Editors’ Note/Note des rédacteurs

Abstract

Editors’ Note/Note des rédacteurs Lloyd L. Wong and Shibao Guo We are pleased to introduce a new section of Canadian Ethnic Studies which will appear periodically in future issues. This new section is entitled Review Articles and will comprise of peer-reviewed knowledge synthesis articles such as scoping reviews, systematic reviews and narrative reviews. The genesis and turning point for the funding of knowledge synthesis research in Canada occurred at the turn of the century with a collaboration between the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the former Policy Research Secretariat to create the Project on Trends1 in 1998 and 1999. Approximately 60 Canadian scholars belonging to eight research teams provided a knowledge synthesis for topics that had emanated from twenty Canadian federal government departments regarding the key issues likely to create future policy challenges for them. The eight identified issues were: globalization, North American integration, multiple centers of power, changes in the values of citizens, social differentiation, aging, environmental pressures, and technological change and the information revolution. Amongst these scholars, there were several, working under the topics of globalization, values of citizens and social differentiation, who provided work on matters related to ethnic and racial studies. They included Yvonne Hébert, Danielle Juteau, Peter Li, Dawn Martin-Hill, Malinda Smith, Terry Wotherspoon, Lori Wilkinson, and Lloyd Wong. In essence, scholars selected for the Project on Trends were asked to write critical review articles that synthesized current knowledge, discuss its policy implications and identify priority directions for future research. Moreover, scholars were given leeway to use unconventional methods of synthesis and presentation as well as the development of provocative and speculative arguments, with the provision that their analysis be well grounded in scientific and scholarly knowledge and meet high intellectual standards. As such, this was one of the first large publicly funded research endeavours for knowledge synthesis in Canada. By the 2010s and early 2020s, SSHRC was funding many knowledge synthesis research programs and these included, among many others, topics such as Future Needs of the Labour Market (2013), Aboriginal Peoples (2016), Emerging Asocial Society (2019) and Gender-Based Violence (2022), to name a few. Knowledge synthesis articles are now published in many academic research journals and there are scholarly journals whose sole or primary focus is on publishing knowledge synthesis [End Page iii] review articles (see, for example: Psychological Review, Review of Educational Research, and Trauma, Violence and Abuse, to name just a few). Canadian Ethnic Studies, since its inception, has had three main types of papers which include regular research articles, research notes, and reviews of books. On occasion, there were also sections entitled Review Articles and Debates and Review Essays. Beginning with this issue, we have a new category entitled Review Articles which will consist of knowledge synthesis articles including: 1) the more traditional and partial narrative reviews; 2) the more focused systematic reviews; and 3) the broader scoping reviews which are a relatively newer approach to knowledge synthesis. Since we have had, in the past, a category called Review Articles and Debates, it will be renamed Review Essays and Debates in future issues in order to avoid any confusion. For this issue, we are pleased to include three review articles. The first one is entitled The History of Black People in Canada and the Intersection of Policies on Their Settlement, by Vivian Puplampu and Co-PI Judy White from the University of Regina, and colleague Jordan Pierson. The second article is a scoping review by Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika from the University of Alberta, and colleagues Brittany Tetreault, Neelam Punjani and Mary Olukotun, entitled Intimate Partner Violence Interventions within Immigrant Populations: A Scoping Review of the G7 Nations, including Canada. The third is by Mary Crea-Arsenio from McMaster University, and colleagues K. Bruce Newbold, Andrea Baumann and Margaret Walton-Roberts, entitled Immigrant Employment Integration in Canada: A Narrative Review. [End Page iv] Note 1. Information provided on the Project on Trends comes from personal communication with Luc Lebrun, Program Officer, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in June 2022 and William Coleman’s article “The Project on Trends: An Introduction” published in February 2000 in Canadian...