Our research looked at the relationship between school, youth and the community in the four Montréal neighbourhoods with the highest rates of multi-ethnicity, socioeconomic disadvantage and recent immigration (5 years or less): Parc–Extension, Côte–des–Neiges, Saint-Laurent and Bordeaux–Cartierville.
Our research team documented the measures put in place by nine elementary and secondary schools, in collaboration with various community partners, to enrich the extra-curricular lives of students. No less than 146 measures were analyzed in different areas including sports, leisure activities, culture, skills development, academic success and communication between school and parents, particularly parents who are recent immigrants. Our analysis identified the attributes of those initiatives that foster the integration of youth into their host society.
This analysis identifies the attributes of those initiatives that foster the integration of youth into their host society.
Our research also examined an initiative implemented in one of the territories, the school–community worker, and documented the ways in which this initiative has had a positive impact on the academic experience of youth. Furthermore, the study produced a portrait of the academic and social experience of youths with immigrant backgrounds. Using the notions of situational and generational poverty, it highlighted the characteristics of poverty specific to ethno-cultural communities. Finally, the school–community collaborations that form the basis of the measures observed were analyzed in relation to the scientific literature on collaborative integrative structures and the attributes of consistency in interventions with multiple partners.
The results are discussed in view of the threefold mission of schools – to instruct, to qualify and to socialize – and the current and potential contribution of school-family-community collaborations to this mission.
Main researcher: Angèle Bilodeau, Director of Public Health of Montreal
Original title: Intégration scolaire et sociale des jeunes d'origine immigrée à Montréal
