Supporting Refugee Children: Strategies for Educators by Jan Stewart (review)

The United Nations has identified that recent global conflicts have seen 42 million people displaced. Some have made it as refugees or asylum seekers to countries like Canada, the US, the UK and Australia, where the children become part of increasingly diverse school populations. Jan Stewart's book is a timely volume that provides a rich introduction and background to the social, psychological and educational issues played out in many Canadian schools, and, in fact, in highly diverse classrooms around the world. Her view is that schools are largely "failing these children and contributing to their marginalisation in society" (8), a finding that has been echoed in the US, the UK and Australia. The book is divided into two parts, the first addressing theory and research, and the second, "Praxis," which contains plans for lessons to support the social, emotional and psychological well-being of the students. The author's background in counselling permeates the work in this section, and, indeed, the overall approach to the issues around refugee education.

The book incorporates a somewhat complex integration of psychosocial theories, including a "bioecological model," a model of refugee adaptation, and one of "segmented assimilation" (15-16). Data are drawn from a qualitative study of 13 students in Winnipeg, although insights from the author's work in Uganda as director of the University of Winnipeg's Global College Institute for Children Affected by War are also included to provide a picture of the premigration experience. The Winnipeg students were from Afghanistan, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and eight of the 13 had lost one or both parents. The children's stories of violence, suffering and loss are indeed terrible, and it is understandable that they view school and education as a pathway to salvation. Stewart's book, however, does not shirk from the real and confronting challenges they face in Canada, including racism and discrimination, further violence and school failure.

The challenges identified align well with current research literature, although little contemporary research on the effects of disrupted education on learning is cited. The author relies heavily on the students' individual stories to portray the difficulties they face. For example, although EAL programs, and acquiring both "basic communication skills" and "academic language and literacy skills" are identified as key to the students' success at school (80), not even Canada's own Jim Cummins is cited as an essential reference on these issues, and how to address them. There is a considerable and growing body of literature on refugee background students and second language learning, literacy, the importance of academic content language and so on. Stewart focuses on systemic aspects of the EAL courses available, and students' participation in them, but does not explore the role of acquiring the dominant language, English, or how this might best be done. Instead she writes, "there was so much more beyond just reading and writing that needed to be done to support these students" (82-83). This is a common view—cultural issues, all aspects of settlement, emotional adjustment, and social adaptation are all important for these students. Yet one of the world's leading researchers on refugees, Jill Rutter, has long claimed that while a number of agencies help address these needs, what remains as a huge gap is how to teach literacy to these students, and how to build viable and measurable educational outcomes.

The author does, however, highlight the critical role of teachers (good ones) in providing a rock solid base for these students. As several students said to one teacher, "I would have committed suicide if I hadn't known that you two would be really mad at me" (100). The downside is that teachers who work intensively with refugee background students, in the absence of resources and power to effect change, are also liable to experience exhaustion and burnout (183-184). Stewart's ecological theory points to the need for interaction between schools and community organisations, so...