The Quebec School Sector Facing The Challenges Of Receiving Refugee Students: What Are The Issues For School Governance And Training School Workers?

In 2015 and 2016, Quebec welcomed more than 7,583 Syrian refugees. In the wake of this major arrival, several schools mobilized to facilitate the reception of new students. In this particular psychosocial context and with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, we conducted an action-research entitled Fostering the social and scholastic integration of Syrian refugee students by developing their sense of belonging to the school, their psychological well-being and that of their families. This article presents some results from this research, which was conducted in three schools in the Montreal area with Syrian students from five primary and secondary school classes. The data is derived from discussion groups with students on sensitive topics (eg, migration, differences, death), group interviews with reception class teachers, and individual interviews with vice-principals of the participating schools. The documentation on the implementation of this action and how it influenced the development of a sense of well-being and belonging for the students reveals a certain malaise among these youngsters, problems with socio-scholastic integration, a lack of human and material resources, and a need to provide school workers with more training. The results of the research identify several issues related to governance and the training of school stakeholders.