An Integrated Framework for Immigrant Children and Youth’s School Integration: A Focus on African Francophone Students in British Columbia – Canada

Abstract

An abundant literature has been produced on immigrant children and youth education. However, few studies incorporate students’ view in providing a comprehensive definition of immigrant children and youth’s school integration. The aim of this paper is to provide an operational integrated guide, which may be useful for working with immigrant children and youth students, as it takes into consideration the social, cultural, psychological and academic dimensions of their school integration. This integrated guiding framework draws from a five-year experience of community-university partnership. The methodology consists of a review of the literature on the school integration of immigrant children and youth, comprehensive interviews with students, parents and community partners (previous publications by authors), and community’s involvement through a consultation process to determine needs and priorities. The combined findings gathered from these sources are formulated into practical recommendations to assist educators in their support of immigrant children and youth’ school integration process.