Opportunities And Possibilities: School Board/University Partnership As A Means Of Enhancing The Educational Esperiences Of Immigrant And Refugee Students

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1. SYNOPSIS

This study explored with selected students from a racially and ethnically diverse area their perspectives of a university path program, one initiative of a university-school partnership. Students indicated that, for them, the program takes on concrete and personal dimensions as they move from high school to a university in the same neighbourhood. While the rhetoric of "partnership" is significant for the institutions involved, for students the naming of the partnership is incidental to the supportive relationships they have with the people involved. In addition, advanced placement work at the university while students are in high school and the secondment of faculty from the school board -- including the school most of the university-bound students attend -- blur distinctions between the school and the university. Finally, most striking in the interviews are the students’ desires to contribute to the community supporting them, one which at this moment in their education, they associate with their families, the school they attended, and the university which is, at least geographically, within community boundaries.

2. BRIEF OVERVIEW

In 1997, a project which proposed investigating the University Path Program, in particular student perceptions of its role in their decisions to attend York University, was funded by the Toronto Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement. We began with the following major questions:

Ø How effective have these intervention strategies been in raising the educational and occupational aspirations and expectations of immigrant and refugee students and parents?

Ø How effective has the university path intervention program been in supporting immigrant and refugee students in overcoming barriers to education, thus enabling them to realize their educational aspirations?

Ø What else might be done, or what might be done differently, to enable these students to achieve the educational and occupational goals?

Extensive and systematic research has been conducted in the Westview family of schools since the inception of the partnership with the university (e.g. Handscombe & Milne 1997). The data from these studies helped us to shape this work including constructing the interview questions and identifying focal groups for interviews. In regular meetings, the research team discussed the research as it unfolded, including technical issues arising in connection with data collection and the generation of an analytic framework. Framing the questions, interviewing, literature review and initial analysis were also discussed. Twelve students were interviewed, transcripts prepared and the research process continually refined by the research team, Drs. Carl James and Celia Haig-Brown and research assistant, Bronwen Low.

Between May 1997 and February 1998, the focus was on analysis of the transcripts; earlier meetings included other faculty involved in the partnership. Researchers kept "jot notes" based on the developing analyses of the various dimensions of the project. The principal researchers constructed the final paper based on documents, interview transcripts, and an initial analysis of the interviews which Bronwen wrote. In addition, the researchers spent time reviewing existing research reports and other documents pertaining to the university path program. A literature review of immigrant students’ educational and occupational aspirations and achievements and university/school board partnership was constructed by Carl and Bronwen. The study also provided Bronwen with an opportunity to obtain data for assignments in a qualitative research course with Celia. Carl provided strong guidance for the research as he has been working in the area for a number of years; this is Celia’s second year with the partnership; and Bronwen’s first involvement was with this project.

Interviews with students were initiated by seeking volunteers from those groups whose progress the partnership is tracking. Students were contacted by telephone and then given time to decide if they wanted to participate in an interview. We made an effort to speak to students who were doing well as well as those who were having some difficulty with course work. Follow-up telephone interviews allowed us to clarify and expand on some aspects of the initial interviews, particularly the notion of community which was frequently mentioned. With one exception whose permission was secured during the study, students in their graduating year of high school had agreed to participate in on-going research with the partnership by signing informed consent letters.

Our primary aim was to examine the university path program as one dimension of the partnership addressing students’ low educational participation and outcomes. We expected to ascertain the extent to which a number of immigrant and refugee students see this Board/University partnership as effective in addressing their complex educational needs. As the study took shape, the initial questions became less of the focus: instead we sought to understand the students’ perceptions of the partnership’s initiatives. Hence, in interviews, we tried to understand what the notion of partnership meant to the students and how the various intervention practices and programs worked to help them in their educational performance, their post-secondary aspirations and outcomes, and the conditions which enabled them to successfully adapt and acculturate to the university context.

A few examples of students’ comments give the flavour of the study’s results. Rebecca cites her advanced placement course as one of the main reasons she chose to attend York University:

York had the programs that I wanted and I had already been exposed to teachers at York like Leslie Sanders, because I had taken a course with her....It was great, it was really good, and I actually, I was like, if this is what university is about, then I can handle this...I remember that that was the first time I had read Toni Morrison, Sula, so it was like wow. This was good: if this is what university is about, it wasn’t like I perceived it to be, which was a lot of meaningless hard work, you know what I mean?

When asked why the school selected her for the course, Rebecca refers to her connection to community:

One reason I have because I’ve always been involved with the community, and I’ve always, since I was twelve years old, I’ve always been doing something at the community centre, and like when they spoke to me on that individual level they found out that stuff, and they helped me to further my dreams, to better help my community, and so forth, and I think, too, they truly believed that I would be someone to come back and help the community, not just go off and just forget where I came from, which is something I’ve always stressed.

Nguyen’s words on the topic of community indebtedness show the strong connection he sees to his post secondary education. Although his parents had first wanted him to go into business, where it might be "easier to get jobs...and probably make more money", he is less concerned with making money, or having a prestigious job–although teaching still is to his parents–than with "paying back":

Nguyen: But also, I’m thankful to be here, so I’m paying, well it’s not really paying back, but I want to return my dues, so if I’m not going into teaching, I’m probably going to go into some service field...it’s very silly but it’s deep rooted in me that I’m thankful to be here.....So this is why business is not for me...I think you’re in business for yourself...not the community or the country, whatever.

While talking about the help she received from the partnership co-ordinator, Rebecca acknowledges that she did not make the connection to the partnership:

I always get extra help from him no matter what, but I never really linked that to being something to the program [partnership]. I just linked it with being his individual choice, you know what I mean? So I didn’t realise there was any benefits out of being part of the partnership, but if there are let me know.

The partnership co-ordinator, a teacher at Westview High School who had been seconded for a three year term to the Faculty of Education at York University, was identified by many of the students as providing them with much needed support.

The interviews and reviewing the literature then were the major foci of the research.

DETAILS OF RESEARCH RESULTS

In reviewing the literature on partnerships between school boards and universities, it became clear that little attention has been paid to the perspectives of the students involved in them. The interviews provided these perspectives first hand and the basis for an analysis with major implications for policy makers. The research demonstrated that the word "partnership" was not one with much currency for the students involved. Rather than impose the initial agenda of assessing effects specific to partnership initiatives, we shaped the study to ask for and listen to their understandings of the reasons for their paths to the university. Advanced credit courses, high school teachers’ encouragement, as well as that of seconded faculty at the university, and an overwhelming desire somehow to "give back" to the community were the dimensions of the study which stood out in the analysis of the interviews. The connection of these to the partnership was not one of relevance to the students.

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

1. Carl James and Celia Haig-Brown. 1998. "Returning the Dues": Community and the Personal in a School-University Partnership. Paper presented to the Nineteenth Annual Ethnography in Education Forum. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. March.

2. Carl James and Celia Haig-Brown. (Under revision for publication). "Returning the Dues": Community and the Personal in a School-University Partnership.

3. The revised paper will also apppear as a book chapter in a planned publication based on various research papers from the Westview Partnership.

DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES

These activities incorporate the CERIS study as one dimension of the deepening analysis of the on-going work of the York University-North York School Board Partnership.

1. Carl James. June 1997. Presentation of the study to a special meeting of METROPOLIS project. Canadian Society for Studies in Education. St. John’s, Newfoundland.

2. Celia Haig-Brown. October 1997. "University/Community Research: A Quest for Partnerships". A seminar for the Tri-Ed Course Council, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

3. Carl James. March 9, 1998. Presentation to the Westview Centennial Faculty and the Westview Project Committee on the results of the study.

4. Carl James. August 21, 1998. Board/University Partnership: Meeting the Educational Needs and Aspirations of Immigrant Students in a Toronto School Board. Presented to faculty members of the Department of Teacher Training Department, University of Upsala, Sweden.

OVERVIEW OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLICY DEVELOPMENT

The study has particular significance to the development of school board and teacher education policies and programs as those involved seek to understand the issues of teaching in racially and ethnically diverse working class areas of this city. Policies related to streaming and assisting students in planning for postsecondary education are addressed within the students’ comments. While there is clearly a need for people and programs to assist the students in planning and navigating programs, there is also a need for sensitive approaches which minimize others’ tendencies to label negatively anyone who makes use of such supports.

The study reveals a call for closer links between schools and universities. The implications for policy makers and for those who see value in the development and maintenance of such university path partnerships are significant. While it was important to create such opportunities as Advanced Credit courses and to allow for some continuity through secondments into the Faculty, these initiatives were not enough in and of themselves. If their value is to be recognized in the form of continued support from those who benefit from them and community commitment, it seems important to name the initiative and to ensure that students see the connections as contributing to -- although not determining -- their initial access and subsequent success. Then as they move back to their communities to "re-pay their dues", there is the possibility that they will attribute at least part of their success to the partnership and speak as citizens to its persisting importance. At the same time, it seems important to hear their concerns about possible labelling and their desires not to be given any special treatment which could detract from their education at the post-secondary level.

Finally, there are implications for teacher education which call for developing teachers’ awareness of and commitment to responding to the needs and aspirations of their students. Their goals of post-secondary education are especially urgent in populations who have been underrepresented in colleges and universities.

NATURE OF RESEARCH COLLABORATION

The community partner for this investigation was the Anti-Racist Multicultural Educators’ Network of Ontario (AMENO). We have been in contact with the leadership of the group and were assigned a member of the group, Hugh McKeown to work with us. He is currently out of the country but we have plans to meet with the group during the fall for further discussions of the study, the findings and possible follow-up. We expect our findings to have major implications for their multicultural and anti-racism training and support for teachers and will seek direction for further work in the area.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED

Graduate assistant, Bronwen Low worked on all aspects of the study. In consultation with the principal researchers, Drs. Carl James and Celia Haig-Brown, she reviewed library materials and assisted in the elaboration and refinement of interview questions. Her main responsibilities were interviewing students, transcribing, and presenting some background of each to the other researchers. Throughout the project, she was included in research team meetings where we discussed the research as it unfolded, including technical issues arising in connection with data collection and the generation of an analytic framework. Framing the questions, interviewing, literature review and initial analysis directed and supported with regular meetings with the other researchers were her opportunities to acquire research skills. When her own research took her out of the country, a second research assistant, Gordon Pon, was hired to work on editing a version of the publication draft.

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