Archive | 2019
Making Educational Meaning of Arab Immigrant Students’ Cross-Cultural High Schooling Experiences
Abstract
This chapter uses the three-dimensional life space of narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research, Jossey-Bass, 2000)—encompassing temporality (past, present, and future), personal-social (interaction), and place (situation)—as a framework to examine and discuss the contextual situations and interactions of Arab immigrant student participants as they unfold in different contexts of their Canadian high schools. In other words, this chapter illustrates how time, interactions, and physical spaces contribute to Arab students’ schooling experiences in Canadian schools. To complement insights on cultural characteristics presented in the previous chapter, the bookʼs concluding chapter focuses on experience in understanding the cultural and personal narratives of Arab newcomer youths. It highlights the studyʼs major findings that could provide a basis for promoting mutual understanding and respect. The author draws on Schwab’s (School Review, 81(4), 501–522, 1973) commonplaces of curriculum-making to discuss implications for practice and makes recommendations for raising cross-cultural awareness to ease Arab newcomer youths’ transition into the new culture while creating bridges where people cross a divide, meet one another, and learn from each other.