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Society, Culture and Community Research
The School and Labour Market Transitions of African Youth in Canada
On average, immigrants tend to be better educated than non-immigrant Canadians, an outcome that is at least partly due to Canada’s immigrant selection rules in the economic stream, which favour education. It is therefore often taken for granted in policy and academic literature that the adolescent children of immigrants will have a seamless, linear trajectory from high school to postsecondary education and, ultimately, the labour market. Yet some groups of immigrant youth, including Black youth from Continental Africa – especially those with refugee backgrounds – have been found to achieve lower academic standards, study in lower streams, drop out at higher rates, and enter university in lower proportions (Abada, Hou, & Ram, 2008; Anisef et al, 2008; Sweet et al, 2010; TDSB, 2014). This is of critical importance to the lives of African youth as school performance has a significant impact on their choices when entering the labour market.
As African scholars and allies at Wilfrid Laurier University, we anecdotally observed disproportionately high drop out rates among African immigrant youth in our personal and professional lives. Determined to address the issue, in 2015-2017 our research team conducted a SSHRC Insight Development-funded study of the challenges faced by male African immigrant youth when attempting to access the support they need to make informed decisions about postsecondary education (university, college, trades) in Ontario. The study revealed that school-level programs that prepare students for the transition to postsecondary education (PSE) are critical for African immigrant youth whose parents often lack familiarity with the Canadian education systems and labour market. However, we found that the existing supports are inadequate, and often impede racialized African students’ ability to fulfil their postsecondary goals (Wilson-Forsberg et al, 2018; Wilson-Forsberg et al, 2019; Shizha et al, 2020).
This study has since evolved into an interdisciplinary community-engaged national research program housed in the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa.
The specific goals of the research program are as follows:
- To further our understanding of the educational and labour market experiences of African youth with immigrant and refugee backgrounds in Canada;
- To promote the use of participatory and community-engaged research methodologies in age-appropriate and culturally respectful ways with the intention of building youth’s capacities, confidence and reinforcing their agency over decision-making;
- To learn how educational systems can be strengthened to support Black youth;
- To share key research messages with a range of actors in academic, government, and non-governmental sectors.
Social Work Practice in Morocco
Research Lead: A. Elkchirid
Peer Reviewed Articles Under Review
- Elkchirid, (2021) Identity Challenges Facing Moroccan Nomad Communities: Accepting, Resisting or Negotiating the Erosion of Identity. Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Conference Papers
- Rebaa, A. Elkchirid, M. Sayhi, (2021). Social Work in Morocco: From Volunteerism to Professionalism. Conference organised by the Moroccan Association of Social Work. Rabat, September 2021.
- Elkchirid, (2021). Street Children in Morocco: Innocence Facing the Cruelty of Street Life. Conference organised by the Bayti Association. Casablanca, December 2021.
Technical Reports
A. Elkchirid, (2022). Outreach Work with Nomad Communities During COVID. Report developed following a request from the Moroccan Association of Social Work. Rabat, January 2022.
A. Elkchirid, (2022). Leading Social Work Teams in Rural Areas. Report developed following a request from the Moroccan Association of Social Work Executives and Social Experts. February 2022.
Other Research Projects
African youth who arrived in Canada as refugees take longer to complete high school and often do not enter college or university. Their educational trajectories are complicated by many challenges, including war-related trauma and long periods of interrupted schooling. Furthermore, findings from our 2015-2017 SSHRC-funded study of African youth's transition to postsecondary education (PSE) in Ontario suggested that high school career guidance counsellors who are not trained to handle or understand the experiences of refugee youth may underestimate their capabilities and advise them not to pursue secondary education. This multi-site national study is exploring how the school experiences of African refugee youth impact their decision to pursue college and university.
The project's objectives are to:
- identify the resources that are available in Canadian high schools to help African refugee students make informed PSE decisions and determine whether they are able to meet the needs of racialized African refugee students in culturally meaningful ways;
- examine the commonalities between resources in education systems across provinces and to discern whether best practices can be shared amongst the education systems;
- investigate how African refugee youth navigate their way to the resources they need to be able to make informed decisions about PSE;
- examine the individual and collective capacity of these youth to negotiate for resources to be provided by schools to enable them to achieve their educational goals; and
- understand how gender, race, socio-economic status, experiences of trauma, religion, and age at arrival intersect and how they interact with social structures to shape the educational trajectories of African refugee youth.
Funding Source:
SSHRC Insight 2019-2024
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Oliver Masakure, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Edward Shizha, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Funke Oba, Ryerson University
Dr. Paul Banahene Adjei, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Dr. Marie-Odile Magnan, Université de Montréal
Dr. Michael Baffoe, University of Manitoba
Dr. Gillian Creese, University of British Columbia
Collaborators: Dr. Ginette Lafrenière and Dr. Lamine Diallo, Wilfrid Laurier University
Participation of all people from every social strata and background in post-secondary education can eliminate disparities and promote social cohesion. This promise of opportunities for all, leads Black immigrant families to choose Canada, one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. In spite of this positive global image, Black children face challenges to accessing Postsecondary Education (PSE) in Canada. Meritocracy discourses avow that education promotes social mobility for all, but Black youth are disenfranchised, accessing PSE at a rate of 40% less than white peers, suspended from school, and often sucked into the school to jail pipeline at high rates. They experience criminalization, negative media images, and opportunity gaps in employment and maximization of full potential. Canada is ostensibly multicultural, but racism affects some minorities more than others. Racialized populations are not homogenous groups and anti-Black racism continues to disadvantage Black youth. This study is investigating how Black youth’s educational goals and aspirations are supported in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, as the province’s growth plan purports to welcome people from across the world, promising equitable educational outcomes.
The project's objectives are to:
- enhance the ability of the school system to support Black youth’s educational aspirations, thus creating positive outcomes and eliminating disparities;
- use the insights from the pilot study to develop a larger SSHRC insight grant to explore the articulation of a Saskatchewan Black Youth Action plan.
Funding Source:
SSHRC Insight Development (2019-2022)
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Funke Oba, Ryerson University
Dr. Amanda Gebhard, University of Regina
Dr. Daniel Kikulwe, York University
Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Our ongoing research shows that many refugee youth in Canada want to make their own decisions about their educational and life pathways (Masakure et al, forthcoming). Yet too often, such decisions are made by guidance counsellors and parents, with little to no input by the youth themselves (Wilson-Forsberg et al, 2019; Shizha et al, 2021). One reason for this discrepancy is that refugee youth often perceive themselves as lacking the knowledge, skills, and confidence to articulate and defend their views. Youth councils are one way to address this problem. Namely, youth councils enhance youth voice and participation in issues that affect their lives by building on their intrinsic strengths and addressing issues that they themselves identify as important. In partnership with Empowerment Squared https://empowermentsquared.org/ our project aims to create a youth council that will build the skills and confidence among youth (ages 12-14) to make decisions that affect their education and lives.
The project’s objectives are to:
- determine how the youth can more confidently engage with adults at Empowerment Squared and their school by applying a theoretical framework that emphasizes the connection between refugees' agency and civic engagement;
- measure the extent to which youth gain agency and increased confidence by participating in the youth council; and
- recommend how to improve and scale up the youth council initiative to the rest of Empowerment Squared’s programs after the one-year pilot.
Funding Source:
SSHRC Partnership Engage (2021-2022)
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Oliver Masakure, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Alpha Abebe, McMaster University
Dr. Christopher Kyriakides, York University
Community Partner: Empowerment Squared
The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced many Canadian families to self-isolate by staying at home. With schools closed, parents have been expected to support their children with school work at home. Managing the social and economic stress and uncertainty associated with the current crisis, while keeping children and youth motivated to learn is a major challenge for parents. However, the situation is even more challenging for families with refugee backgrounds. In Waterloo, ON refugee children, teens and parents rely on the programming of Adventure4Change (A4C) https://adventure4change.org/ a community organization that addresses issues related to vulnerable families. A4C operates before and after school programming for elementary aged children, tutoring for all ages, and serves as a bridge between school administrators and parents. In the high school context, A4C trains refugee youth in leadership and team-building skills. Before the pandemic 16 families, primarily headed by lone mothers with refugee backgrounds from the Horn of Africa and Sudan, regularly used the A4C's programs. The emergency lock down measures enforced by Ontario have resulted in the inability of A4C to provide their normal face-to-face activities to support these families. This situation has effectively left vulnerable refugee families cut off for what could be a long period of time, serving to exacerbate the many challenges that they already face.
The project’s objective is to:
- assess in real time how refugee families are coping with the challenges associated with COVID19. Specifically, we want to understand how parents (primarily mothers) are managing to keep their teens, motivated and engaged with school work.
Funding Source:
CYRRC/SSHRC Sub-Grant (2020-2022)
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Oliver Masakure, Wilfrid Laurier University
Rosemary Kimani-Dupuis, PhD Candidate Global Governance, Wilfrid Laurier University
Community Partner: Adventure4Change
Brighter Futures is a collaborative and holistic effort led by Adventure4Change https://adventure4change.org/ with the involvement of our research team, the Waterloo Region District School Board, and African mothers participating in the project. Its goal is to create opportunities for mothers to interact with teachers, guidance counsellors, and school administrators on an ongoing basis. Throughout the school year, our research team will help A4C assess and refine the program based on the mothers' experiences and ideas collected through a combination of community meetings, four rounds of structured interviews, and two focus groups.
This project is guided by three research objectives. To:
- identify the barriers faced by African mothers with refugee backgrounds when attempting to understand and engage with their children's middle school;
- determine how these mothers can more confidently engage with educators and administrators by applying a novel theoretical framework that emphasizes the connection between refugees' agency and civil engagement;
- assess the impact of Brighter Futures on the mothers' perceived capacity to engage with schooling in order to recommend how to improve and scale up the program after the one-year pilot.
Funding Source:
SSHRC Partnership Engage
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Oliver Masakure, Wilfrid Laurier University
Rosemary Kimani-Dupuis, PhD Candidate Global Governance, Wilfrid Laurier University
Collaborators: Dr. Christopher Kyriakides, York University and Dr. Edward Shizha, Wilfrid Laurier University
Community Partner: Adventure4Change
This project examines the educational pathways that lead young African immigrants in Southern Ontario to become entrepreneurs. Specifically, it is documenting how their education and post-schooling experiences transected systemic inequities to guide their path toward entrepreneurship. While entrepreneurship has been found to enhance the labour market integration and economic success of ethnic minorities and immigrants in Canada (Masakure, 2015; Morgan, Sui, & Baum, 2018; Morgan, 2020), there is almost no systematic analysis of entrepreneurship among African immigrants, despite being the largest group of the 1.2 million Black Canadians (Statistics Canada 2019). To address this gap in knowledge, we are collaborating with 30 Black African immigrant men and women who are narrating their education and self-employment experiences.
The research has four principal objectives. To:
- explore what happens to these young people after their graduation or early departure from school, specifically, if/how they pursue second chances to complete high school credits and enter postsecondary programs;
- assess the relational, individual, and systemic challenges affecting their career pathways;
- discern whether they have used entrepreneurship as a response to various discriminatory practices around race, gender, foreign credentials, and language that have characterized the Canadian labour market;
- compare and contrast the lived experiences of men and women, their views on and approach to postsecondary education and entrepreneurship.
These objectives stem from our 2015-17 study, which found that a significant number of African immigrant youth who did not take a linear path from high school to postsecondary education (PSE) owned and operated small businesses. This career choice was in contrast to research showing African immigrants as among the least likely Canadians to own their own businesses (Statistics Canada, 2018).
Research Team:
Project Lead: Dr. Oliver Masakure, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Ardavan Eizadirad, Wilfrid Laurier University
Collaborator: Dr. Edward Shizha, Wilfrid Laurier University