Faculty (Social Justice Education)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/35014

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 24

Decolonization is not a metaphor
(2012-09-08) Tuck, Eve; Yang, K. Wayne
Our goal in this article is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization. Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. The easy adoption of decolonizing discourse by educational advocacy and scholarship, evidenced by the increasing number of calls to “decolonize our schools,” or use “decolonizing methods,” or, “decolonize student thinking”, turns decolonization into a metaphor. As important as their goals may be, social justice, critical methodologies, or approaches that decenter settler perspectives have objectives that may be incommensurable with decolonization. Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism. The metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or “settler moves to innocence”, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity. In this article, we analyze multiple settler moves towards innocence in order to forward “an ethic of incommensurability” that recognizes what is distinct and what is sovereign for project(s) of decolonization in relation to human and civil rights based social justice projects. We also point to unsettling themes within transnational/Third World decolonizations, abolition, and critical space-place pedagogies, which challenge the coalescence of social justice endeavors, making room for more meaningful potential alliances.
Economic and Educational Inequalities and Support for Occupy Movements: Some Recent North American Evidence
(Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education CASAE, 2012) Livingstone, D. W.; Raykov, Milosh
The recent emergence of Occupy movements around the advanced capitalist world suggests widening perceptions of serious inequities and injustices and willingness to be involved in actions to change them. This paper will draw on evidence from a series of Canadian and U.S. opinion surveys of economic oppression, educational inequality and class consciousness, as well as support for Occupy movements, to assess the strength of these attitudes.
Class Structure and Class Consciousness in the Current Crisis
(1983-06) Livingstone, D. W.
The purpose of this paper is to offer an empirical assessment of levels of subjective class consciousness during the current economic slump in a particular advanced capitalist setting, Canada's industrial heartland of Ontario. First, a very brief historical materialist account of the changing class composition of advanced capitalist societies in the twentieth century is offered, objective class positions are outlined in terms of relations of production distinctions, and quantitative estimates of the distribution of such class positions in the Ontario population in 1978, 1980 and 1982 are made. Secondly, the current period is presented as one of organic crisis in which unsettled relations among major class and other social forces are associated with heightened ideological disputes. The general form of current ideological discourse is briefly characterized to contextuate the specific study of expressions of class consciousness. Then a conception of levels of class consciousness is specified, including class identity, opposed class interests, and hegemonic visions. Levels of class consciousness and recent changes therein among both the general adult population and those in different objective class positions are estimated on the basis of views expressed in 1978, 1980 and 1982 opinion surveys.
Ideological Class Struggle
(2003-09) Livingstone, D.W.
Research leaders and student collaborators: Insights from Canada
(Bloomsbury, 2018) Acker, Sandra; Wagner, Anne; McGinn, Michelle K.
Black Racialization and Resistance at an Elite University
(University of Toronto Press, 2020-05) Hampton, Rosalind
The presence and experiences of Black people at elite universities have been largely underrepresented and erased from institutional histories. This book engages with a collection of these experiences that span half a century and reflect differences in class, gender, and national identifications among Black scholars. By mapping Black people’s experiences of studying and teaching at McGill University, this book reveals how the "whiteness" of the university both includes and exceeds the racial identities of students and professors. It highlights the specific functions of Blackness and of anti-Blackness within society in general and within the institution of higher education in particular, demonstrating how structures and practices of the university reproduce interlocking systems of oppression that uphold racial capitalism, reproduce colonial relations, and promote settler nationalism. Critically engaging the work of Black learners, academics, organizers, and activists within this dynamic political context, this book underscores the importance of Black Studies across North America.
Feminist Scholars Working Around the Neoliberal University
(Taylor and Francis, 2017-03-24) Acker, Sandra; Wagner, Anne
A considerable scholarship now describes the increasing neoliberalization of universities and the accompanying impacts on academic research and researchers. However, less attention has been devoted to issues of research project leadership, especially for academics with feminist commitments. This article reports results of a qualitative study of 12 senior academic women from six countries who are known for feminist research and explores how they pursue their projects in the context of contemporary changes and challenges. Rather than positioning faculty as passive participants, this study acknowledges their agency within institutional structures, albeit somewhat constrained. The results reveal the range of strategies employed by feminist researchers in various national contexts that enable them to maintain their critical focus despite increasing pressures to conform to neoliberal agendas.
Dear SSHRC, What Do You Want? An Epistolary Narrative of Expertise, Identity, and Time in Grant Writing
(Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2019-01) Acker, Sandra; McGinn, Michelle K.; Vander Kloet, Marie; Wagner, Anne
The current research climate has heightened expectations for social science researchers to secure research grant funding at the same time that such funding appears to be more competitive than ever. As a result, researchers experience anxiety, confusion, loss of confidence, second guessing, and a lack of trust in the system and themselves. This autoethnographic study provides an insider perspective on the intellectual, emotional, and physical experience of grant writing. A team of scholars document the production of a research grant for their major national funding agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The story is presented through epistolary narrative in the form of a series of unsent letters addressed to the funding agency. The letters foreground themes of expertise, identity, and time as they were shaped through the grant-writing process. The analysis draws attention to unnecessary complexities and challenges that could and should be eliminated from granting processes if the intention is to foster quality research and strengthen research capacity. Implications may prove instructive for other grant applicants, resource personnel employed to support applicants, and potential funders.
The work of university research administrators: Praxis and professionalization
(2019) Acker, Sandra; McGinn, Michelle K.; Campisi, Caitlin
As part of a project on the social production of social science research, 19 research administrators (RAs) in five Canadian universities were interviewed about work, careers, and professionalization. While rarely featured in the higher education literature, RAs have become an important source of assistance to academics, who are increasingly expected to obtain and manage external research funding. RAs perform multiple roles, notably assisting with the complexities of grant-hunting as well as managing ethical clearance, knowledge mobilization, and related activities. Aspects normally associated with professionalization include organizations that control entry, higher degrees in the field, and clear career paths, all of which are somewhat compromised in the case of RAs. Nevertheless, most of the participants regard research administration as a profession, and we argue that it is more important to focus on the sensemaking and identity formation of these mostly female staff than to apply abstract criteria. Although their efforts do little to challenge a culture of performativity in the academy, and indeed may be regarded as supporting it, the RAs have defined for themselves a praxis dedicated to easing the burdens of the academics, helping one another, and contributing to the greater good of the university and the research enterprise.
"Play it again, Sam": Undoing and redoing Samuel Beckett’s Molloy in contemporary art
(ibidem Press, 2017) Taban, Carla
Authenticity and the Limits of Philosophy
(2014) Bialystok, Lauren
Almost everyone has had an intuitive experience of authenticity that seems to reveal a glimmer of one’s true identity. Yet by positing the existence of a ‘true self,’ authenticity introduces metaphysical challenges that resist systematic solutions. I argue that authenticity properly analyzed demands an essentialist structure that strains to be applied to personal identity. I then assess the three most influential types of accounts in modern philosophical discussions against this framework: Romanticism and autonomy; late existentialism; and virtue conceptions of authenticity. This analysis casts doubt on the possibility of generating a complete philosophical account of authenticity.
Refuting Polonius: Sincerity, Authenticity, and "Shtick"
(2011) Bialystok, Lauren
In this paper I probe the kinds of views about selfhood that inform our understanding of sincerity and authenticity and argue that the terms have separate, but related, boundaries. Borrowing Frankfurt’s notion of wholeheartedness, I argue that authenticity is a form of alignment or consistency within the self, which requires self-knowledge and intentionality in order to be actualized. Sincerity involves representing oneself truthfully to others but does not depend on the presence of authenticity. I contrast sincerity and authenticity in depth using literary examples. In the final section I call into question the assumptions underwriting the distinction between sincerity and authenticity and introduce the category of “shtick,” which plays with both. I conclude that, although authenticity and sincerity stand in a complex relation to one another, that relation is neither one of synonymity, as might have been the case in the Renaissance, nor of sufficient condition, as Polonius famously claims.
Respect Without Recognition: A Critique of the OCSTA’s ‘Respecting Difference’ Policy.
(Canadian Philosophy of Education Society, 2014-05) Bialystok, Lauren
In 2012, a provincial bill amended the Ontario Education Act to provide more focused measures to eliminate bullying on the basis of sexual orientation. Bill 13 specifically requires that students be allowed to establish gay-straight alliances (GSAs), including in the publicly-funded Catholic school system. The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association responded by proposing an alternative policy, called “Respecting Difference,” on the grounds that GSAs run contrary to Catholic teaching. Respect is a complex ethical notion with a long philosophical history. Through an overview of what philosophers from different traditions (including Kant, Buber, Levinas, Hegel, and Rawls) have said about respect, it becomes apparent that the kind of respect that is due to all persons requires recognition, or a willingness to accept the other as a self-identifying subject who is irreducible to my experience. In its discussion of LGBT students, the OCSTA fails to accord them such recognition, even while it emphasizes the meaning of difference. Consequently, there is reason to conclude that it does not truly respect sexual minority students and that it is not fully committed to eradicating homophobia-based bullying in the Catholic school system. “Respecting Difference” declines to heed best evidence about the factors that actually protect LGBT students from bullying, and uses the guidelines for “Respecting Difference” groups as an opportunity to reinforce its pathologization of LGBT identity itself.
Expecting to Quit: A Best-Practices Review of Smoking Cessation Interventions for Pregnant and Postpartum Girls and Women
(British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health, 2011-03) Bialystok, Lauren; Greaves, Lorraine; Poole, Nancy; Okoli, Chizimuzo T.C.; Hemsing, Natalie; O’Leary, Renée; Qu, Annie
Should Teachers Be Authentic?
(2015) Bialystok, Lauren
Authenticity is often touted as an important virtue for teachers. But what do we mean when we say that a teacher ought to be ‘authentic’? Research shows that dis- cussions of teacher authenticity frequently refer to other character traits or simply to teacher effectiveness, but authenticity is a unique concept with a long philosophical history. Once we understand authenticity as an ethical and metaphysical question, the presumed connection between authenticity and teaching appears less solid. While being true to oneself may render it more likely that a teacher does her job well, there is also reason to believe that excellent teachers can be inauthentic and that inept or even very dangerous teachers can be authentic. This paper breaks down the concept of teacher authenticity and examines three cases to show that the relationship between authenticity and good teaching is less direct that it may initially seem.
Preconception care: Call for national guidelines
(2013-10) Bialystok, Lauren; Greaves, Lorraine; Nancy, Poole
Authenticity and Trans Identity
(Cape Breton University Press, 2013-06-01) Bialystok, Lauren
Politics Without “Brainwashing”: A Philosophical Defence of Social Justice Education
(2015) Bialystok, Lauren
Social justice education (SJE) is a ubiquitous, if inconsistently defined, component of contemporary education theory and practice. Recently, SJE has come under fire for being politically biased and even “brainwashing” children in the public education system. In a liberal democracy such as our own, it is important that state-sponsored actions and essential public goods can be justified to all citizens, not only to those with a particular set of beliefs. To defend SJE against its detractors, therefore, it is insufficient to argue over the concrete values that SJE seeks to inculcate; it is instead necessary to develop a philosophical argument situating SJE within a conception of democratic liberalism. This article provides such an argument by reviewing competing conceptions of liberalism, analyzing the political culture in Canada, and applying an interpretation of comprehensive liberalism to specific educational initiatives. Rather than defining or justifying all instances of SJE, the goal is to show how some, but not all, substantive political views can be coherently espoused in the Canadian education system without turning into “brain- washing.” Five specific criteria are offered for discriminating between legitimate and illegitimate forms of education within Canadian liberalism. I use these criteria to show that much of what we recognize as SJE is justifiable, not because every citizen endorses the concrete values it represents, but because and only insofar as it reflects a democratic political culture that does.
My Child, My Choice? Mandatory Curriculum, Sex, and the Conscience of Parents
(2017) Bialystok, Lauren
Transgender Inclusion in Single-Sex Competition: The Case of Beauty Pageants
(2016) Bialystok, Lauren
Much ethical attention has been devoted to sex segregation and its relation to fairness in the world of sports, with prominent controversies about transgender and inter- sex athletes helping to advance the debate in recent years. In this paper, I deploy some of the discussion from philosophy of sport to examine the fairness of allowing a trans woman to compete in a beauty pageant. This requires scrutinizing the physical characteristics that are rewarded in such competitions and their distribution among the sexes. The analysis casts doubt on the coherence of simple sex segregation and facilitates a feminist critique of beauty standards.

Browse

Recent Submissions