Parenting challenges of African immigrants in Alberta, Canada
Abstract
African immigrant children and youth have some of the poorest social and mental health outcomes in Canada. Although parenting challenges have been widely documented as a key driver of these outcomes, this issue has not been properly researched. In this paper, we examine parenting challenges among a sample of African immigrant parents in Alberta, Canada. We discovered main parenting challenges, organized around six overarching themes. Specifically, African immigrant parents deal with cultural incompatibility, family tension, state interference, limited social supports, poor access to services, and low socioeconomic status. Thus the state policy regarding child protection needs to change, and social service organization need to tailor their programmes to cultural specificities of African communities.
Notes
Community organizations
NA
Key recommendations
(a) deploying child protective measures that are culturally tailored to African immigrant families
(b) building community resilience by tapping into the communal cultures of the group to develop culturally relevant family-to-family support networks and mentorship programs
(c) adopting intersectionality approaches to problem-solving in African immigrant families, as most of their parenting and other social challenges are often intertwined and complex
Key findings
African immigrant parents deal with the following challenges:
Cultural incompatibility – individualized nature of Canadian parenting is a social problem for them because they are used to collectivist parenting culture
Family tensions – threat to traditional gender relations, women’s empowerment affects family stability
State interference – frequent investigations for alleged child abuse in the community
Limited social supports – African immigrants have traditionally relied on family and community networks for physical, emotional, and mental health support during parenting, but they lack similar supports in Canada
Poor access to services – liminal immigration status (some families wait for their papers for years and don’t qualify as newcomers) and cultural insensitivities on the part of service providers
Low socioeconomic status – experience of racism in the job market, low education, and limited employable skills
Key populations
African immigrant parents; immigrant settlement workers, health service providers, and policymakers
Location
Alberta
Gaps identified
African immigrant children and youth have some of the poorest social and mental health outcomes in Canada
Integration timeline
At what point during the integration process the study was conducted?
NA
Open-access – No