While educators have recognized that students from other countries often
face traumatic experiences in their initial period of adaptation to the
receiving country's schools and society, little attention has been devoted to
understanding the nature or educational significance of these experiences.
Traditionally, educators have equated adaptation difficulties with host
language deficits, while other, possibly more consequential dimensions of the
adaptation experience have gone unrecognized, and have not been represented in
educational policy and funding decisions. Accordingly, this study is directed
toward providing a more comprehensive understanding of the adaptation
experiences of adolescent students who have recently arrived in Canada from
other countries, and addresses a critical need for understanding these
experiences from the perspectives of the students themselves.
Inquiry is advanced within a descriptive, exploratory, and explanatory
study which predominantly utilizes a phenomenological, qualitative
methodology. The study's principal methodology builds upon Edmund Husserl's
philosophical foundation by incorporating the existential perspectives of
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the life-world social dimensions of Alfred Schutz, and
the historical-contextual and interpretive elements of Max van Manen's
hermeneutic phenomenology. Fieldwork occurred over a six month period in a
suburban Canadian secondary school. Study findings and recommendations derive
from analysis of interviews, observations, and self-reports of three male and
three female grade 10 students who arrived in Canada not more than 20 months
prior to the outset of the study.
Initial adaptation experiences of study participants point to three
principal findings. The study's finding that despite adaptation challenges,
students from abroad often achieve at or above receiving society norms within
a short period after arrival, suggests that educators should consider how
successful academic patterns of newcomers might be adopted by receiving
society members. Participant experience indicates that host language
acquisition is but one dimension of a multidimensional adaptation experience,
and that it is seldom the student's most critical adaptation concern, even in
terms of host communication skills. Participants experienced establishing friendships as their most critical and difficult adaptation concern, and
looked to friendship to provide uncertainty reduction, access to and inclusion
in the receiving society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7510 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Mansfield, Earl Alfred |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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