Abstract
Canadian schools are utilizing services previously provided by settlement and community-based agencies to ensure the successful school adaptation of refugee children and families. This study examined the role of educational cultural brokers during the adaptation. Research queries addressed include strategies that cultural brokers use to facilitate the adaptation of refugee children in school settings, and opportunities and barriers to cultural brokering that exist in educational settings. A qualitative case study of eight educational cultural brokers was employed, using focus groups, critical incidents, document review, and semistructured interviews. Results suggest brokers engage in micro- and macrolevel activities through six brokering roles, with each role encompassing challenges and opportunities at the school, agency, and community level. This paper discusses aspects of these roles that have relevance for practice and policy for both cultural brokers and other providers of school-based services to refugee families.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alberta Advanced Education and Technology. (2006). Review of ESL K-12 program implementation in Alberta: Final report. Edmonton: Author.
Amatea, E. S., & West-Olatunji, C. A. (2007). Joining the conversation about educating our poorest children: emerging leadership roles for school counsellors in high-poverty schools. Professional School Counseling, 11(2), 81–89.
Anisef, P., & Kilbride, K. M. (2000). The needs of newcomer youth and emerging “best practices” to meet those needs: final report. Toronto: CERIS.
Baffoe, M. (2007). Navigating two worlds: Culture and cultural adaptation of immigrant and refugee youth in a Quebec (Canadian) educational context (Doctoral dissertation, McGill University, 2006). Retrieved from ProQuest Digital Dissertations (AAT NR27754).
Ballen, J., & Moles, O. (1998). Strong families, strong schools. Washington: U.S. Department of Education.
Ben-Zur, H., & Michael, K. (2007). Burnout, social support, and coping at work among social workers, psychologists and nurses: the role of challenges, control appraisals. Social Work in Healthcare, 45(4), 63–81.
Bober, T., Regehr, C., & Zhou, Y. R. (2006). Development of the coping strategies inventory for trauma counsellors. Journal of Loss & Trauma, 11(1), 71–83.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook for theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press.
Brockett, D. (1998). Reaching out to immigrant parents. Education Digest, 63(8), 29–32.
Colaizzi, P. (1978). Existential–phenomenological attentiveness for psychology. New York: Oxford Press.
Cooper, C. R., Denner, J., & Lopez, E. M. (1999). Cultural brokers: helping Latino children on pathways towards success. The Future of Children, 9, 51–57.
Davis, M., & Webb, E. (2000). Promoting the psychological well-being of refugee children. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 5, 541–554.
Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 327–355.
Gentemann, K. M. (1978). Cultural continuity in an opportunity program: a case study of an experiment in higher education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Gentemann, K. M., & Whitehead, T. L. (1983). The cultural broker concept in bicultural education. The Journal of Negro Education, 52, 118–129.
Goodwin, L. (2000). Teachers as (multi)cultural agents in schools. In R. Carter (Ed.), Addressing cultural issues in organizations: beyond the corporate context (pp. 104–114). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Gorman, W. (1999). Canadian native students and inequitable learning. Canadian Social Studies, 33, 114–116.
Gutman, L. M., & Midgley, C. (2000). The role of protective factors in supporting the academic achievement of poor African American students during the middle school transition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 29(2), 223–248.
Howland, A., Anderson, J. A., Smiley, A. D., & Abbott, D. (2006). School liaisons: bridging the gap between home and school. The School Community Journal, 16, 47–68.
Jeynes, W. H. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relation between parental involvement to urban elementary school student academic achievement. Urban Education, 40(3), 237–269.
Jezewski, M. A. & Sotnik, P. (2001). Cultural brokering: providing culturally competent rehabilitation services to foreign-born persons. http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/monographs/cb.html. Accessed 20 April 2008
Jones, C. J., & Trickett, E. J. (2005). Immigrant adolescents behaving as culture brokers: a study of families from the former Soviet Union. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145, 405–427.
Kapreilian-Churchill, I. (1996). Refugees and education in Canadian schools. International Review of Education, 42, 349–365.
Lane, B. A. (1992). Cultural leaders in effective schools: the builders and brokers of excellence. NASSP Bulletin, 76, 85–96.
Lareau, A., & Weininger, E. B. (2003). Cultural capital in educational research: a critical assessment. Theory and Society, 32(5–6), 567–606.
Lewis, K. C. (2004). Instructional aides: colleagues or cultural brokers? The School Community Journal, 14, 91–112.
Lustig, S. L., Kia-Keating, M., Knight, W. G., Geltmand, P., Ellis, H., Kinzie, J. D., et al. (2004). Review of child and adolescent refugee mental health. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 43(1), 24–36.
Lynch, E. W. (2004). Developing cross-cultural competence. In E. W. Lynch & M. J. Hanson (Eds.), Developing cross-cultural competence: a guide for working with children and their families (pp. 19–39). Baltimore: Brookes.
Major, E. M. (2006). Secondary teachers as cultural mediators for language minority students. Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 80, 29–32.
Martinez-Cosio, M., & Iannacone, R. M. (2007). The tenuous role of institutional agents: parent liaisons as cultural brokers. Education and Urban Society, 39, 349–369.
Merriam, S. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education research (Revth ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Miller, J., Mitchell, J., & Brown, J. (2005). African refugees with interrupted schooling in the high school mainstream: dilemmas for teachers. Prospect: An Australian Journal of TESOL, 20(2), 19–33.
Owen, C. L., & English, M. (2005). Working together as culture brokers by building trusting alliances with bilingual and bicultural newcomer paraprofessionals. Child Welfare, 84, 669–688.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (3rd ed.). Mewbury Park: Sage.
Raval, H. (2005). Being heard and understood in the context of seeking asylum and refuge: communicating with the help of bilingual co-workers. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 10(2), 197–217.
Richardson, J. I. (2001). Guidebook on vicarious trauma: recommended solutions for anti-violence workers. National Clearinghouse on Family Violence. http://www.hcsc.gc.ca/hppb/familyviolence/html/Vicarious%20Trauma%20HTML/english/. Accessed 2 June 2010.
Rueda, R., & Genzuk, M. (2007). Sociocultural scaffolding as a means toward academic self-regulation: paraeducators as cultural brokers. Focus on Exceptional Children, 40, 1–8.
Singh, N. N., McKay, J. D., & Singh, A. N. (1999). The need for cultural brokers in mental health services. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 8, 1–10.
Stairs, A. (1995). Learning processes and teaching roles in native education: cultural base and cultural brokerage. In M. Battiste & J. Barman (Eds.), First Nations education in Canada: the circle unfolds (pp. 139–153). Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. London: Sage.
Tse, L. (1995). Language brokering among Latino adolescents: prevalence, attitudes, and school performance. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 17, 180–194.
Weine, S. (2008). Family roles in refugee youth resettlement from a prevention perspective. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 17, 515–532.
Wilkinson, L. (2002). Factors influencing the academic success of refugee youth in Canada [electronic version]. Journal of Youth Studies, 5, 173–193.
Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the Prairies Metropolis Centre for funding to complete this research and community partners, Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers (EMCN).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yohani, S. Educational Cultural Brokers and the School Adaptation of Refugee Children and Families: Challenges and Opportunities. Int. Migration & Integration 14, 61–79 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0229-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0229-x