Browsing by Author "Goopy, Suzanne"

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    An Exploration of Canadian Multicultural and Social Justice Training: Centring the Voices of Minoritized Students
    (2020-10-29) Cohen, Julie A.; Kassan, Anusha; Goopy, Suzanne; Wada, Kaori
    The Canadian discipline of counselling psychology has taken leadership in inciting change in the broader field of professional psychology—striving to adopt innovative multicultural (MC) and social justice (SJ) orientations and training. At the same time, most Canadian research that examines MC and SJ training relies on the experiences of participants who hold multiple dominant identities and social locations. While more recent MC and SJ scholarship has included an exploration of culture, there is still limited focus on non-dominant cultural influences outside of race and ethnicity. Hence, there is a lack of research that investigates MC and SJ training using a culturally inclusive perspective—one that recognizes the intersectionality and multiplicity of identities. This dissertation explores the perspectives of MC and SJ training from the standpoints of culturally non-dominant students, using an inclusive lens (e.g., those identities that are minoritized by dominant discourses and structures). This body of work offers a path to refocus Canadian counselling psychology towards culturally responsive and socially just training and research practices. Consisting of three linked manuscripts, which employ a feminist lens as a guiding framework, this research makes several contributions to research and practice. First, in Manuscript I, I explore current ways in which MC and SJ training are understood and taken up by counselling psychology graduate students. Second, in Manuscript II, I examine how a pluralistic approach that adopts a feminist standpoint theory epistemology to guide an interpretative phenomenological analysis method can provide a meaningful framework to conduct research with minoritized communities, offering suggestions for working through philosophical and methodological considerations that arise from this integration. Lastly, in Manuscript III, I explore the standpoints of eight culturally non-dominant counselling psychology doctoral students with respect to MC and SJ training in Canada to examine the following research question: How do counselling psychology doctoral students who self-identify with culturally non-dominant identities perceive their experiences of MC and SJ training? This body of work highlights unique aspects of culturally non-dominant students’ experiences, provides meaningful recommendations to advance MC and SJ training, and informs future pedagogical and methodological approaches in the Canadian field of counselling psychology.
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    Attending to the Needs of Newcomer Youth: A Collective Case Study of School Integration
    (2021-08-23) Priolo, Alissa; Kassan, Anusha; Zaidi, Rahat; Goopy, Suzanne
    In recent years, scholars have been calling for more innovative research in the area of immigration. Specifically, they are challenging the common acculturation strategies often used to describe the experiences of newcomer youth. Newcomer youth themselves have described school as a primary arena influencing their post-migration experiences. However, comprehensive reports continue to reveal unjust educational practices that place newcomer youth at risk of school disengagement. In response, this body of work focuses on the phenomenon of school integration. School integration represents a new point of entry to explore the adjustment of newcomer youth across all aspects of student life. This includes language acquisition, academic performance, classroom behaviour, social networking, identity negotiation, emotional and familial well-being, involvement in school life, and understanding of the academic system.A social constructionist epistemology, incorporating an integrated social justice lens, guided a collective case study within a single high school in Alberta. This inquiry was guided by the following overarching research question: How do participants perceive and describe newcomer youths’ experiences integrating into high school? Consisting of three manuscripts, this dissertation critically explores the experiences of three stakeholder groups (i.e., newcomer students, teachers, and service providers), with the aim of systematically weaving together a more holistic narrative of the factors impacting school integration.Manuscript 1 highlights the voices and experiences of 13 newcomer youth who entered high school in Alberta and offers insight into the triumphs and perils they face within a singular high school setting. Manuscript 2 explores the perspectives of eight teachers who support newcomer students in their daily practices, three of whom teach English as an Additional Language (EAL) courses. Finally, Manuscript 3 centres on the perspectives of six services providers, including a vice principal, school guidance counsellors, settlement workers, and an at-risk youth coordinator.Taken together, the findings from the case study complement traditional immigration frameworks and offer systemic solutions to help improve the social, emotional, and academic transitions of newcomer youth as they enter a new school system. It pushes beyond multicultural initiatives and strives towards more socially just research, training, policies, and practices.
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    Barriers to cervical cancer screening faced by immigrant women in Canada: a systematic scoping review
    (2018-10-11) Ferdous, Mahzabin; Lee, Sonya; Goopy, Suzanne; Yang, Huiming; Rumana, Nahid; Abedin, Tasnima; Turin, Tanvir C
    Abstract Background The objective of this scoping study is to review the published literature and summarize findings related to barriers experienced by immigrant women in Canada while accessing cervical cancer screening. Methods Electronic databases of peer-reviewed articles and grey literature were searched using comprehensive sets of keywords, without restricting the time period or language. Articles were selected based on the following criteria: (a) the study population consisted of Canadian immigrant women and healthcare providers and other stakeholders serving immigrant women, (b) the research focused on the barriers to accessing cervical cancer screening, and (c) the study was conducted in Canada. Results Extracted data were grouped and analyzed, resulting in barriers comprised of six themes: economic barriers, cultural barriers, language barriers, healthcare system-related barriers, knowledge-related barriers, and individual-level barriers. Lack of education, low income, preference for a female physician, lack of knowledge, lack of effective communication, and embarrassment were some of the most common barriers mentioned. Conclusions Immigrant access to health services, including cervical cancer screening, is a complex issue concerning a wide range of barriers. Our findings offer insights into barriers to cervical cancer screening in immigrant communities in Canada that can be used to assist policymakers, healthcare providers, and researchers enhance the health and well-being of these populations by mitigating barriers and improving screening.
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    Investigating Migration through the Phenomenon of School Integration: Anaya’s Experience of Resettlement in Canada
    (2019-10) Kassan, Anusha; Priolo, Alissa; Goopy, Suzanne; Arthur, Nancy
    Using a social justice framework, this arts-based engagement ethnography (ABEE) investigated the phenomenon of school integration among newcomer youth who migrated to Canada. Defined broadly, this phenomenon captures the adjustment of newcomer youth across all aspects of student life – both inside and outside the school context, including English Language Leaning (ELL), academic performance, classroom behaviour, social networking, emotional and familial well-being, involvement in school life, and understanding of the educational system. Specifically, two research questions were investigated: 1) How do newcomer youth experience school? and 2) How do these experiences influence their positive integration into the school system? Results from one participant – Anaya, a 19-year-old cisgender female who migrated to Canada from India with her family at the age of 12 – are presented to illustrate the manner in which the phenomenon of school integration can be used as a point of entry to study migration. These result included the following five themes: 1) The Struggle to Fit In / “I regard myself as a social outsider”, 2) Managing Parental Expectations / “Our values started to clash”, 3) Implications of Self-Exploration / “I was kind of in the middle”; 4) Finding a Passion and Getting Involved / “I became a lot more friendly”, and 4) Embracing a Multicultural Identity / “I am reembracing my heritage.”
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    Professional integration of immigrant medical professionals through alternative career pathways: an Internet scan to synthesize the current landscape
    (2021-04-17) Turin, Tanvir C; Chowdhury, Nashit; Ekpekurede, Mark; Lake, Deidre; Lasker, Mohammad A A; O’Brien, Mary; Goopy, Suzanne
    Abstract Background There is a growing recognition that underutilization and underemployment of skilled immigrants, especially internationally trained health professionals, creates a financial burden on individuals and economic losses for the host country. Albeit a missed opportunity for both the immigrants and the receiving country, no public policy and systemic measures are in place to address this issue. Nevertheless, certain individuals and organizations have made some isolated efforts, but no synthesized knowledge is available for understanding what initiatives exist altogether and how they function. We have conducted a methodological Internet scan to identify the existing individual, private, and systemic initiatives and resources that support these health professionals. This will provide health and workforce policymakers, settlement service providers, and relevant academics with the knowledge base for potential different strategies to address this issue and guide them towards developing solution-oriented initiatives. Methods To identify those we have systematically searched the three most popular search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!) adapting the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s grey literature review protocol. We identified relevant websites per our predefined inclusion criteria, charted the data from those sources, collated, summarized, and reported the results. Results From 280 webpages initially identified through keyword search, we included 26 in our full-page screen and extracted data from 16 finally selected webpages. We have found webpages with information on different alternative careers namely, regulated and non-regulated, available resources to pursue those careers, and what skills they have that can be transferred to the alternative careers. Conclusion More systemic policies and IMG specific and ACP-focused employment support programmes are required. Research and development of programmes for facilitating IMGs’ alternative career support need to be increased and strengthened.
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    The Engaged Community: Trust-Building within Public Engagement toward Community Development
    (2018-02) Ranasinghe, Srimal Isaac; Keough, Noel; Harper, Thomas; Goopy, Suzanne; Tsenkova, S.
    This phenomenological inductive study addresses the issue of trust-building within the process of public engagement toward community development. The proposed engagement framework drew on data collected in the community of Marlborough, situated in the western Canadian city of Calgary, the Trust Confidence Cooperation (TCC) Model of cooperation, and the theories of social capital, equity planning, and complex systems. Key findings that emerged during the study indicate that trust and social capital are important to the success of conventional engagement methods such as surveys/questionnaires and open houses. The core attributes of a trust-building engagement process are positive outcomes, a relational approach, diversity, collaboration, physical presence, social capital, effective communication, customization, managing expectations, an adaptive approach, and dialogue. This study also proposes recommendations that address both process-level and systemic issues in the process of public engagement toward community development. Among others, these include: the need for adaptive governance structures that allow flexibility and customization, that community development processes be subsumed by a relational trust-building public engagement process, emphasizing cross-disciplinary collaboration, and managing community expectations through clear communication devoid of jargon.