Notes
Community organizations: Multicultural Health Brokers (MCHB)
Future research / gaps identified: n/a
Key populations: Syrian refugee families who now live in Edmonton, AB
Integration timeline: not defined
Key findings:
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The Syrian refugee families have been living through various forms of transitions interlaced with anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and hope.
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When the families send their children to Canadian schools, they are also entering into a new world with their children and working to imagine and live out new stories in Canada.
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Children’s experiences at school are entwined, and in reciprocal relationship, with their family stories.
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Children’s school experiences shape the family’s experiences of social inclusion and their sense of community, belonging, and acceptance and, in doing so, their narrative coherence.
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For the families with whom we talked, they believed the Canadian educational system would help their children learn and equip them with opportunities for the future.
Key recommendations:
Narrative inquiry is a useful method for exploring lived experiences as it creates a relational space for the telling and retelling of stories of experience, a space which allows for the possibility of imagining otherwise as researchers come alongside participants.
