Midterm Activities Report -- Metropolis
Project
CERIS TorontoBack to Table of Midterm Activities Report Contents
Major Research Initiative (MRI) Projects
1. New Canadian Children and Youth Study
(NCCYS) - Pilot Project
2. Accomodating Diversity: Toronto at the
Millennium (AD)
1. New Canadian Children and Youth Study
(NCCYS) - Pilot Project
Research team (lead researcher, partners):
Morton Beiser, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of
Medicine, University of Toronto & Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Clarke
Division.
Jacqueline Oxman-Martinez, The Centre for Applied Family
Studies, School of Social Work,McGill University
Linda Ogilvie, Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta
Frank Trovato, Department of Sociology, University of
Alberta
Chuck Humphrey, Data Library, University of Alberta
David Este, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary
Elizabeth Lynn, Chinese Information and Community Services
Jagama Gobena, Ethiopian Association in Toronto
Rajko Scat, Family Service Association of Metropolitan
Toronto
Start date: January 1999
Projected date of completion: March 2000
Amount awarded from CERIS: $20,000 from CERIS MRI
Amount awarded from other sources of funding: $20,000
from Health Canada
Abstract:
The experience of adapting to a new society poses
challenges to immigrant and refugee children. Examples of such challenges include
establishing identities, experience of discrimination, integration into the school system,
or access to health care system. These challenges may create health and mental health
risks, on the one hand, and opportunity on the other. Neglect of the needs of immigrant
and refugee children amplifies health and mental health risks. Appropriate response to
their unique needs will help immigrant children realize their potential. The aim of the
NCCYS pilot project is to address the needs of immigrant and refugee children during the
resettlement process. The key research question for the NCCYS is: What are the health and
mental health needs of immigrant and refugee children and youth in order to achieve health
physical and mental development? Objectives and proposed methods include: (1) to design
and test the feasibility of recruiting samples in a variety of immigrant and refugee
communities in Toronto, (2) to develop partnerships with community, ethnospecific and
multicultural groups with an interest in pursuing this study, (3) to adapt the National
Longitudinal Survey of Children (NLSC) instruments, develop new sections relevant for the
immigrant and refugee experience, translate and pretest documents, and (4) to collect
pilot data on health and mental health in at least two new settler communities. Aside from
the topic's intrinsic importance and its potential to ultimately attract large-scale
funding, the project will also address the gap of much needed research on the needs of
immigrant children and youth. Through collaboration with different ethno-specific
communities and among Metropolis centres, findings from this study will ultimately serve
to provide support for evidence-based policy decisions in the area of immigration and
settlement.
Outcomes/results anticipated:
Anticipated results and outcomes:
(1) A culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate
survey instrument will be developed for the NCCYS.
(2) This instrument will be pilot tested in the Ethiopian,
Hong Kong Chinese, and Former Yugoslavian immigrant communities.
(3) Data from immigrant and refugee children will be
collected from three age cohorts: 4-5 year olds; 8-9 year olds; and 12-13 year olds.
Contribution to training and/or professional
development:
Contribution to training/professional development:
The NCCYS project coordinator, Angela Shik, who is
completing her doctoral thesis on the experience of loneliness among immigrant youth from
Hong Kong, is trained to coordinate and conduct community-based, policy-directed
immigration research. Through her coordination work, she has gathered information on the
health needs of immigrant and refugee children and youth from community agencies and also
from researchers in academia.
Angela Shik, NCCYS Project Coordinator
Role: helping to write grant proposals; adapting and
developing the questionnaires; initiating and maintaining contacts with the community,
ethnospecific and multicultural groups; hiring and coordinating the activities of
personnel involved in data collection; operating computerized databases and managing the
administrative aspects of the study.
Monika Curyk, NCCYS Community Researcher, Polish Immigrant
and Community Services (PICS)
Role: initiating and maintaining contacts with community,
ethno-specific and multicultural groups; conducting literature searches on computerized
databases; preparation of literature review on the health status of immigrant and refugee
children and youth.
Policy implications of work:
Findings from this study will provide support for
evidence-based policy decisions in the area of immigration and settlement.
2. Accommodating Diversity: Toronto at
the Millennium (AD)
Research team (lead researcher, partners):
Michael Lanphier, Department of Sociology, York
University
Paul Anisef, Department of Sociology, York University
Barbara Burnaby, Modern Language Centre, Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Robert A. Murdie, Department of Geography, York University
Myer Siemiatycki, Department of Politics & School of
Public Administration, Ryerson Polytechnic University
John Shields, Department of Politics & School of Public
Administration, Ryerson Polytechnic University
Samuel Noh, Department of Psychiatry, University of
Toronto, & Culture, Community & Health Studies Section, Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health, Clarke Division
Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture, and Recreation
Start date: July 1998
Projected date of completion: November 1999
Amount awarded from CERIS: Initial start-up grant
from CERIS was $20,000.00. In addition, CERIS has agreed to allow Domain Leaders to apply
their domain research funds for AD research, should they choose to do so. Other funding
sources are in development.
Amount awarded from other sources of funding: In-kind
funding from the provincial Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation (in the form
of access to database and similar sources, with the assistance of ministry personnel) has
been estimated as a sum of $7,500.00.
Abstract:
The AD project will frame the accommodation of
diversity in the multicultural metropolis of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), through the
optic of immigration and settlement. The research for this project is a multi-disciplinary
collaboration among researchers who offer convergent perspectives on the dynamics of the
civic culture of Toronto as a metropolis. This work will draw upon past research that has
been conducted by academics, governmental planning offices and community agencies. Within
this frame, the researchers will address the reciprocal impact of successive waves of
immigration from diverse origins since 1960 on the development of Toronto as a metropolis
and correspondingly, the effects of metropolis as a social form on the collective lives of
those newly arrived and their descendants. This social portrait will be composed of
institutional analysis and evidence from community agencies of the development and change
in their orientations as a result of increase and change in settlement patterns throughout
the GTA.
Outcomes/results anticipated:
The AD project is designed to produce a series of
research monographs destined for the interested public and written in language accessible
to that audience. The first volume in the series, tentatively titled, Accommodating
Diversity: Toronto at the Millennium, will set the stage and provide a provocative
overview of developments in the GTA in each of the domain areas (economy, housing and
neighbourhoods, education, community and health) encompassed by CERIS. In part, this
overview will identify important gaps in both research knowledge and policy considerations
as they pertain to these areas. This identification will then form the basis for
subsequent monographs in the series.
Contribution to training and/or professional
development:
The AD project will provide graduate students with
training opportunities in the areas of annotation of research studies; data analysis of
Census public use sample tapes; and library search techniques. It is also envisioned that
future research monographs will provide graduate students with the opportunity to develop
skills in interviewing and policy analysis of documents.
To date, one graduate student has been employed to review
CERIS research centre holdings and to prepare an annotated bibliography in particular of
community needs assessment type documents in the collection. Employment of other student
researchers for the various domain chapters is anticipated and is at the discretion of
chapter authors.
Policy implications of work:
As noted, the volume now in preparation is organised
according to CERIS research domain chapters and within each chapter authors will attempt
to flag those research and policy questions which have not been addressed and which will
loom as important in the next decade or so. One implicit question is: What are the
existing research gaps? Questions concerning structural discrimination by gender, for
example, might be signalled. A second analogous question also will be addressed: What are
the existing policy gaps.
Thus, each chapter should provide readers not only with a
synthetic analysis of available research in a given domain but also identify major
settlement issues and the models employed to accommodate diversity in response to those
issues. Finally, each domain chapter will identify those gaps in knowledge that
researchers, social service organisations, and policy makers currently face and will
continue to encounter as we move into the millennium. |
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