s geographic features and the fact that it is mostly a resettlement country, the numbers of refugees accepted are infinitesimal compared to those internally displaced or those displaced in camps in countries close to the source of displacement – a point sufficiently explored in the review of relevant literature. Moreover, when compared to global realities, the idea of a wave of refugees in Canada is inaccurate and verifiably false. Perhaps the idea is that there is a ‘wave’ of refugees subject to available resources in Ontario particularly the educators who have been called upon to adapt their practice. Excerpt 2.9: Each of the learning conditions identified in the Ontario vision for English language learners needs to become a focus of attention for all educators as we seek to develop a whole-school approach for supporting the successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 3). Excerpt 2.10: They aspire to higher education because they view educational credentials as providing them with successful entry into the Canadian labour market and financial stability (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 7). 113 Excerpt 2.11: These are students who, with their families, have fled war, conflict and environmental catastrophe and arrive in Ontario as refugees (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). Another observation about the representation of refugees is that in many instances, they are represented as passive agents of a mostly suppressed or backgrounded activated actor. That is, they either undergo or are beneficiaries of the activities of the Authority. Excerpt 2.9 shows such an instance. In this example, students with refugee backgrounds are the subject of the process of successful integration. Representation in this form is quite common in the text, particularly regarding the actionable parts of each framework of responsive practice where instructions on the education programs for students from refugee backgrounds are rendered. This of course is not to imply that children with refugee backgrounds are only passivated throughout the text. There are several instances where refugees are represented as active participants in certain activities. For example, the activation of children with refugee backgrounds in excerpt 2.10 is in the instance of aspiration for higher education. Another example of activation relates to the activity of fleeing war and conflict and their arrival in Ontario as excerpt 2.11 shows. Although these instances do not reveal any pattern per se, it lends credence to my observation that refugees are represented not as agents concerning their educational future but as the beneficiaries or subjects of the action of the ministry of education. Excerpt 2.12: By promoting first language use at home and in the classroom, we both enable newcomer students to engage in tasks that involve thinking and problem-solving and demonstrate our recognition of the value they bring to school as bilingual and sometimes multilingual speakers (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 5). Excerpt 2.13: Educators should anticipate that teaching and learning can be 114 different for English language learners with limited prior schooling as they require modelling and lots of repetition (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 6). Furthermore, refugee identities are formed by associating with certain actors or groups of actors. In the Ontario document, there are clear associations between several groups of actors including students from a refugee background, children with limited prior schooling, and English language learners as excerpt 2.7 shows. However, this association is not quite straightforward. Here, refugees are represented as a sub-group of Ontario students who are English Language Learners, and within this same context, are referred to as newcomers. Perhaps not as a distinct group as excerpt 2.7 shows, but such references are made in other instances that would suggest that while refugees are newcomers, not every newcomer has a refugee background. Excerpt 2.12 written in the context of encouraging students to invest their identities in learning, for example, shows an instance where newcomer students without any indication that they are refugees or even immigrants, are shown to have a first language other than English. Thus, it appears based on these associations that while newcomers share the characteristic of not being first-language English speakers with refugees, not all newcomers are refugees because there are no indications to that effect. This position is not clarified throughout the text except for the example in excerpt 2.7 addressed earlier. Regardless, every group of actors represented in this text share the common function of being English language learners although with subtle differences. The categories of English language learners as I have observed are differentiated by the lived experiences of the learners. The text is littered with instances where newness is associated with language needs, regardless of lived experiences or individual circumstances - the proposition is that the groups of learners identified are considered to be English language deficient for reasons arising out of their experience and newness to Canada. This, therefore, leads me to believe that being a non-native English speaker (English being the second language) embodies newness and 115 requires additional modelling and lots of repetition (excerpt 2.13) which according to the text needs to be addressed for successful “integration”. In British Columbia on the other hand, the updated version of the document makes a heavy reference to the refugee experience as an anchor to providing support for students with refugee backgrounds and their families despite the updates made in the 2022 version. As seen in various instances, reference to the refugee experience/background was centered when addressing members of the school community on how to address issues around educational programming and support for this student population as is the case in excerpts 3.3 and 3.4. Yet, it remains the case that students from a refugee background are passivated in these activities as the examples in excerpts 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 show. Excerpt 3.3: An understanding of the refugee experience of children and youth, awareness of cultural differences, and appreciation of their individual strengths and needs will help receiving school communities create for them, a positive first impression of school in British Columbia, and will encourage their learning progress and success in their new life (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 7) Excerpt 3.4: Educator awareness and understanding of the backgrounds and needs of children and youth with refugee experience, as well as the individual strengths and cultural differences of these students, are important factors in student progress and success (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 2). Excerpt 3.5: Schools can smooth the adjustment process by providing responsive services and programs for these students (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 18). Excerpt 3.6: School personnel can help by carefully monitoring students’ social, emotional, and cognitive development (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 116 2022, p. 20). Excerpt 3.7: If there is concern about a student’s emotional wellbeing, the school counsellor or the school-based team will be able to provide advice about supports services that are available to help students who have experienced trauma (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 11). Furthermore, students from refugee backgrounds themselves are represented as a group of newcomers associated with immigrants by their newness to Canada and the Canadian culture, and distinguishable by their transition experience. They are said to have transitioned from being a newcomer to new normalcy in a new country and new culture. This differentiation is even more blatant in the 2022 version with the tabulation of the differences between immigrants and refugees in very similar terms as the earlier iteration (excerpts 3.8, 3.9, and 3.10). The table in excerpt 3.10 is directly drawn from the 2022 update and especially accentuates the juxtaposition of both experiences and as such, refugees are distinguishable from immigrants by their level of preparedness and by the experience of trauma associated with sudden, forced migration. These differences especially as it translates to policy implementation. Thus, the response in this guide is predicated on the substance of these differences and it is for reasons of these differences that they are the subjects of the actions of the authority and reinforced by the utterances of the experts who are quoted throughout the text. While these differences are explicit, the extent to which they impact the content of the program specifically as it applies to refugees (if at all) considering that the English language programs are available to immigrants in general is not apparent. For instance, even though there is a recognition of the differences in the educational experiences of refugees and immigrants as the second row of the table in excerpt 3.10 shows, no part of the policy refers to any procedural distinctions for assigning students with refugee backgrounds to English language programs which do not also apply to immigrants. Moreover, the cultural 117 preparedness of refugees versus immigrants as well as the development of an awareness of “their new country and its culture” crystalizes the idea that there is indeed a dominant yet elusive Canadian culture despite the notion of a multi-cultural Canada. Besides, considering that the centrality of culture is quite noticeable, the absence of support and training to respond and adapt to the challenges associated with the convergence of different cultures in the classroom is equally noticeable not only in the province of British Columbia but in the two other provinces. Excerpt 3.8: The information presented in the following pages provides some general observations of the differences between immigrant and refugee transition experiences, offers insight into potential psychological effects for individuals who have experienced violence, and describes how escape from conflict and a subsequent refugee experience impacts their transition, from a life of instability and uncertainty to a life of new normalcy in a new country and new culture (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 8). Excerpt 3.9: Because they had to escape from their home in a hurry – fleeing conflict or persecution – their personal business in their home country will likely have been left unsettled. If they are of school age or were studying at a post-secondary level prior to fleeing, their education may have been interrupted due to strife in their home country or may have been disrupted or postponed during a lengthy waiting period in a refugee camp before opportunity to resettle in a new country became possible (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 9). Excerpt 3.10: Immigrants Refugees Personal business is taken care of before leaving home country. Personal business in the home country is left unsettled after leaving in a hurry. 118 Education usually continues uninterrupted Education may be interrupted or postponed due to strife in home country or a wait in a refugee camp. Time to prepare for the transition allows for development of an awareness of their new country and its culture Sudden transition to a new culture/country creates difficulties, confusion, or uncertainty. Sense of loss and trauma is not necessarily present. Sense of loss and trauma may be profound; losses may include family members or personal property and may have psychological impacts Returning home is a personal choice. Returning home is not an option unless the crisis situation has stabilized or ended. Families are often intact, including parents and children, or other family members who are also caregivers. Children may be without parents, or even family guardians. Arrangements likely have been made for basic requirements, such as food, housing, and medical and dental care. Basic requirements, such as food, housing, and immediate medical and dental care, may be urgently needed. (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 6) The patterns of representation have remained constant across both iterations of the British Columbia documents although, depending on the issues being discussed, certain representations are more blatant than others. There is of course the differentiation of students with refugee backgrounds from immigrants specifically or newcomers in general, with the implication that there are differences between newcomers and immigrants. Taken from what is described as the 119 starting point for student learning, the differentiation as seen in excerpt 3.11 is of significance. It shows that the idea behind newness is such that requires the help of students and school personnel to help bring them (those considered to be new) towards becoming accustomed to the Canadian cultural conventions. The differentiation here is between the students who are new to the “cultural conventions associated with schooling in Canada” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24) and those that are aware of and ‘practice’ this culture. The choice of the use of the term ‘new students/classmates’ opens this representation to a range of questions. For example, do all new students have refugee backgrounds, or is it perhaps a term for immigrants in general? Another question is whether there are features that differentiate the students and school personnel who lend a helping hand to the new members of the school society, and what those features are. I surmise that the state of being new relates to newness to the culture in Canadian schools and the larger Canadian society (as is the case in the two other provinces of interest). And so regardless of immigration status or mode of migration, a student would be considered new as long as it is their first experience in Canadian schools. My submission implies that those who help the newcomers become accustomed to the Canadian schooling culture are differentiable by their understanding and practice of the Canadian schooling culture. Taken from a similar context as that of excerpt 3.11, the updates contained in the 2022 version as shown in excerpt 3.12 makes similar distinctions although in more subtle terms. It begins with an implicit differentiation between students from another culture and the suppressed students of the Canadian culture – the differentiating feature being that one group has specific learning needs directly related to their cultural experiences, values, and attitudes while the other does not. Hence, the cultural experience of the ‘other’ is scrutinized in other to assess their learning needs and to perhaps help them make the necessary transition to the acceptable Canadian cultural 120 standard. Excerpt 3.11: School personnel and students can help their new students/classmates understand and become accustomed to these cultural conventions – they may serve as a practical starting point for student learning (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24). Excerpt 3.12: Teachers, students, and families all bring their beliefs, expectations, and practices to the education process. When the process involves a student from another cultural background, it may be important to explore the student’s cultural experiences, values, and attitudes in order to effectively assess the student’s learning needs (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 20) Speaking of needs and experiences, students with refugee backgrounds are also associated with students whose unique personal experiences present special needs which then require special sets of action with the goal of integration. In excerpt 3.13 quoted from the 2015 version and in the context of the provision of support and learning services, the groups associated with such special needs are not named, and neither are factors that indicate their shared characteristics besides the fact that they are not a part of the regular classroom setting. However, through specialized support and services, their goal for integration and becoming a part of the regular classroom setting may be achieved. Similarly, excerpt 3.14 makes no such association between students from refugee backgrounds and students with unique personal experiences but acknowledges that suitable services and programs will help both groups benefit from the school system. Except there have been amendments to the school programs and services mentioned in the 2015 version, it is safe to say that the current iteration of the document retains the tacit association of students with refugee backgrounds with students whose personal experiences warrant being outside regular classroom settings for the first year or two – in other to assist with fright and the difficulty associated with adjusting to a new way of life in addition to learning English/French 121 language. Although there is little to no guidance on a different pedagogical approach or training resources for teachers and staff that accounts for the peculiarity of the refugee experience besides those specifically addressing the issue of trauma. Excerpt 3.13: Students from refugee backgrounds have many needs that are similar to all children and youth and have some special needs that are unique to their personal experiences. Coming to a new country and adjusting to a new way of life can be difficult and frightening… In providing specialized supports and services for students from refugee backgrounds, it is important to remember that the goal for the majority of these students is integration into a regular classroom setting (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 28). Excerpt 3.14: While learning the English/French language is essential, children and youth with refugee experience have additional needs that may impact their ability to benefit from our school system. Coming to a new country and adjusting to a new way of life can be difficult and frightening… The first year or two are very important. Schools can smoothen the adjustment process by providing suitable services and programs (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 9). Finally, there is heavy mention of the importance of the English language at various stages of refugee resettlement the implications of which will be subsequently discussed. However, understanding the issues and the context in which they are mentioned paves the way for such conversation. Here, I talk about the centering of the English language throughout the enumerated four stages of adjustment. It is in this context of adjustment that excerpts 3.15 and 3.16 are drawn. Students with refugee backgrounds who are resettled to Canada are all said to demonstrate traits including fascination, curiosity, optimism, unmistakable foreignness, anxiety, culture shock, the feeling of strangeness, difficulty sitting still, and inexplicable, or erratic behavior among others. Aside from the obvious genericization of these traits as being attributable to all students from refugee backgrounds which clearly overlooks individual experiences and 122 traits, there is an attempt to associate a successful adjustment process with language proficiency. As excerpts 3.15 and 3.16 show, a lack of English language proficiency is attributable to the struggles of integration, and by implication that successful integration is preceded by language proficiency. This point is evidenced by the traits attributable to the latter/closing phases of adjustment where a measured successful adjustment is described in terms such as “proficiency in conversational English and disengagement from English as a second language class” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 17, 2022, p. 16). While both excerpts (3.15 and 3.16) are drawn from the 2015 version, the same form of relationship between language proficiency is observed in the 2022 version. An instance of this is seen in excerpt 3.17 although language proficiency in this instance extends to proficiency in the French language which I believe serves the purpose of embracing the bilingualism of Canada even though the province of British Columbia is predominantly English speaking. Excerpt 3.15: During the early stages of settlement and adjustment it might be that the student does not yet have adequate English vocabulary. It may also simply be that they are engaged in an internal process of translating that which is being said to them – from English to their home language for understanding and to formulate a response, and then translating their response back to English before speaking/reacting (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 15). Excerpt 3.16: Newcomers to Canadian culture and school typically go through a period of adjustment during resettlement. Having experienced the trauma of leaving their homeland, and likely coping with a limited ability to understand or speak English they may, upon arrival in Canada, feel a sense of dislocation that may cause them to appear withdrawn, fatigued, or uninterested (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 15) Excerpt 3.17: Working toward the goal of providing specialized and additional 123 services to students with refugee experience, keep in mind that the majority will eventually integrate into grade-level classes. When integrated, they will follow the prescribed curriculum of the Ministry of Education, and they will be expected to perform to the same standards as their English/French-speaking peers (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 10). In all three instances, the ministries have taken different approaches to the issue of refugee education but have arrived at fundamentally similar conclusions regarding the identity of students with refugee experiences and how their educational support is formulated. Firstly, that newness in the sense that it is employed in these documents is not restricted to immigrants including refugees, but that refugees are distinguishable from other categories of newcomers based on their lived experience of forced migration. Secondly, that the impetus for newness as it applies to all newcomers is a matter of culture, not immigration status. However, there remains the question of whether the so-called cultural differences are indeed a result of experiences peculiar to refugees or whether they are more akin to their countries of origin since the adaptation is towards the culture of Canada. Unfortunately, there is no clear description of what culture entails within the text which I believe is problematic considering the centrality of the concept of culture. Culture is mentioned in all three of the texts as a point of difference between Newcomers and Canadians, thereby implicating the existence of a dominant Canadian culture to which Newcomers must aspire. This is done while also recognising the goal of integration on the platform of multiculturalism which the Parliament of Canada describes as ideologically “consisting [sic] of the relatively coherent set of ideas and ideals pertaining to the celebration of Canada's cultural diversity” (Brosseau & Dewing, 2018, p. 1). Perhaps culture is not defined because the idea of ‘a dominant culture’ might be counterintuitive in a so-called multicultural society. If the coherent ideas and ideals quoted in Brosseau and Dewing are what makes the 124 Canadian culture, those ideals, and ideas remain vague besides the grounding of the English/French language. Furthermore, the creation of the newcomer identity raises an important question when viewed through a decolonial lens; what does the construction of the refugee identity in terms such as ‘newcomer’ mean for the Indigenous land sovereignty? By constructing refugees as newcomers to Canadian culture as is the case in excerpt 3.16, it can be argued that it imposes a colonial viewing of the legitimacy of the Canadian entity (including sovereignty) and reinforces the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their land. This, and the terming of Canada as a multicultural society encourages social division by intensifying misunderstanding and hostility; can be regressive as it fails to combat social inequality; and is inadequate for unpacking the conflicting claims of individuals and minority groups (Schick & St. Denis, 2005; St. Denis, 2011). Some of these issues are visible in the administration of the Canadian society and present themselves in ways such as the equation of Indigenous people with other minority, settler (immigrant) groups. Moreso, the non-utilization of the decolonial lens that recognizes Indigenous land ownership and the complicity of ethnic minorities/settlers (migrants) themselves in the continued dispossession of Indigenous lands implicates this category. If not addressed and if a decolonial mindset is not adopted, these issues will ultimately result in the perpetuation of the colonization of Indigenous lands by both colonial authorities and settlers alike. This can be seen in excerpt 3.16 in the erasure of Indigenous voices in the determination of Canadian culture, and the reinforcement of the authority of the colonizers to determine these things. Moreover, on a separate yet similar level, the term newcomer allows a conceptualization of settlers as innocent parties in the dispossession of Indigenous lands by colonial powers (Tuck et al., 2014). Again, this conceptualization is problematic because it does not consider the ways in which settlers may 125 have contributed to the past and ongoing colonization of Indigenous lands (St. Denis, 2011). Integration Through Language and Culture Building on the foundation laid by uncovering the latent forms of representation present in all three of the documents so far, and bearing in mind also the theoretical framing of this thesis; this section engages in such conversation regarding the refugee experience and its implications for the education future of children with a refugee background. I must mention at the onset of this discussion that, although the approach to refugee education policy in the instance of each of these provinces is markedly different, they share more similarities than differences and have practically arrived at the same conclusion regarding an ideal education program. These similarities, particularly those relating to the ministries’ approaches to the experiences of students with these backgrounds show that the refugee experience is a point of departure for all issues discussed; issues such as the psychological effects of the refugee experience, the trauma associated with being forcibly displaced and adjusting to a new normal, the resilient nature of these students, the culture they bring among other things. Moreover, the conversation about the proposed educational support for refugees is anchored around English language programs in all three of the provinces. Based on the contents of the texts it appears that the English language programs are arguably the extent of educational support offered to students from a refugee background. There are of course other forms of support offered which ranges from mental health assistance to settlement and housing services, the texts make no correlation between these forms of assistance and the educational support offered to students with refugee backgrounds. Therefore, discussions in this section will address issues surrounding the refugee experience and the role of English language programs in the educational futures of students with refugee backgrounds. With all these in mind, I will now shift the conversation to the education program 126 being introduced by Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning in this context and then subsequently shift to other provinces. I had earlier described my perception of the Building Hope document as a creation of the Manitoba Ministry of Education to consolidate what had already been done without necessarily making any recommendations on what works and what does not despite this being stated as one of the purposes of the document. Instead, the authors interviewed the participants and asked them questions39 about specific education programs, in addition to stating their experiences before Canada, since arriving in Canada, and their plans for the future. I should mention also, as the introductory statement in Excerpt 1.7 shows, that the creation of this document is based, in some ways, on an action plan that intends to improve the nature and quality of education programs for learners from English as a second language and immigrant background while recognizing that children from refugee and war-affected background needed greater attention. Excerpt 1.7: In 2005, Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning developed and released an action plan that was intended to improve the nature and quality of educational programs and supports for learners from English as a second language and immigrant backgrounds. An important part of this action plan was the recognition that learners from refugee and war-affected backgrounds, in particular, needed greater attention and would benefit from the development of appropriate programming and supports and access to these (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 5). The association of students from English as a second language background with immigrant students, as it appears in excerpt 1.7, raises questions; questions surrounding the difficulty in determining whether there are any other shared characteristics between learners from English as 39 See Interview question at (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, pp. 118–120) 127 a second language and immigrant background besides sharing in the benefit of improved education programs and supports. I do not assume this association; although, I reckon that the English as an Additional Language (EAL) program (see Excerpt 1.8) could perhaps be the program for which improvements are beneficial. If my reckoning is accurate, students with English as second language backgrounds are newcomers also. Excerpt 1.8: All the narratives stress the importance of receiving EAL programming and supports for newcomers (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 8). The role of the EAL program is very difficult to grasp in this document. Not once was the acronym outlined in full, and neither was its relevance to the conversation on refugee narratives discussed. I did notice, however, that the EAL program was heavily referenced throughout the text, particularly in participants’ narratives. As Excerpt 1.9 shows, there is a presented view of EAL as an extremely beneficial program that should be provided for a longer length of time. The aggregation of this opinion is crucial. Circling back to the point made relating to excerpt 1.2 about the benefit of collecting, documenting, and presenting the experience of students with refugee backgrounds, there is the representation of a commonly held belief that the narratives presented here reveal the need of children with refugee backgrounds and their families. Therefore, if the need of refugees as stated by the majority of the participants is an extended time length of the EAL program (see excerpt 1.9), the next logical step would be that the release of this document is followed by the provision of the EAL program for extended lengths of time. However, I do not know whether that is the case and it is beyond the scope of this thesis to determine. Regardless, I strongly believe that the EAL program should be reviewed further40. 40 The data gathering interviews by the authors of the Manitoba policy sought information that reinforces the supposed immense value of the EAL programs in helping students learn and adjust to schooling in Canada 128 Excerpt 1.9: All but one participant recommended that EAL supports, and accommodations be provided for a longer length of time, because many found the transition to non-EAL classrooms challenging, disruptive, and difficult (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 8). Excerpt 1.10: The integration and improvement of educational programming for newcomer children and youth from refugee and war-affected backgrounds is one of the priorities of Manitoba’s growth strategy and a key aspect of the province’s future and collective well-being (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 5). This aside, my larger point about the EAL program is that in the introductory remarks, the authors mentioned that the integration and improvement of educational programming for newcomers is a key aspect of Manitoba’s growth, and the province’s future and collective well-being (see excerpt 1.10). It thus appears, that education and specifically the EAL program not only serves the purpose of helping to improve the English language proficiency of students in the program but that is also utilized as a catalyst for the growth of the province. The program is shown to be compulsory for all newcomers including refugees – practically a rite of passage for newcomers or induction into the province of Manitoba's growth and how they can contribute to it. I strongly recommended a broader look at the EAL program beyond aspects specifically referencing refugees (if it exists at all). Finally, on the front of deficit thinking and pathologizing practices, there is serious attention paid to refugee lived experience, however, I have not observed an example of any representation in which there is an attempt at assimilating refugees based on these features. Although, it does appear that the onus to change is placed exclusively at the feet of students with refugee backgrounds and other categories of newcomers, and there (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 120), and consequently prescribes EAL programs for anyone new to Manitoba. This considered, it appears that there is vested interest in assigning the EAL program as the primary source of support for students with refugee background as well as other students that share the feature of newness. Hence, my submission that the program should be analysed for intent and praxis. 129 seems to be no mention of areas of improvement for the schools. For instance, there is no mention of aspects of the dominant Canadian culture that might not benefit students with these backgrounds, nor are there any suggestion as to whether there is resistance to the enrolment of students with refugee background in the schools or whether there are any racial incidences in the classroom. While the reason for the omission is unknown,41 it speaks to a perception of perfection on the path of the school district, and the notion that only the newcomers are deficient; all of which culminates in the unquestioned reproduction of settler colonialism in Canada. If instances of pathologizing practices exist, I argue that it does with regard to the fact of being new. In other words, newcomers may be ‘othered’. The observation about the othered newcomer is because there is no instance of reference to children from refugee and war-affected backgrounds as Canadians. The reference is reserved only for students who are, Canadian-born, currently enrolled in a Manitoba school program, or has spent “at least two years in a Manitoba school program” (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 7) as the interview participant requirements show. Hence, as firmly stated by authority, for the newcomer to become a Canadian, an English as an Additional Language program is a necessary step. The strong reliance on the English language program for educational support for students with refugee backgrounds is not unique to Manitoba as is abundantly clear until this point, however, in the Ontario policy document, the reference is more blatant as a means to the end of “integration”. At first glance, the Supporting Students with Refugee Backgrounds document appears to be a document crafted for English language learners. In fact, the document opens with an extract from a separate practical guide document for educators on English language learning 41I should mention that at least one of the interview participants in the Manitoba document reported experiencing racist remarks and actions in the school(Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 55), issue of racism was not addressed any further in other parts of the Manitoba or any of the other provinces. 130 for non-native speakers (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). There are several other instances in this text where explicit reference is made to English language learning in relation to the refugee experience without a clear connection between both. The closest justification offered for this connection is that they (students with refugee backgrounds and their families) are from various other countries but have perspectives and experiences that are believed to be valuable. As a consequence of the inherent value of these experiences and perspectives, the creators of the document insist that the integration of students from refugee backgrounds into the school community is desirable. Indeed, this document was created to integrate newcomers into a new community. Integration as a concept can be broad, and subjective and have different connotations depending on the context and how it is achieved. Any interpretation of this concept that is not adequately contextualised within the bounds of the document will offer a meaning that is perhaps outside the interpretation intended by the authors. Thus, the contextual interpretation of integration shows that the lived experience of children with a refugee background is a central issue and that it is through the Ontario Ministry of Education’s English language programs that integration may be attained or at least begins. Drawing from excerpt 2.14, there is an unclear relationship between the successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds and the Ontario Vision for English language learners’ programs. Even though the context in which excerpt 2.14 was written introduces and describes the framework for responsive practice, there are no indications as to how success is measured or how English language programs support the integration of students with refugee backgrounds. Like the nomination of experts seen in excerpts 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6, the genericization of the ministry’s policy for English Learners as ‘Ontario’s policy’ in excerpt 2.15, there may be an attempt to represent the idea of a few as the 131 province-wide and collectively held ideal, thus excusing further questions that may arise, and by so doing reemphasizing the point of the existence of authority. Excerpt 2.14: Each of the learning conditions identified in the Ontario vision for English language learners needs to become a focus of attention for all educators as we seek to develop a whole-school approach for supporting the successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 3). Excerpt 2.15: Ontario’s policy for English language learners, released in 2007, identifies the academic and social integration of students with limited literacy skills as a key priority (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 2). Excerpt 2.16: Jan Stewart (2011) elaborates that classroom educators need to become aware of three transitional periods that can impact on student learning outcomes: • pre-migration: their life experience in their place of birth • trans-migration: their life experience in the time between leaving their home community and their immigration to Canada. • post-migration: their life experience as they adjust and integrate into their new school and community. All three periods impact on the adjustment of students to their new situation, their learning and their integration into the new community (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 2). Further, on the invocation of expert opinions, the extract in excerpt 2.16 captures an authoritative view of the refugee experience and its import. It appears that although there is a deep consideration for the refugee experience as well as a matter-of-fact approach to the trauma associated with such experiences as excerpt 2.4 and other parts of the text which include segments dedicated to discussing issues of trauma shows, the proposed support is set in 132 alignment with the steps highlighted in the frameworks provided in the document (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 1). All six of these frameworks, in the words of the writers, are tailored towards helping students with refugee backgrounds and their parents attain their hopes for resettling to Canada. It is worthy of note also, that although these frameworks address various issues – including creating a welcoming environment for students with refugee backgrounds, ensuring students are developing academic English hand in hand with the curriculum, encouraging students to invest in their identity, ensuring students confidently express their opinions, and helping students realize their hope and aspirations – they (the frameworks) are all interpreted through the lens of integration via the English language programs. Excerpt 2.17: Refugee families arrive in Ontario with hopes and aspirations for a better future. In many cases, their lives have been turned upside down, family members have been left behind, property and livelihoods have disappeared. Refugee students are under tremendous pressure to achieve in their new communities. They aspire to higher education because they view educational credentials as providing them with successful entry into the Canadian labour market and financial stability (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 7). All things considered, it appears that all the actions proposed through these frameworks are designed with the aspirations of the students and their families in mind which, according to excerpt 2.17 is higher education and entry into the Canadian labour market. While this is good on the surface, there are two clear interconnected issues to this assumption that should be highlighted. First, while it is tacitly agreed that refugees may have a very different experience, although the majority is represented as having diverse experiences at one phase of their lives or another, there seems to be a contradiction of this reference by implying that they all have identical hope and aspiration. This translates to the second point which is the genericization of the hopes and aspirations of refugee families. As excerpt 2.17 shows, there is an attempt to offer 133 a view of consensus among refugee families that entry into the Canadian labour market is indeed the aspiration. This does not consider the individual, their family, and their cultural priorities that may suggest varied aspirations and goals for their future. This is not to suggest that refugee families do not have the aspiration of higher education, entry into the Canadian labour market, or financial stability. My submission is that there may be issues that are more important to families than these, especially when considered in terms of their pre-migration lived experience and their ways of life. I do not claim to know what those aspirations are, I am however stating that it is an overstatement to suggest that all refugees have the same goals and aspirations especially when it is agreed that they all have different experiences that could impact their outlook on life as well as the goals they choose to set for themselves. Perhaps, the goal(s) identified here are actually the General’s idea. In the same manner as the others, the policy out of British Columbia highly references the English language as a means to an end (although a different one than in other instances). Attaining model Canadian studentship appears to be a major yet unstated aim of the document. It is unstated because while there is clear evidence that the idea of a Canadian studentship is desirable and worth pursuing, it is not plainly stated as an intended function of the document. In previous sections of this chapter, I mentioned a perceived differentiation between newcomers and students familiar with the culture of the British Columbian schools. It follows from this observation, therefore, that the categorisation of refugees as newcomers is based on differences in culture. One such categorisations is visible in excerpt 3.18 where behaviour expectations of newcomers and refugees by extension are discussed as a cultural issue. It portrays newcomers as students whose cultural inclination and derived proclivities require fine-tuning to align with the British Columbian model of studentship. In the same vein, excerpt 3.19 adds another layer of 134 cultural unfamiliarity to newcomers characterised by limited or interrupted schooling experience resulting from their need to flee conflict. Excerpt 3.19 appears to be a failed attempt at clarifying what newness signifies by describing cultural unfamiliarity as a function of limited or interrupted schooling without making any clear distinctions or stating how these two issues overlap. This is especially problematic considering that the excerpt was drawn from a context discussing the “starting point of student learning” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24). Excerpt 3.18: Many of the behaviour expectations held for students in British Columbia schools are universal – and therefore may already be familiar to newcomers. For some students from refugee backgrounds, their very survival during their recent experience may well have depended upon or sharpened, these behaviours. Some expectations may however be unfamiliar or culturally different from behaviour expectations in their former homeland (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 21). Excerpt 3.19: Some children and youth may have had little formal schooling in their homeland or during their refugee experience, or had their formal education interrupted by their need to flee conflict. These students may be unfamiliar with some cultural conventions associated with schooling in Canada (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24). Building upon this unstable foundation, the document proceeds to establish an approach to supporting students with refugee backgrounds by describing the role of the other students who are familiar with the culture in British Columbia schools. Before going further, I should mention that there is an interchanged description of the schooling culture as that of British Columbia on one hand and of Canada on the other. There is no clear differentiation between both which may suggest that the culture in British Columbia is transferrable or perhaps identical to those practiced in other provinces considering that education ministries do not operate at the national 135 level in Canada except for on-reserve Indigenous education as mentioned in earlier chapters of this work. This may explain the decision to mention the French language programs as part of British Columbia’s strategy for newcomers even though the province is predominantly English-speaking42(Province of British Columbia, n.d.). Nonetheless, it is described as a social responsibility for students familiar with the dominant or acceptable culture to help bring their new colleagues up to speed. It is in this same context that excerpts 3.20 to 3.22 are written. Students who are familiar with the culture are shown as having the responsibility to teach their new colleagues socially responsible behaviours which are detailed in excerpts 3.21 and 3.22. By modeling students in this way, school personnel can help newcomers make the transition from newness to becoming a part of the Canadian or British Columbian schooling culture. Although the quote in excerpt 3.20 does not make an explicit pronouncement regarding the need to amend behaviour expectations of new students based on culture; the mention of culture in the first place raises this question. The extract quoted in excerpt 3.23 bridges the gap between culture and social responsibility. Taking from the context described as the starting point for student learning, the extract in 3.24 enumerates the areas where students can “support their new classmates’ recovery” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24) and explicitly states that the validity of these changes is derived from cultural conventions in the schools. Excerpt 3.20: The arrival of newcomers from other countries and other cultures can provide many opportunities for students in the receiving school to learn about cultural differences, and to model for their new school/classmates the kinds of socially responsible behaviours expected of students in British Columbia schools (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 21). 42 The official website of the province of British Columbia acknowledges that: “English is the main language of communication in British Columbia. Strong English skills can improve your chances of finding a good job and becoming financially established in B.C.”(Province of British Columbia, n.d.) 136 Excerpt 3:21: Students learn to reflect on their actions, respond appropriately to others, manage their emotions, recognize and control impulsive behaviour, and resolve conflict peacefully (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 22). Excerpt 3.22: Students learn and practice kindness, respect, and compassion for others in their actions, speech, and ways of thinking; and gain an understanding of what it means to be a ‘good friend/partner/citizen’ (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 22). Excerpt 3.23: School personnel and students can help their new students/classmates understand and become accustomed to these cultural conventions they may serve as a practical starting point for student learning. Examples: • using bathroom facilities • opening and closing doors • waiting in line • waiting one’s turn • speaking one person at a time • sitting still • staying in one room or indoors for long periods of time • staying inside the school for long periods of time • understanding common non-verbal cues • recognizing the letters of the alphabet (in English or any language) • recognizing that information in English is oriented from left to right, top to bottom • holding a writing instrument • using a notebook • copying passages from an original source, e.g., whiteboard, textbook • using technology, e.g., cell phones and computers, tablets (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 24). Excerpt 3.24: Ultimately, it is anticipated that most students will perform to the same standard as is expected of all British Columbia students once they become familiar 137 with the English language and Canadian culture (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 28). Excerpt 3.25: Working toward the goal of providing specialized and additional services to students with refugee experience, keep in mind that the majority will eventually integrate into grade-level classes. When integrated, they will follow the prescribed curriculum of the Ministry of Education, and they will be expected to perform to the same standards as their English/French-speaking peers (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 10). While all these excerpts have so far been drawn from the 2015 version of this guide, it bears fundamental similarity to the 2022 version on these issues, i.e., issues of culture and the educational expectation for students with refugee backgrounds. There however appears to be a move away from an explicit mention of culture when discussing required adjustments for students from refugee backgrounds. For example, while enumerating the practical points for student learning as seen in excerpt 3.23, the description of these same points avoids the mention of culture although it states that they are examples of ‘conventions’ which children and youth with refugee experience may be unfamiliar with and would require the help of school staff and mentor students to understand and become accustomed to (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022, p. 12). To buttress this point, excerpts 3.24 and 3.25 – from the 2022 and 2015 versions respectively – indicate that it is only once students from refugee backgrounds become accustomed to the Canadian culture and have become proficient in English or French language will they achieve success in school and adjust to life in a new country. Thus, it can be said that the goal of successful integration of students with refugee backgrounds is achievable through English language proficiency as is the case in the instance of the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario. 138 Regardless of the rationale for, and the extent of cultural adaptation, the ultimate goal is to become integrated as evidenced by the assessed final stage of adjustment being ‘The Home Stage’ which is characterized by integration, that is, a stage where “students and their families realize they are here to stay” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 17, 2022, p. 16) or perhaps the stage where they are now differentiable from newcomers. Summary The series of representations uncovered so far through the analysis of this thesis can be summarised thus; 1. Across all three provinces, students with refugee experiences are distinguished from other categories of newcomers and immigrants by their peculiar experiences stemming from forced displacement. 2. The Ministries of Education are represented as the authority on the educational programming needs of students with refugee backgrounds, the validity of which is derived from expert opinions in Ontario and British Columbia, and modified student narratives in Manitoba. 3. English language programs appear to be the focal point of refugee education program support which has the aim of integration and getting them accustomed to Canadian cultural conventions. The expression of authority and how the students with refugee experiences are subjected to or are beneficiaries of the ministries should be clear at this point. The larger issue, which I believe requires clarification, is the tacitly stated goal of integration. However, before I get on with the much-needed conversation around integration, I will briefly recap the forms of representations uncovered. 139 In the policies addressed, the authority of ministry is executed by the teachers and school district staff to whom these directives and guides have been handed down. As several instances show, the language and mode in which certain actors and activities are represented are quite authoritative. Pointedly, authority is expressed on the strength of expert opinions and the nomination and titulation of actors as was the case in Ontario (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, pp. 2, 3) and British Columbia (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, pp. 10, 12, 14, 2022, pp. 18, 29). In Manitoba, authority was portrayed by the collectivisation of student narratives (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 6). This is not a criticism of the decision to offer guidance or direction in this way. After all, the creators of the documents are the leaders of all things education in these provinces and are responsible for the policy and execution of education programs. Despite all these, the point remains that this structure is reflected in the mode in which the documents are handed down and that the staff members to whom they are addressed are expected to execute them without resistance. Going by the implications of the nomination and collectivisation of actors as explained by van Leeuwen where it is stated that experts are represented as such in order “to imbue them with impersonal authority and a sense of consensus among experts” (van Leeuwen, 1995, p. 69), it is plausible that the nomination and/or collectivisation of actors seeks to represent their utterances as authoritative and unquestionable. There is another layer to the issue of authoritative voices which is worth exploring. Authority in this instance is shown by steering classroom teachers, English language teachers, and school district staff members toward the implementation of already established program and protocols without any pedagogical support or guidance. Consequently, I surmise that the directives explored in this thesis reinforce the rationale behind the creation and utility of such programs. 140 The programs I speak of are English language programs in all their varieties. I should mention that even though the rationale for inclusion in English as a second language and other similar programs is unknown, the discretion and agency of teachers and other district staff cannot be ruled out. If this is the case, relying strictly on textual analysis is not all-encompassing. The criteria for inclusion and how this translates to practice will be a great point of departure. Moreover, for reasons already explored in the analysis phase, the English language programs appear to be strongly linked with the goal of integration. In the cases of British Columbia and Ontario, English and French language programs are represented as the custodian of Canada’s culture, while in the province of Manitoba, the entire document is premised on gauging the effectiveness of English as an Additional Language (EAL) program and its impact on adapting newcomers to the dominant culture. In all three provinces, English language programs are the starting point for students from refugee backgrounds and are others that are deemed to be new in Canada. All newcomers are expected to go through these programs before transitioning to what is termed as ‘regular’ classrooms. It is clear, based on the texts that English language programs offer much more than English language support. When considered simultaneously with the differentiation between the cultures of newcomers and the Canadian culture, as well as the stated goal to integrate students with refugee backgrounds, I suspect that the English/French language programs as constituted in K-12 schools may serve other functions besides helping new students learn the common languages of English or French is quite plausible. The goal to adapt newcomers to Canadian society through English language support programs is called to question especially when I consider that Canada prides itself on being a multicultural society (Multiculturalism Act, 2014; Satzewich & Liodakis, 2010). In other words, the fact of Canada being a multicultural society is questionable if there is a dominant culture to which 141 newcomers must subscribe if they are to be considered Canadian. According to the texts, this process of adaptation is termed integration. The concept of “integration” is not as straightforward as it appears to be in these policies. Described as a “treacherous concept” (Banton, 2001, p. 151), integration is quite difficult to define. It is difficult to define because it has an abstract meaning that is malleable, thereby making it suitable for any policy project particularly post-migration policies in Western societies (Goksel, 2018). However, despite the variety of ways in which the term has been used, it still connotes “social cohesion, the unification of a diverse population through the construction of a common identity, and structuring a common ground of institutions and services for the civic engagement of diverse communities” (Goksel, 2018, p. 4). According to Goksel (2018), immigration policy strategies for integration have congregated around the debate between two opposing ideas; assimilation and multiculturalism. Considering that Canada is a self-described multicultural society, it could be determined with fair accuracy that integration is geared towards respecting and tolerating the ethnocultural identities of immigrants. However, I believe that multiculturalism in Canada within the context of this work is merely a demographic reality because while on one hand, there is the push for integration, there is an even stronger push for the adoption of the English and French languages, as well as the adoption of the dominant Canadian; in other words, discarding differences that are deemed to fall outside the mainstream society. Of course, the Canadian culture is not defined in the text as the such definition will be metaphorical since this idea is to eliminate the concept of a single culture. However, I reckon that this is a political game of semantics in which according to Li (2003), Canada can be regarded as tolerant of ethnic and cultural diversity on one hand while also endorsing a conformity model on the other. My conclusion is that integration as it appears in all three of 142 these documents remains abstract and intolerant to cultural specificities deemed to be outside the mainstream. 143 Chapter 6: Conclusion Deficit Thinking and Pathologizing Practices as it Impacts Students with Refugee Background One of the aims of this thesis is to reveal the modalities of discourses that might emerge as it relates to the construction of the practices concerned with the lived experiences of students with refugee backgrounds bearing in mind the difference in cross-provincial, social, and educational contexts. The foregoing analysis has revealed that not much difference exists across the provinces whose policies have been assessed for possible pathologizing practices via the instances of the representation of social actors. They have core similarities that are fundamental to the performance of the contents of these documents, that is, the aim to successfully integrate students from refugee backgrounds and their families through English language programs. The key term here is integration – integration for the goal of growth as a “key aspect of the province’s future and collective well-being” (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015, p. 5); integration of students from refugee backgrounds in the school community to provide an opportunity for them to pursue “higher education because they view educational credentials as providing them with a successful entry into the Canadian labour market and financial stability” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 7); or integration in other for students with refugee backgrounds to “perform to the same standard as is expected of all British Columbia students” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015, p. 28). The appeal for integration that is observed in these texts is consistent with established literature on the topic of resettlement. I had narrated through the review of literature that applicants for resettlement must show a potential to become self-sufficient and to successfully integrate into Canadian society in a relatively short period (McNally, 2020). Although subjected to heavy 144 criticism, it is not a surprise that educational policies are consistent with refugee protection policies that operate in a fashion indistinguishable from immigration policies and are essentially economic and designed to consolidate the country’s labour needs (Labman, 2010; McNally, 2020). I should reiterate a point made earlier in this thesis that the circumstances surrounding the forced displacement of students with refugee experiences and their families as well as the fact that they now must be settled in a different society and culture requires a response that promotes acceptance, respect, and inclusivity. However, these have not proven to excuse the binary between those on the outside who are brought in and included on one side of the divide, and those already on the inside on the other (Portelli & Koneeny, 2018). Thus, to the extent that the refugee experience is negatively considered in the grand scheme of integration enactments, instances of deficit thinking models are discussed with due care. I will address these in the context of the outcome of the discourse analysis conducted here, and against the background of key features and contemporary manifestation of deficit thinking models. From the onset and perhaps for reasons of the nature of the policies themselves, there is an establishment of authority and an observable order of hierarchy in which the various ministries of education occupy the top tier, and their agents – teachers and school district staff members – are a cadre directly beneath the ministries, and students with refugee backgrounds occupy the bottom tier of this structure. The hierarchy reflects a structure where there is an authoritative flavour to directives and guidance handed to the staff members in the capacity of an agent of the ministries who are expected to execute the content of the directive and one in which the students with refugee backgrounds are the subjects or beneficiaries of the actions of the ministries’ authority performed by teachers and staff. After all, they are based on so-called expert opinions, and in the modified student narrative – the extent of which is unknown. 145 Furthermore, considering Valencia’s(1997, 2010) position that alleged deficits among children and families are viewed as differences, it follows that the issue of differentiation should be addressed. According to Valencia, deficit is based on the discontinuity between students and schools which often lies in the “mismatch between the home culture and the school culture” (Valencia, 2010, p. 3) at the root of which lies a gross genericization and even stereotypical attributes assigned to students with refugee backgrounds. In the texts, there are numerous instances of differentiation not only between students with refugee backgrounds and Canadian students but also a differentiation between refugees and other immigrants who do not share the refugee experience. However, it is the differentiation between Canadians and newcomers that is of relevance to this thesis. This is because the performance of the policy provisions is dependent on the feature of newness, not the refugee experience. To put simply, the deficit model would show in instances where students having similar schooling experiences are judged differently due to the stereotypes associated with aggregated features of newness to the dominant culture. The oppression that might ensue is based on the opposition to newness or the conventions of the ‘other’ culture. And as the texts show, success is gauged in terms of the ability of new students to perform to a standard comparable to that of Canadian students, be integrated to the end of provincial growth and collective well-being, and for successful entry into the Canadian labor market (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015; 2022; Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning, 2015; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016). Therefore, new students are expected to aspire to and adopt the standards of the dominant class all of which are based authoritatively on expert opinions. This, again, lends itself to the issue of silence I mentioned in spots throughout the analysis. First, the ministries have remained silent or refrained from clarifying what culture is in the context of a 146 Canadian school, neither have they defined what the dominant culture or what the “coherent set of ideas and ideals pertaining to the celebration of Canada's cultural diversity” are (Brosseau & Dewing, 2018, p. 1). Secondly, the schools are portrayed as a perfect environment for students with refugee backgrounds and all other categories of newcomers by remaining silent on the possible shortcomings of the schools. By so doing, the ministries have forcefully avoided self-reflection and the possible actions that would have been warranted; actions including the provision of training for staff on the different pedagogical approaches to teaching a culturally diverse classroom or ways to navigate the complexities of racial relationships and tensions that might arise as a result. Thus, the responsibility of change is placed squarely at the feet of the “newcomers”. Moreover, the ministries are in complete control of the narratives published, and by extension, the efficacy of the resulting directives and guide which is dependent on the validity of the expert opinions and modified narratives. Thus, the understanding of the refugee experience and their needs is a promotion of the understanding of the authority figures. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that by the expression of the authority of the ministry not in what was said, but in what was omitted, deficit models could be present. As Portelli and Koneeny (2018) posit, it is necessary to consider the shifting context of the discourse. This thesis questions whether the lived experiences of students with refugee backgrounds have been pathologized. However, I strongly believe there are traces of deficit thinking models across three provincial documents but for reasons of newness to the dominant Canadian culture – not the refugee experience. The refugee experiences simply served the purpose of establishing similarities between students with refugee experiences and students not yet adapted to the dominant culture. This is one of the contemporary manifestations of deficit thinking; a model driven by the assertion that future success is dependent on compliance with Canadian culture. 147 When this is considered against the fact that refugees are most times from low-income, historically colonised countries, the desire to make them comply with, and adapt to the new culture may be easier understood. Therefore, also considering Canada’s history as a settler colonial authority, it is plausible that these policies are tainted with instances of deficit thinking based on refugee countries of origin – their ancestry – and are represented by the different ethnic, languages, and religious groups of unequal status with the British and French at the top and all other groups are at the bottom of what John Porter (1965) terms a “vertical mosaic” which inevitably obscures decolonial and Indigenous approaches to education. Research Implications The study thus far has revealed among other things, the Canadian approach to the education of students with refugee backgrounds, as well as the larger issues surrounding refugee resettlement to Canada. To reiterate, the crux of my thesis queries the educational policies in Canada and their role as a possible durable solution for the global humanitarian crisis that results in displacement. Although, an issue with far-reaching implications, the focus has been on education policies in selected Canadian provinces. However, for the sake of conciseness, I will state the implications of the study for teachers, schools, students, and educational programming for students with refugee backgrounds in Canada. To this point, I believe ministries of education and schools in particular need to re-assess their role as cultural custodians within a so-called multicultural society. As this thesis has shown, the idea of Canada being a multicultural society is severely called into question based on the discovery of seemingly compulsory English language programs. It is not clear whether there are other requirements for assessing the language programs besides the fact of newness since is not stated in any of the texts. Moreover, the genericization of students with refugee backgrounds in 148 the text would prove detrimental if clear requirements are not established. I suggest that it is not enough that a person has a refugee background for them to be enrolled in such language programs. In light of these also, teachers and other support staff working with students and having first-hand experience with their needs should contribute more to the creation of these programs and the development of the curriculum. In other words, their input should be sought with genuine interest rather than a high-handed approach that appears to be detached from the needs of individuals but instead plays a role in an overall immigration/economic agenda. Indeed, one of the provinces (Manitoba) reports a long history of welcoming and supporting students with refugee backgrounds, the suggestions still revolve around language proficiency in a way that suggests that it is a foregone conclusion that language is indeed the bedrock of refugee student support. This approach shows that the Ministries of Education are in total control of the narrative and by implication, what is considered valuable. On a grander scheme, and against the backdrop of the reality of the severe humanitarian emergencies that result in forced displacement, an overall rethink of the resettlement system is due. This is because based on the outcomes of this research, it is clearly stated in two of the provinces and implied in the other that becoming a part of the Canadian workforce is the goal of every immigrant who has come to Canada. Of course, I disagree with this submission and I have sufficiently provided reasons why this might not be the case. It is not farfetched to determine that refugees who have been resettled to Canada have other ambitions besides being a part of the workforce. And so, the resettlement should not funnel individuals with refugee backgrounds toward these ends, and especially children. Similarly, the education system should not be utilized for that purpose. 149 Closing Remarks and Opportunities for Further Research One of the main criticisms against Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodology is that it lacks rigor. Put simply, the extent to which my positionality influences the research outcomes as well as the forms and implications of the representation observed could make my findings unreliable. Fairclough’s (1995) counter to this criticism is for a researcher to properly delineate their position in relation to the research; an obligation which I have fulfilled. Regardless, it could still be said that the conclusions I draw from the analysis of these documents are consistent with already establish frameworks of this project which is that an Indigenous approach to peace education would be beneficial to alleviating the problems of protracted displacement. And for this reason, any school program or approach to education that does not engage Indigenous ways of knowing beyond a tokenistic level is a perpetuation of the historical and contemporary practices that have systematically undermined and erased the presence and validity of Indigenous ways of knowing (Smith & Smith, 2019). I maintain that Indigenous ways of knowing and other non-Eurocentric peace education would indeed be beneficial; however, my arguments are not adversarial, and neither does it aim to pit one side against the other regarding a more useful or appropriate approach – after all, I have benefited from western education. I surmise as a Yoruba man who has benefitted from a Eurocentric schooling experience that an actual recognition of a non-western/non-European approach to peace education would positively impact protracted refugee situations by forming the basis of post-conflict reconstruction in addition to the benefit afforded Western education opportunities rather than integration and English and French proficiency as the end goal. Because Canada is described as a multicultural society; a position widely critiqued by Indigenous scholars (discussed in the analysis (5) chapter), there should be more emphasis on Indigenous approaches beyond the surface level, colonialist tokenisation 150 which erases and trivialises Indigenous sovereignty and ownership rights, and which is lacking in all three provinces. Otherwise, there will be a reproduction of “national histories that imagine Canada as a socially just and successful multicultural state” (St. Denis, 2011, p. 310). Despite my biases, one point remains factual based on the contents of the analyzed texts, and that is, multiculturalism in Canada exists on a platform of a dominant culture where English and French are at the top of the societal structure. Moreover, even though integration seems to be the aim of all three approaches to refugee education, it appears that the “newcomer” groups are either required to aspire to certain cultural conventions and standards, or they are integrated to meet the provincial goal of growth and the goal of becoming a part of the labour force – all of which are attainable through English or French language programs. Thus, I do not see a truly inclusive society, at least not one in which there are no dominant cultures. There are also no honest, recognised, and concrete actions on the side of the Canadian government that address the historic and ongoing colonization being perpetuated across the school systems and the society at large which in turn embodies the suppression of Indigenous ways of knowing earlier mentioned. Conclusively, there are two limitations to the outcomes presented in this thesis – both of which equally translate to opportunities for further research. The first limitation is that while the textual analysis reveals various types of representations and relationships between social actors within the text, the same outcomes do not necessarily translate to practice. Similarly, because the documents across all three provinces make grand references to their English/French language programs, the true picture of refugee support cannot be known without an analysis of the language programs, particularly to the extent that it strictly addresses refugees since these programs are not exclusive to students with refugee backgrounds. Therefore, I deem it necessary for subsequent research to query the translation of observed textual relationships to practice, 151 including an analysis of all English or French language programs across various provinces. Finally, a critical macro-level analysis of multiculturalism vis-à-vis the goal of integration in Canada would be of great benefit in revealing the existing power structures of the Canadian multicultural society, the power imbalances therein, as well as the detailed features of the dominant culture. 152 References Abdi, A. A. (Ed.). (2015). Decolonizing global citizenship education. Sense Publishers. 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Educational Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Mazawi, André Elias
Pathologizing experiences : a discourse analysis of education policies of K-12 students from refugee backgrounds in Canada
Text