Ghanaian and Somali Immigrants in Toronto's Rental Market: A Comparative Cultural Perspective of Housing Issues and Coping Strategies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Starting from the premise that "culture" has generally been overlooked in the analysis of immigrant housing in Canada, this study examines the housing experiences of Ghanaian and Somali immigrants in Toronto, by exploring the instrumentality of these immigrants' cultures in the complex dynamics of the city's rental market. The study relies on a mixed-methods approach, entailing a questionnaire survey and qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions for the procurement of data. Among other things, we found that Ghanaian and Somali immigrants in Toronto face many housing challenges, some of which are purely economic, while others concern matters such as racial discrimination; a dearth of culturally sensitive housing information; and acute shortages of houses designed to accommodate their large families and some of their cultural needs—including the need for gendered spaces, prayer rooms, and cooking traditional meals at home. The study is significant not only because it deals with a disadvantaged group (i.e., Black Africans in Canada), but also because it brings culture into the discussion of immigrant housing in Canada to modulate the economic reductionism in the prevailing literature. Partant du principe que «la culture» a généralement été négligée dans l'analyse du logement des immigrants au Canada, cette étude examine les expériences de logement des immigrants ghanéens et somaliens à Toronto, en explorant l'influence des cultures de ces immigrants dans la dynamique complexe du marché locatif de la ville. L'étude repose sur une approche de méthodes mixtes, notamment un questionnaire, des entretiens qualitatifs et des discussions de groupe pour l'acquisition de données. Entre autres choses, nous avons constaté que les immigrants ghanéens et somaliens à Toronto font face à de nombreux défis en matière de logement, dont certains sont purement économiques, tandis que d'autres concernent des questions telles que la discrimination raciale; une pénurie d'information sur le logement adapté à la culture, et de graves pénuries de maisons conçues pour accueillir leurs familles ainsi que certains de leurs besoins culturels, y compris le besoin d'espaces sexués, des salles de prière, et la cuisson des repas traditionnels à la maison. L'étude est importante non seulement parce qu'elle traite d'un groupe défavorisé (i.e. Africains noirs au Canada), mais aussi parce qu'elle inclut la culture dans la discussion sur le logement des immigrants au Canada pour moduler le réductionnisme économique qui prévaut dans la littérature.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".