Unveiling Voices: Engaging Syrian Refugee Children and Educators Through Digital Storytelling Project

Abstract

While a child's primary sources of supportive relationships and learning experiences are at home, schools play a critical role as the first significant social environment for refugee children. In Ontario, thousands of young refugee children, including many from Syria, attend mainstream schools. However, many educators are not adequately prepared to address the specific needs of these children. This participatory visual research study seeks to bridge this gap in teacher education by exploring the pedagogical potential of digital storytelling to do the following: 1) enable Syrian refugee children to express their resettlement experiences through first-person digital, multimodal narratives; 2) provide educators with deeper insights into the perspectives of Syrian refugee children; and 3) foster social awareness among both educators and refugee students. The study aims to highlight Syrian refugee children’s resettlement experiences from their own viewpoints, enhance educators' understanding of these experiences, and investigate both the children's experience of creating digital stories and the educators' experience in facilitating digital storytelling workshops. Exploring the educational potential of digital storytelling with Syrian refugee children and educators may also support the resettlement needs of refugee children from other regions entering Canadian schools. Grounded in the new sociology of childhood, sociocultural theory, and critical pedagogy, this study employs participatory visual methodology and digital storytelling to challenge dominant narratives and promote a more inclusive understanding of knowledge. These approaches are aligned with the inquiry-based learning commonly used with marginalized communities. The findings demonstrate that digital storytelling offered refugee children a meaningful way to represent their experiences and foster social transformation, strengthening their sense of connection with others. For educators, facilitating the digital storytelling project challenged preconceptions about refugee children and positively impacted their approach to working with culturally diverse students.