In the master's thesis, we discussed the Slovenian school of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish in Toronto. We reviewed the literature and in the theoretical part,firstly, the history of the migration of Slovenes to the territory of today's city of Toronto is presented: who were the first emigrants, why the emigration occurred and how it went through different periods. We researched the beginnings of the first Slovenian school at the parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous and its successor, which is still the only one operating in the territory of the metropolis. In addition to the presentation of schools, we also briefly presented theorganizations that had a positive impact on the interconnection of immigrants. In the last part
of the theoretical analysis, we described the problems that the first emigrants faced and the problems present today.
For the empirical part, we visited the city of Toronto, where we obtained the data and information. We conducted interviews with the principal of the Slovenian school, teachers, priests, and individual elderly emigrants and the management of the retirement home Lipa. The master's thesis presents the results of all information collected through conversations. We wanted to investigate how a Slovenian school works, how many students they have, what problems they face, how teacher education is regulated, who finances them, prescribes the material and how they are connected with the Republic of Slovenia. Part of the empirical work is the analysis of teaching materials (Čas za slovenščino in Materina beseda) and a three-week visit to the Republic of Slovenia as a part of the Youth Summer School. Some of the stories of the elderly are presented in the context of immigrant stories.
|
