Immigrant Student Experiences in Canada: Mothers and Children Storying Belonging

By: Oladi, Soudeh

This book centers on stories immigrant children share with their mothers--stories that reveal their lived realities within Canadian schools. Drawing from Afro-Caribbean, Ghanaian, Indian, Afghan, and Chinese communities, it explores how immigrant children's identities are shaped by racialization, exclusion, belonging, and institutional norms rooted in Eurocentrism and Whiteness. Organized into two parts, the first provides two chapters critically examining how Canadian educational structures reinforce racial hierarchies, linguistic conformity, and conditional inclusion, positioning mothers as critical knowledge-holders whose insights disrupt institutional erasure. The second part includes four chapters that illuminate the complex daily experiences of immigrant children through detailed maternal narratives, capturing subtle resistance, cultural tensions, intergenerational struggles, joy, pain, invisibility, and affirmation. The final chapter moves beyond critique, framing storytelling as epistemic resistance against institutional exclusion and performative multiculturalism, calling for radical listening practices that center immigrant mothers' interpretations and children's lived experiences as foundational to transformative education.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3031936833
• ISBN13: 9783031936838
• Release Date: July 2025
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.3"