scholarly journals QUEERING CYC PRAXIS: WHAT I LEARNED FROM LGBTQI+ NEWCOMER, REFUGEE, AND IMMIGRANT STUDENT EXPERIENCES IN CANADA

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 170-202
Author(s):  
Nancy Marshall

This exploratory autoethnographic study, undertaken by a White straight cisgender child and youth care practitioner, seeks to understand the experiences of LGBTQI+ newcomer, refugee, and immigrant students in Canada. It highlights the nuances of creating safe spaces for young people who experience harm due to the intersections of systemic racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and homophobia. The overarching finding of this study reveals a culture of silence. Queer newcomer, refugee, and immigrant youth in Canada are often reluctant to disclose or explore their queerness due to their fears of discrimination and violence. This fear exists notwithstanding the pride Canada takes in its efforts to protect LGBTQI+ rights. Inspired by findings from interviews with two women, one who supports LGBTQI+ newcomers, refugees, and immigrants to Canada, and one who researches policy affecting all Canadian refugee experiences, I utilized a self-reflexive deep-dive approach to learn about the events and policies that have shaped LGBTQI+ newcomer, refugee, and immigrant students’ access to postsecondary education in Canada. Central findings in this study point to barriers emerging from homonationalism, colonization, religion, culture, race, White-centred gay–straight alliances in schools, and immigration policies pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity expression (SOGIE). These findings problematize the White, Westernized, liberal, out-and-proud policies that child and youth care practitioners are accustomed to.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanne Jean-Pierre ◽  
Sandrina de Finney ◽  
Natasha Blanchet-Cohen

This special issue aims to explore Canadian pedagogical and curricular practices in child and youth care and youth work preservice education with an emphasis on empirical and applied studies that centre students’ perspectives of learning. The issue includes a theoretical reflection and empirical studies with students, educators, and practitioners from a range of postsecondary programs in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. The empirical articles use various methodologies to explore pedagogical and curricular approaches, including Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies, ethical settler frontline and teaching practices, the pedagogy of the lightning talk, novel-based pedagogy, situated learning, suicide prevention education, and simulation-based teaching. These advance our understanding of accountability and commitment to Indigenous, decolonial, critical, experiential, and participatory praxis in child and youth care postsecondary education. In expanding the state of knowledge about teaching and learning in child and youth care, we also aspire to validate interdisciplinary ways of learning and knowing, and to spark interest in future research that recognizes the need for education to be ethical, critically engaged, creatively experiential, and deeply culturally and environmentally relevant. Keywords: child and youth care (CYC), youth work, human/social services, pedagogy, curriculum, higher education, praxis, preservice education


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Johanne Jean-Pierre ◽  
Sandrina De Finney ◽  
Natasha Blanchet-Cohen

This special issue aims to explore Canadian pedagogical and curricular practices in child and youth care and youth work preservice education with an emphasis on empirical and applied studies that centre students’ perspectives of learning. The issue includes a theoretical reflection and empirical studies with students, educators, and practitioners from a range of postsecondary programs in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. The empirical articles use various methodologies to explore pedagogical and curricular approaches, including Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies, ethical settler frontline and teaching practices, the pedagogy of the lightning talk, novel-based pedagogy, situated learning, suicide prevention education, and simulation-based teaching. These advance our understanding of accountability and commitment to Indigenous, decolonial, critical, experiential, and participatory praxis in child and youth care postsecondary education. In expanding the state of knowledge about teaching and learning in child and youth care, we also aspire to validate interdisciplinary ways of learning and knowing, and to spark interest in future research that recognizes the need for education to be ethical, critically engaged, creatively experiential, and deeply culturally and environmentally relevant.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanne Jean-Pierre ◽  
Sandrina de Finney ◽  
Natasha Blanchet-Cohen

This special issue aims to explore Canadian pedagogical and curricular practices in child and youth care and youth work preservice education with an emphasis on empirical and applied studies that centre students’ perspectives of learning. The issue includes a theoretical reflection and empirical studies with students, educators, and practitioners from a range of postsecondary programs in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. The empirical articles use various methodologies to explore pedagogical and curricular approaches, including Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies, ethical settler frontline and teaching practices, the pedagogy of the lightning talk, novel-based pedagogy, situated learning, suicide prevention education, and simulation-based teaching. These advance our understanding of accountability and commitment to Indigenous, decolonial, critical, experiential, and participatory praxis in child and youth care postsecondary education. In expanding the state of knowledge about teaching and learning in child and youth care, we also aspire to validate interdisciplinary ways of learning and knowing, and to spark interest in future research that recognizes the need for education to be ethical, critically engaged, creatively experiential, and deeply culturally and environmentally relevant. Keywords: child and youth care (CYC), youth work, human/social services, pedagogy, curriculum, higher education, praxis, preservice education


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 126-145
Author(s):  
Julie James

To better understand how using a novel in a child and youth care classroom impacts empathy in relation to gender diversity, a qualitative study was constructed. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire administered to child and youth care practitioner students. These students had engaged with the novel Scarborough (Hernandez, C. [2017]. Scarborough: A novel. Arsenal Pulp) in a course about foundational therapeutic knowledge. The study sought to identify: (a) what perceptions and emotions were evoked by engaging with the narrative of a young person exploring gender; (b) what, if any, aspects of empathetic connection emerged in relation to this exploration; and (c) what, if any, connections were made to the theoretical material taught in the course. The study incorporated child-and-youth-care-specific and critical social theory frameworks, and theorized about evocative objects and the concept of empathetic distress. The findings suggest that novel-based teaching can elicit from students, or help them express, higher-order empathy in relation to gender diversity, and that a narrative about the struggle to live as one’s genuine self is one possible pathway towards achieving this empathetic connection. Additional research is needed to investigate these preliminary findings and to address bias in the existing literature on adult education and the use of fiction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-33
Author(s):  
Morgan Mowatt ◽  
Sandrina De Finney ◽  
Sarah Wright Cardinal ◽  
Jilleun Tenning ◽  
Pawa Haiyupis ◽  
...  

This article presents reflections from an Indigenous land- and water-based institute held from 2019 to 2020 for Indigenous graduate students. The institute was coordinated by faculty in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria and facilitated by knowledge keepers in local W̱SÁNEĆ and T’Sou-ke nation territories. The year-long institute provided land-based learning, sharing circles, online communication, and editorial mentoring in response to a lack of Indigenous pedagogies and the underrepresentation of Indigenous graduate students in frontline postsecondary programs. While Indigenous faculty and students continue to face significant, institutionally entrenched barriers to postsecondary education, we also face growing demands for Indigenous-focused learning, research, and practice. In this article, Part 1 of a two-paper series on Indigenous land- and water-based learning and practice, we draw on a storytelling approach to share our individual and collective reflections on the benefits and limitations of Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies. Our stories and analysis amplify our integration of Indigenous ways of being and learning, with a focus on local knowledges and more ethical land and community engagements as integral to Indigenous post­secondary education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-107
Author(s):  
Kaz Mackenzie

In 2018, using in-depth, semi-structured, collaborative dialogues, I asked 11 child and youth care practitioners working in various Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, “How do you understand, name, reproduce, contest, and struggle with White settler privilege?” The intent was to name and challenge the dominant Whitestream norms in child and youth care. This project was inspired by the significant work of Indigenous and racialized activist–scholars to address the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous families across colonial systems in which child and youth care practitioners work, such as the child welfare and justice systems, and the underrepresentation in others, such as educational systems. Participants named colonial violence and systemic racism as entrenched in child and youth care practice while recognizing the difficulty of challenging dominant White norms and conventions in the classroom and field. I explore how this key finding unsettles child and youth care pedagogy and practice. In closing, I propose two practical ethical pathways towards unsettling White settler privilege in child and youth care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 23-54
Author(s):  
Mattie Walker

Although Child and Youth Care (CYC) sees itself as a field that embraces diversity and complexity, there is a notable lack of discussion of sexual and gender diversity: queer and trans topics are rarely taken up across CYC research, practice, and pedagogy. Through a systematic literature review of articles published between 2010 and early 2020 in six journals with a focus on CYC practice, research, and theory, this article assesses how queer, trans, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary identities and topics are being discussed in the current CYC literature and reveals a conspicuous absence of publication on these topics. In a 10-year period, across six CYC publications comprising over 4000 published articles, only 36 articles focused on queer and LGBT issues (by covering both sexual and gender diversity) and, of those, only eight articles specifically focused on gender diversity or trans topics. No articles were found within any of the reviewed publications that specifically focused on Two-Spirit identities or topics and only one article mentioned nonbinary identities. Through exploring how and where queer and trans, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary identities and topics are being discussed, this review asks how we as a CYC field might begin to make space for these topics within our field and practice, in order to work towards social change that shifts our field and challenges the cis-heteronormative CYC system.


Author(s):  
Rika Swanzen ◽  
Gert Jonker

The experiences from a case study are evaluated against the aspects such as emergency response to vulnerable populations and other sources from the literature to serve as guidelines for the management of an epidemic in a child and youth care centre (CYCC). To help understand the effects of the epidemic on the centre, this article describes experiences in terms of the meeting of needs. A discussion of the following are part of the article: • A reflection will be provided on the observed stages the children and child and youth care workers (CYCWs) went through during 177 days of a national lockdown; • Indications of caregiver burnout; • Experiences around the meeting of children’s needs through the lens of child and youth care (CYC) theory; and • Proposed areas needing attention in mitigating risks. Some lessons learnt from the daily routine established to manage the lockdown regulations, sometimes experienced as nonsensical, are shared. From these reflections, questions for research are provided from a practice-based evidence approach, mainly aimed at determining the readiness of a CYCC to manage a state of disaster, while needing to focus on meeting children’s needs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrina H. Grobbelaar ◽  
Carin E. Napier

Background: Facilities concerned with children ‘in need of care’ should not only be considered as a last resort for a child’s care, but also as an intervention that requires more than addressing a child’s basic physical needs. The nutritional needs of children are particularly important to consider as they are a fundamental part of the care provided.Objectives: The purpose of this descriptive quantitative study was to investigate the profile, nutrition knowledge, food safety and hygiene practices of child and youth care workers (CCWs) in residential care settings in order to guide the development of a food preparation and nutrition manual.Method: The residential care settings included in this study were three that were selected randomly in Durban. CCWs (N = 40) employed permanently or part-time were included. Convenience purposive sampling of the CCWs was undertaken. A structured self-administered questionnaire, developed and tested for this purpose, was used to gather information on the profile, nutrition knowledge, food safety and hygiene practices. The data were analysed for descriptive statistics (means and frequencies).Results: The majority of CCWs were women aged 18−34 years. Very few had completed a relevant tertiary qualification. The results indicated that the respondents’ knowledge was fair on general nutrition guidelines, but there were areas of concern. Specifically, knowledge on recommended fruit and vegetable intake, correct serving sizes and importance of a variety in the diet were lacking. Some knowledge about food safety and hygiene practices was demonstrated, but not in totality.Conclusion: The overall findings supported the development of a comprehensive food preparation and nutrition manual for child residential care facilities. Agtergrond: Fasiliteite gemoeid met kinders ‘in die behoefte van sorg’ nie net beskou moet word as ’n laaste uitweg vir ’n kind se sorg nie, maar ook as ’n intervensie wat meer as net die basiese en fisiese behoeftes van kinders aanspreek. Die voedingsbehoeftes van kinders is veral belangrik om te oorweeg as ’n fundamentele element van versorging.Doelwit: Die doel van hierdie beskrywende kwantitatiewe studie was om die profiel, voeding kennis en voedsel- veiligheid en higiëne van kinder-en jeugsorgwerkers te ondersoek in residensiële sorg instellings met die doel om ’n voedsel voorbereiding en voedings handleiding te ontwikkel.Metode: Die residensiële sorg instellings het bestaan uit drie ewekansig gekiesde kinderhuise in Durban. Die studie het bestaan uit kinder-en jeugsorgwerkers (N = 40) in permanente of deeltydse poste. ’n Doelgerigte steekproef van die kinder-en jeugsorgwerkers is onderneem. ’n Gestruktureerde self-geadministreerde vraelys, ontwikkel en getoets vir hierdie doel, is gebruik om inligting oor die profiel, voeding kennis, voedselveiligheid en higiëniese praktyke van die kinder- en jeugsorgwerkers in te samel. Die data is ontleed vir beskrywende statistieke.Resultate: Die meerderheid van die kinder- en jeugsorgwerkers was vroulik, tussen die ouderdomme van 18−34 jaar. Min het ‘n toepaslike tersiêre kwalifikasie gehad. Dit blyk uit die resultate dat die respondente se algemene voeding riglyne was aanvaarbaar. Die resultate het gedui op ’n gebrek aan kennis oor die aanbevole vrugte en groente inname, korrekte porsiegroottes en die belangrikheid van ’n verskeidenheid in die dieet. Die respondente het tot ’n mindere mate kennis oor voedselveiligheid en higiëne gehad.Gevolgtrekking: Die algemene bevindinge ondersteun die ontwikkeling van ’n omvattende voedsel voorbereiding en voedings handleiding vir kinder residensiële sorg instellings.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassie L. Barnhardt ◽  
Kimberly Reyes ◽  
Angela Vidal Rodriguez ◽  
Marisol Ramos

The Southeastern United States is home to one of the most culturally resistant arenas for undocumented immigrant students to pursue postsecondary education. Using a transformative mixed methods approach, we explore the multidimensional dynamics of contention that are present as campus administrators navigate the process of serving a group of students who are marginalized due to their unresolved immigration status. Our article contributes to the methodological literature by exemplifying how transformative mixed methods are powerful tools for understanding how the oppression of vulnerable populations is institutionalized in organizational settings.


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