Recent shifts in demographics in Greater Vancouver schools have crept up on educators who suddenly find themselves in elementary classrooms with no native English speakers, increasing numbers of refugees and immigrants (taken together, called “newcomers”), have ADHD, autism, physical disabilities, mental health issues and live in poverty, with classmates who are learning above their grade level.  As with many urban schools in Europe, superdiverse schools in Vancouver may have 80 different languages.  With Trudeau’s announcement that 1.5 million newcomers will arrive by the end of 2025 (Dickson, 2022, Nov.1), teachers must learn not only about students’ culturally and racially diverse backgrounds, but ensure democratic inclusive practices apply to each child (Li et al., 2021). 

Fifty years ago in Canada, children with disabilities were excluded from attending school; just 25 years ago, children lacking English were ignored until they began to “catch on”.  “Inclusion” and “participation” were gradually developed through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) and strengthened by the United Nations’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), especially for children with disabilities demanding equal education. For the first time, these rights were linked to inclusive philosophies and even laws that required inclusion (Paré, 2015). Today, newcomers to Canada are seen as a solution to Canada’s labour shortage, yet they must navigate complex challenges.  Learning conversational English takes 3-5 years, 4-7 for academic literacy, and 10+ years for disadvantaged students (Garcia, 2000). 

This paper focuses on what teachers can do now, not waiting for newcomers to “catch on”, but taking advantage of the energy, curiosity and joy most children exude.  Many teachers’ walls are covered by art that reveals an astonishing array of interpretations of objects of interest.  Art has been called a universal language (Eisner, 2006); think about paintings in Lascaux and how we still comprehend them.  Gadamer (2003) believed that preverbal art induces a transcendental state of mind, even permitting us to re-live past memories. For children with traumatic experiences, the arts “speak” through a symbolic language that gently releases bad memories.

For these reasons, I chose to explore whether art workshops in two highly diverse classrooms would increase inclusion for students with multiple learning needs and advance their academic interests much earlier than their English language levels would normally allow.  Therefore, my main research question is the following:

--With considerable barriers to education entrenched for some refugee and immigrant students, will a blended art pedagogy more quickly help them overcome factors that exclude them, in particular, a lack of English language fluency, sense of belonging, emotional processing of migration experiences, and possibly, earlier access to academic areas of the Canadian curriculum?

Three theoretical frameworks support this study.  First, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as a legal and philosophical framework, is tied to human rights and upheld across all sectors in Canadian society. A philosophy of inclusion developed through the 1990’s, formally established in Europe with the Salamanca Statement (1994), also strengthened inclusion through the Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006).  Two further frameworks that offer support are Mertins’s (2009) disability theory which reverses common thinking about children with disabilities as being “less”, or, “defective”, and instead, describes disability as due to environmental causes, and simply a difference.  Lastly, Mertin’s (2003) idea of transformation questions the meaning of inclusion in schools and aims to ensure collective decision-making when the child is not able to communicate their wishes.  These frameworks move away from the medical model and work to expand our understanding of the range of learners in schools which results in transforming society’s views of their abilities and rights.   

From October 2022 to January 2023, two related qualitative studies were conducted simultaneously. First, a series of art workshops were designed and run in two elementary classrooms with two teachers and 47 newcomer students; in the second study, questionnaires were administered to three groups, teachers, students and parents (n=15), to confirm and capture a larger picture of the students’ educational experiences. I began my search for participants by identifying inner-city schools. Invitations were emailed to principals, and by chance, the principal of a community school responded. Community schools tend to attract teachers who choose to work with disadvantaged and newcomer students, and are supported by people and businesses in the community. Consent forms explained to the principal and teachers that I wished to research the effects that blended art workshops might have on classes with low English language fluency and increase interest in other subjects. The teachers’ rooms were side-by-side, with one teaching grades 3-4 (ages 7-8) and the other teaching grades 4-5 (ages 8-9). Second, I requested that two groups, teachers and parents, consent to completing a questionnaire. For students, school policy did not require consent if students were engaged in any research that was what they would normally be doing in class; however, revealing names or faces was banned. Teachers filled in pre- and post-workshop questionnaires. Selected students answered the same key questions as the parents and teachers as we sat together, recording for their photovoice project. With the parents and translators from Settlement Workers in Schools (SWIS), I was able to ask specific questions about their children’s educational experiences. I planned the students’ workshops so they would flow smoothly through several phases: literacy, social-emotional learning, art making and wellbeing. I often began with a game, read and discussed a book (connected to a curricular area), then made art (self-portraits, caterpillars), ending with sharing. I took advantage of student interests; for example, during the World Cup, I had them make puppets resembling team members. Afterwards, they wrote scripts for the puppets, and we filmed them as “digital stories”. I collected and analysed aspects of the artwork over time and noted patterns. In the second study, the main goal was to triangulate among the three groups of participants, comparing their responses, with more depth in the adult groups. The answers were analysed for consistency between groups and themes were identified. The next section covers findings and recommendations.

In the arts workshops, things started off well and never flagged. Initially, I was concerned that students with ADHD would not be able to follow, but other students helped them. A newly arrived Ukrainian boy had a bad moment, and other boys reassured him that it was all right, and to join them. They certainly knew how he felt. Two weeks later, he volunteered to play Aladdin in their digital story. These children never thought of their classmates as having disadvantages; rather, kids with problems were just different (Mertins, 2009), and they were all empathetic supporters. Sharing their art helped them see themselves: individually, their pieces were unique, but taken together, there were amazing, creative variations on a prototype. Most heartening was the boy who was a selective mute; he talked to me during his photovoice recording. In the second study questionnaires, themes emerged: educational experiences in students’ country of origin (varied responses); liking school in Canada (overwhelming “yes”); relationships with child’s teacher (mostly good); friends (in school, less outside); and hopeful (yes). Teachers reported all students were making progress, each at their own pace with good participation. For now, these children have created a utopia that seems mostly free of racism and bias toward poverty, religions and low English. It is this educator’s hope that they can learn enough and be firmly attached to one another before they move up to secondary school with mainstream students. Globally, teachers must immediately begin professional development to prepare for continuing numbers of new arrivals, and honour what we are learning from children who understand more than we do about inclusion. This is the most important lesson on diversity: when everyone is different and aware they are different, then everyone can feel equal and simply have different differences.

--Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11. --Dickson, J. (2022, Nov.1). Ottawa aims to welcome 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-immigration-targets-2025/ --Eisner, E. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. Yale University Press. --Gadamer, H. G. (2003). Truth and method (2nd ed.), (J. Weinsheimer, & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). The Continuum International Publishing Group. --Garcia, G. (2000). Lessons from research: What is the length of time it takes limited English proficient students to acquire English and succeed in an all-English classrooms? Issue and Brief, 5. --Li, G., Anderson, J., Hare, J., & McTavish, M. (Eds.). (2021). Superdiversity and teacher education: Supporting teachers in working with culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse students, families, and communities. Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003038887 --Mertens, D. M. (2003). Mixed methods and the politics of human research: The transformative-emancipatory perspective. In A. Tahakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods in social & behavioural research (pp. 135–164). Sage. --Mertens, D. M. (2009). Transformative research and evaluation. Guildford Press. --Paré, M. (2015). Inclusion and Participation in special education: Processes in Ontario, Canada. In T. Gal, & B. Durany (Eds.). International perspectives and empirical findings on children’s participation: From social exclusion to child inclusive policies (pp. 37-57). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199366989.001.0001 --UNESCO (1994). Salamanca statement on principles, policy and practice in special education. World Conference on Special Needs Education. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000098427 --United Nations (1990). Conventions on the rights of the child. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child