This study examines the challenges discussed by five different types of immigrant youth (aged 16 to 29) from ten different sending countries and regions, now residing in Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa, who are at some risk of not succeeding in their settlement and integration. It includes an analysis of the observations made by those who work in serving them in these cities, and answers the following question: • What do existing research and information have to tell us about newcomer youth at risk? • How are they coping in meeting the challenges they encounter? • What resources exist for them, to help them meet their settlement needs? • What gaps in information could be remedied for them to link them with existing resources? • What else is needed to help them overcome the challenges they face? The report concludes with recommendations, principally to the federal government, as to ways to assist the youth in achieving success in Canada.

While a number of factors have already been shown to impact variations in graduation rates among students in Canada, there is little research examining the changing impact of these factors on Ontario students’ secondary education completion over time. This research draws on data from two Grade 9 cohorts (2006 and 2011) from the Toronto District School Board in order to unpack how predictors of high school graduation change over time. In particular, we use multivariate analysis to examine whether predictors (including gender, race, parental education, household income, suspension, academic achievement, special education needs, and Grade 9 absenteeism) are significant by cohort of students and if there are gaps in secondary school success between subgroups. Findings demonstrate that high school completion is increasing over time and that there is a diminishing importance of parental education and neighbourhood household income as a predictor of high school graduation. However, we do find evidence of persistent under-achievement among students of certain racial backgrounds, lower academic streams, and those with high rates of absenteeism. We argue that additional data infrastructure in Ontario and beyond are necessary to identify how our findings generalize to the province as a whole.

Au moment de la création en 1996 de CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre, Toronto était largement reconnue comme « la ville internationale » du Canada. Destination première de nombreux nouveaux arrivants au pays, le caractère et l’énergie mêmes de la ville découlent de vagues successives de nouveaux arrivants venant de différentes régions du monde. Cet article retrace l’évolution de CERIS, durant la dernière décennie, dans le contexte de l’évolution de la diversité dans la région du Grand Toronto et dans le reste de l’Ontario.

When CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre was launched in 1996, Toronto was already firmly established as Canada’s “global city.” As the primary destination for many newcomers to this country, the city’s very character and energy is derived from continuous waves of new immigrants and refugees from diverse regions of the world. This article tracks the evolution of CERIS over the past decade as one of Canada’s leading research centres analyzing the impact of immigration and resettlement in urban settings, within the context of the changing diversity both within the Greater Toronto Area and across Ontario.

Using data from two Toronto student cohorts that entered high school five years apart, this study uses descriptive and mul- tivariate techniques to examine short-term change in the predictors of four possible pathways after high school: confirming a place in university, confirming a place in college, applying but no admittance, or not applying at all. From a comparative cohort perspective, the analysis considers various overlapping ascriptive and school experience factors that contribute to un- equal transitions-from race, gender, and immigration background to early achievement, attendance, and suspensions. Even across a short time period, there is change in transition patterns. The results highlight that a comparative cohort approach provides insight into how the transition to post-secondary education in an urban environment changes even over relatively short periods of time.

In this paper we describe the process we used to reactivate a cohort study that began in 1973 but had not been contacted since 1995. In 2018, we began efforts to trace cohort members who had been involved in the last wave of the study. While we had old contact information, we also employed internet search strategies to try to find individuals. We discuss our strategy and the limits that we have as Canadians working in an extremely limited funding landscape and a data infrastructure that does not allow access to government data sources, like those described by researchers of other similar longitudinal studies spanning decades in the UK and the US. Despite our considerable attrition, we performed some analyses that demonstrates our remaining cohort is not that dissimilar from either the original cohort or in terms of general characteristics of Ontarians in their mid-60s.

The following study examines how a class-based measure of food security was associated with high school grades and later post-secondary enrollments by self-identified race. We use multilevel regression to analyze data merged among the 2011 Toronto District School Board Student Census, administrative records, and college and university application information. Statistical interaction terms examine if food security is differentially associated with educational outcomes by race. The results show there is a positive association between food security and Grade 12 grades as well as post-secondary confirmation. This association, however, varies by self-identified race. Food security is less important for the academic success of East Asians students compared to Whites. For Black students, food security has a comparably flat association with grades, but reduces their likelihood of having a rejected post-secondary application. The findings highlight that food security, as a class-based resource, differentially benefits racial groups in terms of their educational outcomes.

We examine how race, sex and poverty contribute to the likelihood of attending two- and four-year colleges in Chicago and Toronto. In each city, we use longitudinal data on high school students and their postsecondary trajectories in order to explore how race and sex may impact differentially upon their educational pathways. Our analyses are informed by an intersectionality perspective, wherein we understand that life chances are shaped by the various traits and identities that individuals possess. In Toronto, Black males are less likely than all other groups to attend four-year colleges. We also find that two-year colleges appear to fulfill a different role in Toronto than they do in Chicago; that is, serving populations who may have been tracked into non-academic course selections in high school. We contextualize our findings within the very different political, cultural, and historical contexts of Ontario and Illinois.

Using data from two cohorts of Grade 12 students in Toronto, we examined whether the transition to post-secondary education changed between 2006 and 2011, particularly for under-represented groups. We used multilevel, multinomial logistic regressions to examine how the intersections of race and sex affect post-secondary transitions in the two cohorts. Our findings revealed that Black, Latino, and Southeast Asian students were less prepared for post-secondary education than White students. Students in these groups had lower than average GPAs, higher identification of special education needs, or lower likelihoods of taking academic-stream courses. These differences remained fairly stable between 2006 and 2011. We did, however, find that Black students were more likely than White students to confirm a place in university in 2011—a significant difference. In contrast, Southeast Asian students experienced a decline in university transition but an increase in college confirmation. We also found that race and sex were important intersections for university confirmations in the case of Blacks and for college confirmations in the case of Southeast Asians. We contextualize our findings within the policy climate of Ontario in the years spanning our two cohorts.

Immigrant women to Canada face unique challenges in gaining mastery of English or French, the country's two official languages. The study focuses on differences among women with respect to pre-migration and post-migration characteristics that position them differently with respect to language learning in the social contexts where they assert their immigrant identity. This study examines issues in language acquisition among adult immigrant women and their strategies to improve language skills within four years of arrival, using nationally representative data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC). The study shows that older women, less educated women, and some immigration class groups (i.e., spouse/dependents, family class, refugees) have lower language proficiency at arrival and less chances to improve. Since immigrant women represent a heterogeneous group in terms of pre-migration language skills and access to language learning, adequate language learning support is required to facilitate their effective integration in the Canadian society.

In this paper, we examine the post-secondary plans and attainment of adult learners in Toronto, Ontario. We first describe the population of adult learners in Canada's largest city, describing how they are largely made up of immigrants who use the continuing education adult day programs at the Toronto District School Board to upgrade their skills. We hypothesize that the adult day schools are a stepping stone for entering post-secondary programs in Ontario and find that the vast majority of students surveyed indicated that they wished to pursue college or university. However, an administrative data set demonstrates that only a fraction of these students successfully confirmed an offer of college or university admission at a later date. We discuss this disconnect between the plans and later-life attainment of adult learners, noting how this particular population is much different demographically than traditional high-school students.