2025/06/21 by Zak, Michelle, Charania, Farah, Kalchos, Linnea +2
#Community Engagement #Ethnic Minority #Immigrant #Inclusive #Newcomer #Participatory #Power Informed #Racialized #Transdisciplinary #Visible Minority
paper · doi:10.11575/prism/49526
Background. In 2021, Canada’s newcomer community (individuals who have arrived in Canada as immigrants, refugees, or international students within the last five years) had increased significantly to 1 in 4 people (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, 2023). For many newcomers, schools and communities are their first experience of Canadian culture and the site in which they learn about the norms of their host culture (Areepattamannil & Freeman, 2008; Berry et al., 2006; Rossiter & Rossiter; 2009). Methods. An arts-based engagement ethnography (ABEE) is an innovative, culturally sensitive, and multimodal approach to qualitative research conducted with underrepresented communities (Goopy & Kassan, 2019; Kassan et al., 2020). The intersection of social justice principles and ABEE form a unique research process that is participant-driven and easily adaptable to working with newcomer youth and families, allowing researchers to unearth how newcomers experience integration into Canadian society both individually and collectively. Each participant is given a set of cultural probes (e.g., iPad, diary, maps, stationary, and polaroid camera) and asked to create artifacts that document their integration experiences. The content of participants’ artifacts is used to develop individual interview protocols for each youth or family member, followed by a collective interview through focus groups with students or a family interview. Observations. Results and key learnings from current and past ABEE studies with newcomer youth and families will be presented, including cultural artifacts and integration themes. Conclusion. We present implications for researchers, as well as graduate students, practitioners, and service providers working with newcomer youth and families.