Jan Stewart. Supporting Refugee Children: Strategies for Educators

Jan Stewart. Supporting Refugee Children: Strategies for Educators. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. 348 pp. Annotated bibliography. References. Index. $34.95 sc. 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 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. …

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