A study saw racialized students in Ontario French immersion programs write monologues and stories about their experiences, and also invited immersion stakeholders like teachers and parents to give feedback on race and racism in Ontario immersion programs.

continue about the successes and challenges with French immersion programs across English-speaking parts of Canada.

Programs are criticized for being elitist by some and praised for being exceptional by others.

My master鈥檚 research , finding that program locations favoured middle-class students, curricula demonstrated a Eurocentric focus and colonial lens and program entry-points favoured established residents over newcomers.

My PhD work research has relied upon a collective creation research method known to propose ways French immersion programs can be more culturally responsive and anti-racist.

Read the full article written by 快播视频 Faculty of Education Phd candidate Marika Kunnas on

The post The Conversation - Anti-racist, culturally responsive French immersion: Listening to racialized students is an important step towards equitable education appeared first on Faculty of Education.

Ph.D. candidate Nicola Dove, co-authored an opinion piece about structures of continuing dehumanization and devaluation of Black lives in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. "Living within often-contradictory sets of circumstances speaks to our experiences and those of our extended communities, so we offer paradox and the questions it raises... as a means of wayfinding," said Dove and co-authors.

One year ago, the three of us delivered a presentation entitled . Since then, we have moved through the two-year mark of the murder of George Floyd and witnessed another set of with its attendant promise of an(other) awakening and call to change. We have also witnessed the recent loss of and other previous deaths 鈥� some of which are covered by the media and others are not. Those violent losses, especially intensified as we move through the global pandemic, have shone a light on structures of continuing dehumanization and devaluation of Black lives in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. The repeating calls to action reveal the deep paradox that in order to be heard, and to initiate a movement for what calls 鈥�,鈥� more souls have had to be lost. The lives and experiences of Black people are rife with such paradoxes in this, .

Read the full article on the .

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Cristina De Simone, a Ph.D. student in Mathematics Education at 快播视频, Canada, and Tori Trajanovski, a Ph.D. student in Education at 快播视频, write about teachers who are now moving beyond traditional ways of teaching math and shifting towards evidence-based equitable teaching and assessment practices.

Families might be wondering why in school.

Why aren鈥檛 teachers putting students on the spot and getting them to prove that they know the math? Why are teachers letting students solve problems in lots of different ways instead of just telling them how to do it?

Teachers are moving beyond and shifting towards more evidence-based equitable teaching and assessment practices. This means every student is provided with what they need as opposed to being provided with the exact same resources and assessment practices.

For example, instead of giving all students in the classroom the exact same test, a student with test anxiety will be given an alternative format to showcase their learning.

Read the in .

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The number of international students in Canada has over the last decade, contributing approximately , and an estimated in annual revenues to Canadian universities.

Pegged by the federal government as a key source of talent for the growth and sustenance of the Canadian economy, international students are sought to relieve our national demographic imbalance created by an .

颁补苍补诲补鈥檚 also seeks international students to address our skilled labour shortages.

The question, however, is not whether international students are needed, but rather if they are valued.

Read the full article written by PhD candidate Isaac Garcia-Sitton on .

The post The Conversation: Canada identifies international students as 'ideal immigrants' but supports are lacking appeared first on Faculty of Education.

So, as a mature PhD student who further wanted to connect with new local communities and offer back their Arts experience, naturally the Narratives in/of Costa Rica: Individuals, Communities and their Voices course caught their eye. Taught by Professor Alejandro Zamora and offered at the Las Nubes 快播视频 campus in Costa Rica, the course offered an immersive focus through narrative work into Costa Rica and its local communities.

鈥淲e held classes at York鈥檚 campus in Costa Rica, which was in the mountains in a rainforest,鈥� says Newbigging. 鈥淭here were 16 students, and we stayed with local families in home-stay for the 10 days. The course was all about storytelling, related to ideas about Costa Rica and community there.鈥�

Following an open-ended and flexible format, the course encouraged students to learn from the local and Indigenous communities via travel logs and interviews. Students kept ongoing journals and received prompts to further immerse themselves in their new environments and cultures. The final assignment was a travel log documenting their experience.

鈥淲hile we were there, we were pretty much busy all day and into the evening,鈥� Newbigging recounts. 鈥淚t was a pretty intense experience, and days started at 8:00 a.m. It gets light there early, so people tend to get up in their homes at 4:30鈥�5:00 a.m. The family I stayed with was on a farm, and have dairy cattle... so, they鈥檙e up early.鈥�

For Newbigging, it would be the home-stay situation and environment itself鈥攖he 鈥渃ontainer,鈥� as they would term in their work鈥攖hat would prove the most fascinating subject for their own final assignment. They said they particularly appreciated how the professor was open to different media formats, too鈥攔anging from video form, to written stories, to documentary-style interviewing and photo essays. In Newbigging鈥檚 case, it would be a 16-page comic book about their time as a home-stay with this local more-traditional, Catholic family living in rural Costa Rica.

The family was primarily made up of a straight married couple and their granddaughter, but the farm doors would be open to the lush and vibrant rainforest all day, with grandsons, daughters and farm work friends coming and going鈥攁 scene ripe with inspiration for an artist focusing on queerness and travelling abroad. Prior to beginning the course, Newbigging had already been drawing comics and thinking about autobiography and childhood memory鈥攑articularly the childhood experiences of queerness and trauma.

鈥淪o, the course, for me, let me get out of my head for a while,鈥� Newbigging says. 鈥淭o think about other people鈥檚 stories, other people鈥檚 lives, but in a way that circles back to my work. The story I made out of being there was about a traditional family context鈥攍iving there, but coming out in that situation. It relates back to my dissertation work around queerness and childhood and disclosure, so it was a nice opportunity to zone in on a particular experience to show, and to figure out how to write about it. It brought the tension into sharp focus.鈥�

For Newbigging, it would be a project that was both immensely positive, yet challenging. As their own story was one of authenticity in the face of perceived difference, they reflected in particular about their audience, and with whom to share their work. As part of their work, they sketched and drew in the home, including pictures of one of the hosts, the wife and mother of the household, working in her kitchen.聽

鈥淪he was really kind and generous and interested in what I was doing, and so I wanted to share drawings with her,鈥� Newbigging said. 鈥淭he question became: Do I share the whole book with her? This whole story? Which is a kind of another level of coming out about how I felt. It鈥檚 another form of intercultural exchange.鈥�

They recall a special moment early in their trip in which their host showed them how she made cheese. 鈥淚 could see she was really proud of this, and that she was actually sharing. She was being her authentic self. So that space made me feel more welcome to take a chance on sharing more about myself.鈥�

Newbigging believes their story can be relevant to a Toronto audience as well, who reside in a city that already knows much about diversity of cultural backgrounds, and about diversity specifically in values and ideas around queerness. For Newbigging, the story explores the context one is in and how one perceives said space to be safe.

Beyond their final assignment, Newbigging also had the opportunity to lead a comics workshop for non-artists in the local community center library. The workshop was attended by all of their peer students from York, as well as community members.

鈥淚鈥檓 really glad that happened. It was very well received,鈥� Newbiggings says. "I got to see what the local people who attended were drawing, and I would be really interested in going back through the same program in a subsequent year to do more of that鈥攑erhaps a week-long workshop with the local community members to get them making comics and distributing some kind of comic books of their own creation."

鈥淭hats鈥檚 something I would like to see if we can follow up on and continue.鈥�

Article by Dennis Bayazitov special contributing writer

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快播视频 graduate students are invited to present their creative and scholarly works in a collaborative, professional and welcoming environment during the 18th annual 快播视频 Graduate Student Conference in Education, March 24 to 26.

This year鈥檚 event will be offered in a hybrid format, with virtual and in-person sessions (pending changing COVID regulations), and will highlight the theme 鈥渞e:.鈥� As society moves toward a re-opening, the theme invites presenters and attendees to explore the preposition re: as an intersection of pasts, presents and futures as we re-imagine and re-consider our 鈥榬e鈥檚ponsibility as researchers, educators, scholars, storytellers, makers and creators.

Graduate students interested in submitting proposals for the conference should do so by Feb. 9 at 11:59 p.m.

For more information on the call for submissions, or on the conference theme, visit the . Questions can be directed to the conference committee by emailing gradconf@edu.yorku.ca.

Article originally published in the January 19, 2022 issue of

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Already a month into the school year, and after two years of disrupted learning by COVID-19, students with special education needs have been deeply affected. Individual education plans (IEPs) have become a crucial part of the education system. And the number of students on IEPs is growing across Ontario public schools.

IEPs are created for students who are defined as exceptional, in order to consider their individual needs (whether behavioural, communicative, physical, intellectual) and support their optimal learning potential.

An exceptional student in education refers to a child who has been identified as gifted or as having a disability. Many children who are not identified as exceptional can still have an IEP that is 鈥渘on-identitified.鈥� This allows them to receive special supports within their educational journeys.

If an IEP is inaccurate, a child鈥檚 learning needs will not be met. IEPs are meant to be constructed by a team of professionals in collaboration with parents, as each stakeholder has different information about the child. Parents who have busy schedules may not feel as though they can make a valuable contribution to their child鈥檚 education and discussions about an IEP. Or they may lack the awareness of their parental rights when it comes to participating in the IEP process. This means they may be wrongly left out of the conversation.

Read the full article written by 快播视频 Faculty of Education Ph.D. Student Tori Trajanovski on .

The post The Conversation Canada - Children on individual education plans: What parents need to know, and 4 questions they should ask appeared first on Faculty of Education.

A number of our faculty and staff will be presenting at AERA鈥檚 2021 virtual annual meeting, April 8 鈥� 12, 2021.

THURSDAY APRIL 8, 2021

Unpacking Early Childhood Education With a Critical Lens
3:00 to 4:00pm EDT
Childhood Innocence and Experience: Memory, Discourse, Practice
Lisa Farley

Exploring the Experiences of Black School Leaders and Their Work
3:00 to 4:00pm EDT
Im/possibilities of Antiracist Leadership: Black and Brown Leaders in White Spaces
Vidya Shah and Nada Aoudeh

FRIDAY APRIL 9, 2021

Future Teachers Reimagining the Possibilities of Curriculum and Pedagogy
9:30 to 10:30am
The Dreamwork of Childhood Memory: The Futures Teachers Make From the Schooling Past (Roundtable Session)
Lisa Farley

Facilitating Education Change Through Various Perspectives
9:30 to 10:30am EDT
Growing Innovation in Rural Sites of Learning: The Role of Professional Learning Networks in Educational Change
Graham Giles (Roundtable)

SATURDAY APRIL 10, 2021

Accepting the Responsibility to Examine and Innovate With Frameworks Used in Education Research
10:40am to 12:10pm EDT
Molade Osibodu (Chair)

Explorations of Past and Future: Narrative Spaces of Teaching and Learning
2:30 to 4:00pm EDT
Making Space for Democratic Dissensus: Futures Curricula and Speculative World-Building in Education
Brittany Tomin

District-Level Reforms for Equity: Politics and Implementation Challenges
2:30 to 4:00pm EDT
Subverting Whiteness: Beliefs, Knowledges, and Competencies of Midlevel, Antiracist District Leaders
Vidya Shah and Nada Aoudeh

Education at the Borders: Rights, Refugees, and Responsibilities
4:10 to 5:40pm EDT
The Rights and Personhood of Other People's Children (Paper)
Aparna Mishra Tarc

The University, Teacher Education, and Bearing Witness at the Border When Political Institutions Fail
Mario DiPaolantonio

SUNDAY APRIL 11, 2021

Reading Critical Pedagogies, Reading Paulo Freire
2:30 to 4:00pm EDT
A Note on Free Association as Transference to Reading
Deborah Britzman

MONDAY APRIL 12, 2021

Accepting Responsibility for (In)Equity in Education? Critical Policy Analysis Across Contexts
9:30 to 11:00am EDT
Shifting Meanings: The Struggle Over Private Funding of Public Schools in Alberta, Canada
Sue Winton

Examining Black Girls' Educational Experiences Across Three Differing Contexts
9:30 to 11:00am EDT
Africa, Our Motherland; Mathematics Classrooms, Our Oppressive Space
Molade Osibodu

Science Teaching and Learning: Socioscientific Issues (SSIs)
11:10am to 12:40pm EDT
New Materialisms in High School Science
Darren Hoeg

Poster Session
11:10am to 12:10pm EDT
Instructors' Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices in Blended Courses
Ron Owston and Taru Malhotra

Visit the for further information and to view the full program.

The post Faculty and Grad student presentations at AERA 2021 virtual annual meeting appeared first on Faculty of Education.

Doctoral student Timothy Martin wrote an article for about how the coronavirus pandemic provides an opportunity to address homelessness.

鈥淚 research public responses to homelessness, and I believe that we can do better,鈥� says Martin. 鈥淭hrough education and dialogue, we can begin to recognize that we all want the same thing: the end of homelessness, safer neighbourhoods and adequate housing for all.鈥�

Martin also says that 鈥渉omelessness need not be viewed as an inevitable part of the fabric of North American society. It was not always omnipresent, and need not continue to be. It has only really become pervasive, and increasing since the 1980s in Canada. Research has argued that it is preventable.鈥�

The post The Conversation Canada: The coronavirus pandemic provides an opportunity to address homelessness appeared first on Faculty of Education.

This month鈥檚 graduate student profile features international PhD Candidate, Mirco Stella. His research focuses on experiences of migration and displacement, and questions of pedagogy. "Crucial to my thinking about the world and education are the image of borders," says Stella. "What it means to simultaneously inhabit and deconstruct the lines and places we've learned to trace, to divide the familiar from the unfamiliar, as well as the same and different."

"To prospective graduate students I say to get involved with your local graduate student organizations and community as well as participating committees," says Stella. "I also tell them that whatever obstacle is coming their way to push forward because their voice matters and might create spaces for others."

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