Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Education in 2017"

Developing Teachers' Professional Learning: Canadian Evidence and Experiences in a World of Educational Improvement.

Abstract: This article discusses the current international emphasis on educational improvement and, particularly, approaches to developing teachers’ professional learning I begin by arguing for the importance of Canadian narratives and evidence within global debates I turn then to an example of a recently conducted study of the state of educators’ professional learning in Canada to examine research-informed principles and examples from policies and practices across Canada I conclude by arguing for the importance of the Canadian education community learning with, from, and for Canada, appreciating that diversity is our strength, but recognizing that inequities are our greatest challenge

The Stories Nations Tell: Sites of Pedagogy, Historical Consciousness, and National Narratives

Abstract: As Canada prepares to turn 150, this article discusses what curricular shifts are necessary to reconcile history education’s disciplinary tools with practices of historical consciousness that will encourage learners to consider the moral dilemmas associated with Canada’s colonial legacy, silenced histories, and multiple shifting identities in the present. It introduces a conceptual Framework of Canadian National Narratives that captures current constructions of Canadian national identity communicated in Canadian sites of pedagogy. Taking into consideration debates around historical consciousness as a pedagogical project, this article recommends that curricular imperatives in history education critically expose students to a country’s master national narrative templates and those narratives that contest and rebuke them through frameworks such as the Canadian one detailed in this article. Given the current historical moment, it suggests such national narrative frameworks would form part of a new curricular imperative titled the Narrative Dimension that would offer a way forward for history education in Canada and throughout the world.

Reconciliation or Racialization? Contemporary Discourses about Residential Schools in the Canadian Prairies

Abstract: The residential school system is one of the darkest examples of Canada’s colonial policy. Education about the residential schools is believed to be the path to reconciliation; that is, the restoration of equality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada. While the acquisition of the long-ignored history of residential schools has the potential to centre marginalized perspectives and narratives, knowledge acquisition alone is not necessarily a reconciliatory endeavour. The critical discourse analysis offered in this article reveals how dominant narratives about residential schools, cited by well-meaning educators, re-inscribe harmful colonial subjectivities about Aboriginal peoples. Through a post-structural lens and drawing from interviews conducted across one prairie province, I demonstrate how citing popular, contemporary discourses about residential schools continues to racialize Aboriginal peoples while positioning non-Aboriginal peoples as supportive and historically conscious. Readers are brought to think about how learning about residential schools for reconciliation might be approached as the disruption of subjectivities and the refusal to (re)pathologize Aboriginal peoples. Otherwise, efforts at reconciliation risk re-inscribing the racism that justified residential schools in their inception.

Learning What Schooling Left Out: Making an Indigenous Case for Critical Service-Learning and Reconciliatory Pedagogy within Teacher Education

Abstract: As teacher educators, we argue that the colonial history of First Peoples, coupled with alarming educational disparities, warrants a specialized approach to Indigenous service-learning within teacher training that requires a critical examination of positionality by service-learners. Our study examines the service-learning experiences of non-Indigenous pre-service teachers working in Indigenous classrooms over a three-month period through reflections and focus groups. The results underscore the risk that a lack of critical reflection by service-learners could play in widening existing educational gaps, and concludes that a reversal of perspective on the education gap could enact the possibility of reconciliatory pedagogy.

Transphobia and Cisgender Privilege: Pre-Service Teachers Recognizing and Challenging Gender Rigidity in Schools

Abstract: Our study provides examples of how critical curricula and social justice education can be brought together to inform teacher education. Building upon our ongoing longitudinal study, which investigates the impact of an integrated LGBTQ awareness program, we focus in this article on five pre-service teachers who identified critical incidents in schools related to transphobia and gender construction, and who were concerned about the enduring gender binary that presents itself in schools. Their experiences highlight the ways in which gender surveillance, both overtly and covertly, reinscribes heteronormativity, and that homophobia, transphobia, and gender stereotypes need to be continuously challenged.

Miscalculations: Decolonizing and Anti-Oppressive Discourses in Indigenous Mathematics Education

Abstract: In North American mathematics education, many practitioners highlight a disparity in achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, and claim that incorporating Indigenous perspectives in mathematics provides a more inclusive teaching approach. However, our analysis shows that there is a stream of North American practitioners who do not use anti-oppressive or decolonizing discourses, including those who claim to be motivated by social justice education. By avoiding or not emphasizing colonization, ongoing racism, and oppression in Indigenous mathematics education, these practitioners are perpetuating a false sense of the origins of inequality. Furthermore, the quest for Indigenous cultural connections in mathematics sometimes has consequences such as placing blame on Indigenous peoples for not being authorities on their cultures, perpetuating stereotypes, homogenizing Indigenous cultures while reducing their history and knowledge to superficial artifacts, and preserving a sense of the inferiority of Indigenous peoples when it comes to understanding and learning mathematics.

A Call for Teacher Professional Learning and the Study of Religion in Social Studies

Abstract: Religion is important to study in social studies because many religious iReligion is important to study in social studies because many religious individuals, groups, and movements engage with public issues and because countries are increasingly religiously diverse. In response, scholars are promoting education about religion in citizenship education. However, there remain few programs about religion in Canadian public schools and even less research about them. This article begins to address the gap by proposing three priorities for teacher professional learning and the study of religion for social studies teachers. The priorities are drawn from interviews with Alberta teachers, whose beliefs about religion in the classroom can be divided into three categories identified by the authors as nominal, attentive, and integrated. If many teachers fall into one of these categories, then the professional learning priorities suggested here have wide-ranging application.

"Do I Really Need a Course to Learn to Teach Students with Disabilities? I've Been Doing It for Years".

Abstract: A quantitative study was conducted to compare the attitudes, efficacy, and concerns about inclusive education within three groups of teachers in Manitoba, Canada (N = 191) The three groups included pre-service teachers with coursework about inclusive education, but limited experience in inclusive settings; in-service teachers with experiences in inclusive settings, but no coursework about inclusion; and in-service teachers with inclusive teaching experiences as well as coursework about inclusion Analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the groups in all three dependent variables and supported the importance of coursework, even for experienced teachers Subsequent regression analysis demonstrated that experiences and course work contributed differentially to the development of attitudes, concerns, and efficacy for inclusive teaching in pre-service and in-service teachers Implications on both in-service and pre-service teacher education are discussed

Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking

Abstract: A three-year collaborative research project in a K–6 elementary school is underway. The collaboration entails participating educators and their students exploring curricular enactment that embraces critical and creative thinking within its conduct. This article reveals whole-school efforts over Year One to build educators’ and students’ confidence to do so, sustaining such curricular practices. Chronicled as a case study, narrative inquiry fittingly unfolds the particularities encountered within the specifics of the case during Year One. Educators’ belief in the worthiness of curricular play, as well as concretely negotiating critical and creative thinking with their students, arises as a necessary issue to address in order to invest in the research intents over three years. The integral role of partici pants’ commitments to professional growth through curricular play and experimentation, actively seeking resources, entering wholly into curricular-making efforts, conversing sincerely with colleagues through inquiry conversations, and seeking organizational structures that support and strengthen curricular-making efforts, are found to be key to fostering the pedagogically oriented context needed to grow and sustain project intents.

Making Sense of the Performance (Dis)advantage for Immigrant Students Across Canada

Abstract: International achievement measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have traditionally reported a significant gap between non-migrant and immigrant student groups—a result that is often referred to as the immigrant performance disadvantage . This article examines first- and second-generation immigrant student achievement results in greater detail across Canada. Overall, Canadian achieve ment results are atypical in relation to the international community in that immigrant student groups significantly outperform non-migrants in some provincial jurisdictions, and also significantly underperform in other provincial jurisdictions, in relation to reading, mathematics, and scientific literacy. This article examines these diverse results in relation to the available literature and offers a conceptual framework that explains the unique case of Canada. The framework highlights the importance of assessing immigrant student achievement by taking into account the level of individual characteristics, provincial policies, as well as sociocultural and demographic contexts across Canada.

We Cannot Call Back Colonial Stories: Storytelling and Critical Land Literacy

Abstract: This article examines the role of stories and storytelling in both shaping and revealing pre-service teachers’ understandings of land. The authors conducted a study using digital storytelling as a participatory method of inquiry examining participants’ conceptions of land. Participants’ narratives reflect stories they have been told about their families, communities, and nations, revealing inextricable links between conceptions of land, nation, and self in relation to others. The authors propose the notion of critical land literacy as a pedagogical goal in Teacher Education. They define critical land literacy as an understanding of, and relation to, land informed by Indigenous knowledges and a critique of ongoing settler-colonialism in Canada.

A Well Place to Be: The Intersection of Canadian School-Based Mental Health Policy with Student and Teacher Resiliency

Abstract: This policy analysis identifies and critiques dominant narratives in the school-based mental health (SBMH) movement in Canada, with an eye to the ideas and resources being mobilized. The policy narratives were identified as SBMH problems and solutions, represented by the websites and links to other resources of the ministries and departments of education in Canada. There are three areas under-represented in the policy narratives that deserve more nuanced attention in SBMH initiatives; these are (a) to work with educators to develop communities of practice on school mental health around the notion of resiliency, (b) to consider the structural and material factors that affect people’s ability to be resilient at school, and (c) to extend the current focus on promoting student wellness to include teacher wellness. We ground these recommendations by contrasting the policy narratives with the story of our work with educators on a website about resiliency through the lenses of positive psychological health and a sociomaterial perspective on resources. We suggest that a sociomaterial approach to SBMH initiatives, using conceptual tools from implementation science and workplace psychological health, may help both students and teachers develop resiliency.

The Ontario Sexual Health Education Update: Perspectives from the Toronto Teen Survey (TTS) Youth

Abstract: Sexual health education in schools is a controversial topic. In 2015 an updated version of the sex education program was introduced to schools in the Province of Ontario, Canada. The curriculum received strong criticism from some parents and lobby groups. Similar objections led to the Ontario Liberal government withdrawing the previous sex education program update in 2010. Public debates about the appropriateness of the new curriculum are primarily concerned with the extent to which parents were consulted. Absent from these discussions are the opinions of the curriculum’s target group: students. What do young people have to say about their sexual health education, and how can this information be used to provide more effective programs in schools? In this article we draw on the findings of the Toronto Teen Survey (TTS) (N = 1,216) to discuss youth responses to questions about their experience with sexual health education and the relevance of this information for school-based sexual health education (SBSE). Considering that TTS youth identified schools as their primary source of sexual health education, the survey findings have value for SBSE. In discussing the TTS data in the context of the updated Ontario sexual health curriculum, we provide a youth perspective on the revised sexual health education program that was implemented in the fall of 2015.

“But What If I Fail?” A Meta-Synthetic Study of the Conditions Supporting Teacher Innovation

Abstract: This meta-synthesis investigates the conditions that support teacher innovation in schools. Twenty-seven articles that report on studies using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology were selected for this analysis. The articles were analyzed using Hargreaves’s and Fullan’s concept of “professional capital” as a framework, and nine emergent themes were developed. Most significant among the themes were the impact of teacher attitudes and beliefs, and the importance of school structure on how teachers initiated and sustained innovations in teaching practice. This research is limited by the ability to generalize results. This limitation is due to the variety of methodologies and sample sizes employed by studies used for the meta-synthesis. This article offers a discussion of the importance of local adaptation in supporting teachers to develop and sustain innovations that lead to positive school change.

Le processus de coévaluation entre superviseurs et étudiants en formation initiale des enseignants du primaire

Abstract: La visee de cette contribution est de mettre au jour la demarche mise en oeuvre par les superviseurs quand ils gerent un temps de coevaluation apres un stage. Plus specifiquement, nos questions de recherche sont les suivantes : les acteurs d’un meme institut de formation ont-ils tous la meme conception de ce qu’est une coevaluation ? Quels sont les gestes partages par les superviseurs d’un meme institut des lors qu’ils gerent une coevaluation ? Quelles sont les variations d’un superviseur a l’autre ? Dans quelle mesure la conception individuelle de ce qu’est une coevaluation influence-t-elle l’agir du superviseur ? Pour repondre a nos interrogations, deux recueils de donnees ont ete menes chez huit superviseurs d’un meme institut : nous avons soumis chaque superviseur a un entretien individuel de plus ou moins une heure et nous avons enregistre deux seances de coevaluation menees par chacun des superviseurs interroges. L’analyse de contenu de l’ensemble des donnees revele que les acteurs interroges n’attribuent pas tous les memes finalites a la coevaluation et qu’ils ont des manieres differentes de mener cette coevaluation en fonction de leur conception. A cet egard, six variations emergent. Elles sont en lien direct au dilemme accompagner/former versus evaluer/certifier. Nous avons mis en evidence ici que, meme dans un stage qui est identifie comme formatif, certains superviseurs ont des difficultes a s’eloigner d’une logique de type controle.

Le sentiment d’appartenance à l’école : une analyse conceptuelle

Abstract: Le sentiment d’appartenance a l’ecole est considere comme un phenomene qui favorise la reussite scolaire et l’adaptation des jeunes a l’ecole. Malgre son importance, les etudes ne permettent pas d’en arriver a une representation conceptuelle exhaustive de ce concept. Cet article vise a identifier les attributs definitionnels du sentiment d’appartenance a l’ecole dans le but de favoriser sa comprehension. La methode conceptuelle privilegiee est celle de Walker et Avant (2011) qui comporte huit etapes distinctes permettant de mener un tel examen. La revue de la documentation a ete menee par le biais de moteurs de recherche generalistes (p. ex. : Google, Google Scholar) et specialises (p. ex. : PsyInfo, Eric, Francis) en considerant les definitions en langues anglaise et francaise. En se basant sur l’analyse conceptuelle ayant ete menee, quatre attributs definitionnels sont suggeres. L’eleve doit : (1) ressentir une emotion positive a l’egard du milieu scolaire ; (2) entretenir des relations sociales positives avec les membres du milieu scolaire ; (3) s’impliquer activement dans les activites de la classe ou celles de l’ecole ; (4) percevoir une certaine synergie (harmonisation), voire une similarite, avec les membres de son groupe. En plus d’etre abordes dans la perspective des principaux modeles theoriques en sciences de l’education qui tiennent compte du sentiment d’appartenance a l’ecole, ces attributs ont donne lieu a l’elaboration d’une nouvelle definition que nous presentons dans le present article.

School Principals and Students with Special Education Needs: Leading Inclusive Schools

Abstract: Over the past 30 years, school boards, faculties of education, and teaching organizations have helped teachers develop skills to support students with special education needs in their classrooms. However, less attention has been given to school principals in building their leadership skills to support inclusive schools. The purpose of this study is to identify the types of special education training that school principals engage in, as well as to explore the day-to-day issues and critical incidents that principals might experience when supporting students with special education needs. An exploratory study involving interviews with 15 principals and five other educational stakeholders in four school boards was employed to examine the related research questions. Five key themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews, including personal values in shaping inclusive school culture; variety in professional learning experiences; similarities in day-to-day experiences and the importance of being accessible for students and staff; the importance of leadership in fostering inclusive school culture; and the effect of critical incidents in shaping principals’ leadership roles. These themes are examined in light of the literature contending that school leaders are central to the shaping of inclusive school cultures.

Quelles stratégies d’acculturation de nouveaux enseignants issus de l’immigration privilégient-ils face aux défis culturels et identitaires de leur insertion professionnelle?

Abstract: Un nombre croissant de nouveaux enseignants issus de l’immigration tentent de s’inserer dans la profession enseignante en Ontario. Une multitude de defis se presentent a eux en ce qui concerne, notamment, le developpement d’une identite et d’une culture professionnelles s’harmonisant a leur identite et a leur culture d’origine. Douze nouveaux enseignants issus de l’immigration, oeuvrant dans un conseil scolaire francophone de l’Ontario, ont temoigne de leur experience d’insertion professionnelle au cours d’entretiens de recherche. Cet article porte sur les strategies d’acculturation qu’ils ont mises en action de meme que sur les elements intervenant dans le developpement de leurs nouvelles identite et culture professionnelles d’enseignant canadien.

Assessing Young Children’s Oral Language: Recommendations for Classroom Practice and Policy

Abstract: A systematic review of research on oral language assessments for four-to-eight-year- old children was undertaken to support a six-year action research project aimed toward co-creating classroom oral language assessment tools with teachers in northern rural and Indigenous Canadian communities. Through an extensive screening process, 10 studies were assessed as highly rated and identified for inclusion in the final review. Narrative, vocabulary, and syntax assessments were the most common assessment types found in the final review. Assessment practices in all studies in the final review involved gathering language samples in one-on-one adult-directed contexts. The systematic review also revealed that a preponderance of the research on young children’s oral language assessment has been published in speech-language pathology and language testing journals. Although educational researchers recognize the importance of oral language to children’s literacy and learning, there is a paucity of research on oral language assessment conducted by educational researchers and published in educational research journals. Implications to policy and classroom practice include recommendations for increased research collaboration between speech-language pathology researchers and literacy researchers along with input from early childhood educators to develop oral language assessment instruments that support children’s oral language in classroom settings.

Mapping the Field: Examining the Recertification of Internationally Educated Teachers

Abstract: In this article I examine the structural barriers in the recerti cation trajectory of internationally educated teachers (IETs) in British Columbia (BC). By applying the Bourdieuian concept of field, I extend from IETs’ experiences in the recertification process to institutional and political factors that affect these experiences. I demonstrate how policies and regulations that govern the field as well as the interplay between its main institutional players, namely, the Teacher Regulation Branch, teacher education programs, and school districts, result in unequal opportunities for IETs to be certified and hired as teachers. As a result, IETs’ potential contribution to diversifying the teacher force in BC is diminished.

Brains Unlimited: Giftedness and Gifted Education in Canada before Sputnik (1957)

Abstract: This study’s purpose is to sketch, using the historical method, the development of ideas about giftedness and programs for gifted children in Canadian schools, from the nineteenth century to the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957 that reignited interest in gifted education. The author notes that historians have paid scant attention to giftedness. The author argues that giftedness and gifted education in Canada developed in three historical phases prior to 1957. Rationales for gifted education today are discussed in light of the historical legacy.

“I like to take everything and put it in my own words”: Historical Consciousness, Historical Thinking, and Learning with Community History Museums

Abstract: This article presents ndings from a recent case study involving seventh-grade students ( n = 25) and a group of community history museum adult volunteers ( n = 5). Over 14 weeks, participants engaged in a series of scaffolding activities designed around a Material History Framework for Historical Thinking. The purpose of the inquiry was to explore pragmatic applications for historical thinking within a community history museum. Data collection included pre- and post- Canadians and Their Pasts surveys, written assignments, photovoice photography, in-depth interviews, and a nal class - room museum project. Conclusions are discussed within the context of Rusen’s (1987, 1993, 2004) typology of historical consciousness. This article presents a “call to action” for community history museums in Canada. It points to ways in which students can be empowered to become active members of a museum’s community of inquiry.

The Pop-History Spectacle: Curating Public Memory and Historical Consciousness through the Visual

Abstract: Hosted in the nation’s capital, the multisensory/digital historical performances displayed on Centre Block at Parliament Hill have had over one million viewers, making the shows a popular summer attraction. Upon closer inspection, however, the historical narratives in both Mosaika and Northern Lights focus on limited, exclusionary, and mythological representations of Canada’s beginnings, but perhaps more importantly, the artistic and technological element, “the spectacle,” creates something new altogether—which we are calling pop-history. Pop-history, a cultural understanding of popular history, is the emphasis of the theatrical over the historical, making history a performance to be consumed, but not critically thought through, or engaged with. Through this, we argue that although technologically striking, the narrowly imagined pop-history spectacle contributes to the shaping of a limited Canadian historical consciousness based on a normalized version of the past.

Conditions favorables et défavorables au développement de pratiques inclusives en enseignement secondaire : les conclusions d’une métasynthèse

Abstract: Afin de mieux repondre a la diversite des eleves en classe, l’ecole, dans une perspective inclusive, doit s’adapter. Dans le cadre de cette etude, en utilisant le modele de pratiques fondees sur les prises de decisions eclairees, nous avons choisi de mettre en evidence une nouvelle comprehension des enjeux lies a l’inclusion des eleves du secondaire. Les objectifs de cette metasynthese sont d’identifier les conditions favorables et defavorables a l’inclusion scolaire des eleves ayant des besoins particuliers, eu egard a l’organisation des services a l’eleve, aux pratiques pedagogiques et a d’autres conditions emergeant de la litterature scientifique. Les resultats revelent que les conditions favorables a l’inclusion reposent notamment sur une ouverture au changement, le leadership de la direction, la posture de l’enseignant et la culture de collaboration au sein de l’ecole. Les conditions defavorables sont pour leur part en partie liees a des attitudes negatives, des attentes peu elevees et des craintes de la part des acteurs scolaires de meme qu’a un manque de flexibilite de l’organisation scolaire.

Les défis de l’innovation selon la théorie de l’activité : le cas de l’école (éloignée) en réseau

Abstract: Cet article examine les defis de l’innovation en milieu scolaire partant de la theorie de l’activite, plus precisement du cadre conceptuel d’Engestrom (1987, 2015) L’innovation etudiee, soit l’ecole (eloignee) en reseau (2002-2017), incluait dans son dispositif les modeles de la communaute d’apprentissage, de la communaute d’elaboration de connaissances et de la communaute de pratique Differents systemes d’activite en interaction sont analyses afin de reperer les tensions relatives a ces modeles qui ont pose des defis particuliers lors de la mise en oeuvre de ce dispositif novateur En matiere de mise a l’echelle, le cadre d’analyse de Coburn (2003), bonifie par Dede (2006), est utilise

La qualité des interactions en classe de maternelle 4 ans à mi-temps au Québec.

Abstract: Cet article vise a : 1) evaluer la qualite des interactions en classe de maternelle 4 ans a mi-temps au Quebec (N = 70 classes) ; et 2) examiner la structure factorielle originale du Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K (CLASS Pre-K) dans ce meme contexte educatif. D’une part, en convergence avec les ecrits dans le domaine, les resultats demontrent que les scores associes aux domaines du soutien emotionnel et a l’organisation de la casse s’averent de niveaux moderes, comparativement a celui relie au soutien a l’apprentissage qui se situe a un faible niveau. D’autre part, les analyses factorielles confirmatoires n’ont pas permis de corroborer la structure factorielle originale du CLASS Pre-K. Neanmoins, lorsqu’une des dimensions de l’outil est retiree, plus precisement celle de la prise en consideration du point de vue de l’enfant, le modele s’ajuste mieux aux donnees du present echantillon. Les analyses de validite convergente confirment ce resultat. Toutefois, d’autres analyses devraient etre effectuees aupres d’un plus grand echantillon et en privilegiant d’autres methodes, de maniere a determiner si la dimension « prise en consideration du point de vue de l’enfant » devrait bel et bien etre retiree du modele. Pour l’instant, la structure factorielle originale devrait etre maintenue afin d’etudier la qualite des interactions en contextes educatifs pendant la petite enfance.