Social Integration Experiences of Young Newcomers in Canadian High Schools and the Importance of Friendship
Date
2022-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
As the population of young newcomers (immigrants, refugees and international students) increases in Canada, there is a growing need to understand the social integration process of these students into Canadian schools. This thesis reports a qualitative analysis of how newcomer students in three Canadian schools perceived their experiences interacting with local students. I explored two research questions: (1) What do newcomers perceive as factors that hinder intercultural friendships with local students? (2) How should the notion of social integration be re-conceptualized based on newcomers’ experiences? The data analyzed was derived from a larger project by Zhao et al. (2017), which aimed to establish a conceptual framework for understanding intercultural friendship formation in Canadian high schools. I used the thematic analysis (TA) approach to analyze interviews and identify themes and subthemes to address the research questions. Participants of the interviews included in my analysis were 19 newcomer students from three high schools in Alberta. Despite newcomer students’ strong motivations to socially connect with local students, several barriers prevented this. In addition to a lack of English proficiency, newcomer students lacked the confidence to have conversations with local students and preferred to interact with other newcomers because of their shared status, identity, and experiences as newcomers. Participants believed local students were not interested in them and/or were intolerant of their English language struggles. This study provides new evidence of the psychological and social challenges that hinder the social integration of young newcomers in Canadian schools. I also critically examined the conceptualization of the term social integration and its current implications.
Description
Keywords
Social integration, Intercultural friendship, Newcomer students, High school
Citation
Ahmed, S. (2022). Social integration experiences of young newcomers in Canadian high schools and the importance of friendship (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.