Education

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/26544

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Access status: Open Access ,
Autistics in (Educational) Space: Building our own futures
(2026-07-24) Collis, Ryan Bradley; Alsop, Steve
Autistic students in inclusive classrooms are often judged by their in/ability to adhere to neurotypical norms while affordances they create to survive and succeed often go unacknowledged. An affordance describes a sociomaterial approach by an individual to increase the number of possible actions available to them when in environments where their presence was not anticipated and when that environment is passively or actively hostile to their participation. I, an autistic teacher, student, and researcher, led a participatory research study of affordances with four autistic adults who attended secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. We ask, how can public, inclusive secondary schooling be improved by better understanding and responding to autistic affordances? In response, our study develops and critically evaluates new research methods. These methods challenge conventional qualitative research forms by actively recognising and embracing autistic ways of being, learning and relating. The methods are cultural probes (physical items and tasks participants respond to), shared reading (reading a novel and meeting one-on-one to discuss how it reflected the participants’ life) and speculative fiction and world building (a collaborative writing exercise involving an imaginary future). Thematic analysis of the cultural probes data reveals affordances of over/under-achieving and hyper-empathy. Participants were unsupported/misunderstood when they needed help, and all appeared to experience extraordinary empathy (especially for other autistic people). Data from the shared reading of Sønderby’s 2017 science fiction novel Failure to Communicate highlights affordances associated with responses to autism, education, identity, and others. In speculative fiction and world building, participants rejected approaches to adding inclusivity to existing school structures and created a world where autistic people together create futurities where acceptance of differences is foundational to society. Many affordances relate to resisting school structures systematically misrecognising autistic ways-of-being, worldviews, and futurities.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Quiet Theft: An Invisible Architecture of Elite Belonging
(2026-07-24) MacDougall, Tracy Annette Jean Pearl; Brant-Biroukov, Kiera
This thesis explores how Indigenous relational frameworks, once the living foundation of land, learning, and belonging, were not merely appropriated but strategically stolen and repurposed within settler institutions such as elite summer camps, scouting movements, and outdoor leadership programs. Guided by Indigenous scholarship and Elder Dr. Duke Redbird’s teachings, and grounded in historical and archival research, the study traces a dual trajectory: while Indigenous children were violently removed from their families and punished for practicing their own traditions, settler children were being nurtured within systems that extracted these same frameworks to cultivate belonging and privilege. What emerges is structural theft, the deliberate displacement of Indigenous relational knowledge into settler networks of power. Through narrative inquiry and critical reflection, this work reframes education as a site of relational extraction and argues that reconciliation demands return: of land, of learning, and of the rights of Indigenous Nations to self-determination.
Access status: Open Access ,
Disentangling the Stratified Enactment of Curriculum Modifications in Individual Education Plans: A Policy Analysis
(2026-07-24) Barron, Katherine; Parekh, Gillian
Individual Education Plans (IEPs) have been central to special education systems for over twenty-five years, yet one of the core components—curriculum modifications—has remained largely unexamined. This dissertation addresses this gap by tracing the complex material-discursive forces that shape IEP decisions for elementary students in a large urban school system in Ontario, Canada. Using Barad's agential realism and diffractive analysis, this study moves beyond linear, individual-level explanations for the prolific use of curriculum modifications, towards a relational understanding of how curriculum design, grading practices, policy vacuums, resource scarcity, teacher dilemmas, family pressures, and broader socio-historical forces intra-act to produce the enactment of Modified IEPs. Drawing from interviews with 10 teachers undergoing the process of initiating curriculum modifications, focus-groups with 16 special education leaders and administrators, over 50 policy documents, and the school board’s quantitative dataset of the 2008-2022 cohort which has over 32,000 observations, this research identifies seven clusters of forces that structure the use and misuse of the curriculum modification policy. The findings of this study expose significant inconsistencies in how curriculum modifications are understood and enacted, racialized patterns in the initiation of “inappropriate” Modified IEPs, and evidence of stratified access to alternative forms of academic supports across socio-economic contexts and perception of student potential. This dissertation demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, the presence of an IEP is not simply a reflection of student need but a product of complex contextual forces that produce both its initiation and retention. Methodologically, this dissertation offers one of the few examples of how diffractive analysis can be applied in empirical research. Theoretically, this dissertation destabilizes several taken-for-granted concepts in both special education and Disability Studies in Education, and offers new questions for consideration: What is special education and who is it for? By centring complexity, embracing nuance, and cultivating an agonistic stance, this research serves as an invitation to rethink Ontario's IEP system in ways that serve students more justly.
Access status: Open Access ,
“A Disguised and Hidden Nature that Suits not with the World”: Encoding the Lone Self and a Fragmented Self/Portraiture in the Diaries Of Anne Lister
(2026-07-24) Van Wart, Grace Caryl; Ott, Mary
This thesis examines the fragmented and lonely Anne Lister, a Regency Era diarist and lesbian from Halifax, England, who used diary writing to express and encode her public and private selves. With a focus on the genre of diary and the different means of expression available to Lister, I analyze the various ways she constructed these "split" or "fragmented" public and private identities. I approach Lister’s fragmentation by analyzing her diary through the lens of women’s life writing and autobiography, specifically the diary’s form and structure and what it afforded Lister as a space to understand and articulate her multiple selves. I then examine the various means and purposes Lister used to construct and fragment these identities through acts of verbal and visual encoding using her crypthand code, her coded speech, and her performative acts of gender. Anne Lister used her writing, specifically her diary, as a tool to understand, construct, and ultimately separate the parts of herself she both needed to protect and wanted to project. This act of splitting the self and existing separately in, as well as between, the public and private spheres created and expressed a fragmented identity in Lister. Her encoded acts protected her private lesbian self, however, in taking precautions, Lister revealed a vulnerable and lonely self/portraiture formed by her own constructions of self and the self as perceived by others. This study extends the literature on women’s fragmentation in life writing and contributes new perspectives to the scholarship on Anne Lister concerning her construction of self, her gender performativity, her lonely existence, and the intentions for her crypthand.
Access status: Open Access ,
TOWARDS AN ECOPEDAGOGY - Environmental organizations, university politics and student experiences at the nexus of education and environmental action
(2026-07-24) Kenny, Michael George; Gaetz, Stephen Anthony
Non-profit environmental organizations on post-secondary campuses provide both practical services and unique educational opportunities for students while also contributing to broader community well-being. These organizations function as progressive social movement actors, advancing sustainability and justice goals through a wide array of activities: DIY skill-sharing (e.g., bike repair, gardening), waste reduction (e.g., free stores, refurbishing old bikes), community economics (e.g., free food distribution, item lending), and social enterprise (e.g., fair trade cafés, cooperative grocery initiatives). Sitting at the nexus of these social movements and education, these organizations cultivate engaged citizen-activists, equipping students with skills, values, and experiences that shaping their future careers, political engagement and community involvement. In doing so, they challenge dominant capitalist narratives and demonstrate what sustainable alter- or post-capitalist futures might look like. Their existence, however, presents a challenge to the neo-liberal educational institution, whose curriculum and programs also cultivate students who are in turn responsible for much of the world’s environmental degradation and economic inequity. This dissertation examines student-involved environmental organizations within that context. It integrates my fifteen years of experience as a campus-based environmental activist with a historiography of campus environmental initiatives in Canada, a national baseline survey of staff, executives, and volunteers, and in-depth interviews with twenty-two participants. Through this combination of lived experience, empirical data, and theoretical engagement with social movement and educational scholarship, the study offers a comprehensive analysis of how these organizations operate and the impacts they generate. The goals of this study were: (1) to understand student-involved environmental non-profit organizations' current situation (on a macro and micro level), including the socio-political contexts they reside in, and provide recommendations to ensure these organizations have the resources, knowledge, support and structures to: (a) be as effective as possible at creating and sustaining environmental change; (b) succeed in delivering high-quality and transformative educational experiences for these student-activists; (2) to understand and improve the educational aspects of member-volunteer participation with these organizations and how the current socio-political situation of these organizations impacts the educational outcomes for member-volunteers. The research concludes that student-involved environmental organizations are central drivers of sustainability and social justice in the university setting, and in the development of students into engaged citizens. These organizations improve affordability, strengthen community, and provide transformative educational experiences that formal curricula rarely match. At the same time, they face persistent structural challenges, including precarious funding, space insecurity, and political pressures from both university administrations and broader political shifts toward austerity. The evidence suggests that their resilience depends on supportive institutional frameworks, reliable funding mechanisms, and stronger recognition of their role as educational actors rather than peripheral clubs. More broadly, this work reinforces the need to reimagine universities not only as sites of credentialing but as incubators of democratic practice, collective agency, and sustainability innovation. Student-involved environmental organizations offer more than services; they model viable alternatives to the unsustainability of late-modern capitalism and train the future leaders and engaged citizens who will carry those alternatives forward.
Access status: Open Access ,
Disrupting Traditional Narrative: Navigating Preservice Early Childhood Education Through Hospitality, Time and Dialogue
(2026-03-10) Pytka, Barbara; Delgado Vintimilla, Cristina
This dissertation examines the concepts of hospitality, time, and dialogue as theoretical and ethical counterpoints to the instrumentalism and anti‑intellectualism that persist in preservice early childhood education, particularly within practicum contexts. The inquiry begins with a critical analysis of the neoliberal discourses embedded in contemporary processes of professionalization and standardization in early childhood education in Ontario. It then explores how hospitality, dialogue, and time can create possibilities for more intellectually vibrant and ethically responsive encounters during practicum. Through generative dialogue with key thinkers in education and continental philosophy, the dissertation conceptualizes hospitality, time, and dialogue as potentially transformative, disrupting dominant narratives by foregrounding ethical responsibility and openness to the Other. It concludes with a series of propositions that contribute to ongoing efforts in early childhood education research to envision more ethical and intellectually generative possibilities for practicum and to enrich the educational experiences of future early childhood educators.
Access status: Open Access ,
Indigenous Community Members and Settler Teachers: Settler Teacher/Community Member Collaborations to Enhance Teacher Practice
(2026-03-10) Tucker Petrick, Krista Mary; Dion, Susan
Settler Teacher (ST) and Indigenous Community Member (CM) relationships are occurring in education settings across the province of Ontario. This project explores the challenges and possibilities of the ST/CM collaboration and how they enhance teacher practice and contribute to decolonizing education, centering Indigenous knowledge, and fostering systemic transformation. To focus on the historical and current effects of colonialism, coupled with settler ignorance in education settings, I have located my positionality as a white woman engaging with Indigenous education. The project is grounded in decolonizing theory and examines relations to knowledge, others, self, and land, offering a framework to appreciate and interrogate ST/CM collaborations. The project situates these collaborations within professional learning theories and Indigenous education research. Critical Indigenous Research Methodology (CIRM) with a narrative inquiry approach was utilized in the project. Five pairs of purposively selected ST/CM pairs who worked, or were working, in Ontario schools participated in the project, using semi structured oral history interviews and conversations. The core insight is that strong, trusting and respectful ST/CM collaborations is a foundational aspect of systemic change in Indigenous education but requires sustained effort and practice. While much research speaks to the importance of relationality, this study gestures to the how of relationships. Participants identified six relational foundations of trusting and respectful collaborations, including listening, awareness of positionality, willingness to un/learn, stepping up/forward/back, bridging gaps, and holding hope. Recommendations within the dissertation invite STs and CMs to continue to share their voices, together or individually, and strongly recommends that researchers, schools and school boards consider how their research and practice can engage with and deepen ST/CM collaborations. Fostering quality ST/CM collaborations to informs teacher practice and supports Indigenous education will require a deep understanding of the ST/CM relationship and a deep understanding of living into trust and respect.
Access status: Open Access ,
Navigating the Unseen: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Disparities in Post-Secondary Educational Access among Sanctuary Scholars
(2026-03-10) Avril, Vernetta; Silver, Rachel
This thesis examines how Canadian immigration and postsecondary education policies shape the access, experiences, and wellbeing of Sanctuary Scholars – students with precarious immigration status in Ontario. Using critical autoethnography, memory work, and constructivist grounded theory, I analyze institutional gatekeeping, emotional and psychological impacts, and the structural contradictions between diversity rhetoric and practice. Findings highlight the barriers Sanctuary Scholars face, along with the resilience, strategies, and community support they mobilize to navigate postsecondary education. The study concludes with policy and institutional recommendations to improve equity, advising, and financial accessibility, emphasizing the need for systemic change to support precarious-status students in Canadian higher education.
Access status: Open Access ,
Challenging Equivalency: A Two-Site Analysis of English Language Proficiency Pathways and Academic Achievement in Canadian Higher Education
(2025-11-11) Holmes, Jason Robert; Barkaoui, Khaled
This dissertation investigates the relationship between English language proficiency (ELP) pathways and academic achievement among international undergraduate students at two Canadian universities (University A and B) and challenges the presumed equivalence between scores on standardized English ELP tests (IELTS and TOEFL) and the completion of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs. Given the scarcity of comparative research on each pathway’s effectiveness in predicting academic achievement, this study examined whether students admitted through different ELP pathways and at different proficiency levels (low to high) significantly differed in terms of their first-year cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and credits earned (CCE), while controlling for discipline, country of origin, gender, and age. By examining two institutions with similar ELP policies but distinct student populations, this study also explores how institutional context may moderate the relationship between ELP pathways and academic achievement. Using a comprehensive quantitative approach, with data from 9,673 students at University A and 2,480 at University B, analyses consisted of multiple regression, analysis of covariance and interaction analyses. ELP pathways were categorized based on test scores relative to admission cutoffs and EAP completion. Regression models progressively incorporated moderators to assess their impact on academic outcomes. Results indicated that students admitted through IELTS outperformed their peers from EAP programs in CGPA, though at University B, this trend was evident only among students with the highest IELTS scores. In contrast, the TOEFL pathway showed less consistent superiority compared to EAP students: only students with the highest TOEFL scores significantly exceeded EAP students in CGPA. For CCE, however, students admitted through IELTS and TOEFL surpassed EAP students across both institutions. Moderated by discipline, gender, age, and country of origin, outcomes varied by institution, highlighting context-specific effects. These findings indicate that students admitted through standardized tests typically outperformed those admitted through EAP, challenging presumed equivalency between pathways. Implications for policy and practice for Canadian universities are discussed to better ensure support for international students’ academic success.
Access status: Open Access ,
Beyond Recognition: Indigenous Sovereignty and Equity in Ontario's K-12 Landscape
(2025-11-11) McMullen, Alyson Susan Melissa; Farley, Lisa
While efforts have been made to include culturally relevant, anti-oppressive, and decolonizing pedagogy and curriculum within Ontario’s public education system, these efforts take place within a system built to reproduce its own colonial values. Grounded in Néhiyaw (Cree) principles of research and informed by broader theories of resurgence and refusal, this thesis explores conceptual tensions between equity and Indigenous sovereignty in Ontario’s K–12 educational landscape. Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition, it uses an Indigenous Literature Re-view methodology with four interrelated phases: Searching, Analysis, Yarning, and Re-view. This research traces policy narratives that shape educational discourse in Ontario. What emerges is a vision of equity that is highly reliant on a theory of change based on the politics of inclusion and is limited within frameworks prioritizing student achievement. This framing confines Indigeneity, neutralizing resurgent possibilities and rendering settler colonialism and land invisible.
Access status: Open Access ,
Finding Voices: Bringing the Archive into History Classrooms
(2025-11-11) Prasad, Sheetal; Moser, Gabrielle A.
Finding Voices explores the relationship between archives, technology use, and history classrooms and textbooks. Through recent studies and projects, history textbooks have continuously omitted racialized and marginalized histories in Canadian education and often privilege settler-colonial perspectives. This sidelining creates an erasure that negatively impacts students’ capacity for historical analysis. This research aims to shift this paradigm through augmented reality, archival research, and curation. The research questions include: How might engaging with history through artefacts open conversations, inquiries, and curiosity on social justice issues? How might the use of augmented reality combined with pedagogy transform Canadian history learning? How can the method of a/r/tography support the Ontario Ministry of Education’s learning expectations and outcomes while introducing difficult knowledge (Pitt & Britzman, 2003)? What are the pedagogical and creative approaches that teachers and curriculum developers can use to help students learn about, and learn from (Pitt & Britzman, 2003) silenced histories within the classroom? This research was done in four stages: 1) finding archival materials from various archival institutions; 2) creating an app prototype using website-based AR and creating an archive box with the archival materials collected; 3) recruitment of BEd Teacher Candidates; and 4) collecting user experience data across multiple contexts (observation notes/conversations, multiple surveys, workshops, and participatory collaboration in the form of an exhibition). Findings conclude that the participants found this method of learning history engaging and inspired them to consider ways archived-engaged AR pedagogies could be utilized in their own practice.
Access status: Open Access ,
Creating Community in Adult Literacy and Language Education: The Impact of Multiliteracies-Informed Curriculum Development
(2025-07-23) Veselka, Mercedes Katharina; Ippolito, John
This qualitative study involved the creation of a unit of materials for adult literacy learners informed by design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012), multiliteracies theory (New London Group, 1996), and task repetition pedagogies (Hanzawa & Suzuki, 2023). While design-based research offered opportunities for collaboration and iteration between myself, as the researcher, and two in-practice language and literacy educators, multiliteracies theory and task repetition opened up pedagogical opportunities to honour the demands being placed on these two educators. Through developing the materials collaboratively and listening to the educators’ experiences, I sought to understand how they were impacted by a multiliteracies-informed curriculum. These educators were creating communities of belonging for adult literacy learners in a system which focused on deficiency. Their roles required a tolerance for complexity and creative pedagogies to bridge gaps between theory and practice. While a skill-focused approach to literacy remains part of these educators’ teaching realities, this study points to a need for fluid definitions of literacy which respond to changes in context and learners. Through this fluidity, adult literacy and language educators are better supported in imagining new literacy futures for their learners.
Access status: Open Access ,
Politicizing Equity: Ghana’s Free Senior High School Policy and its Implications for Teachers Work
(2025-07-23) Kofinti, Hilarius Kofi; Silver, Rachel
In 2017, the Government of Ghana adopted a Free Senior High School Policy (FSHSP) to universalize secondary education access across the country by removing cost barriers. The policy originated as a campaign promise by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and has since dominated political debates. While FSHSP increased enrollment significantly, little is known about how its politicization has shaped its implementation and its implications for equity and teachers’ work. This dissertation considers power through FSHSP policy, particularly how it operates at two scales/moments. In Part One of the dissertation, I focus on the broader context of influence in which FSHSP was justified and promoted. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis of the pronouncements and documents circulated by political figures of Ghana's two major political parties—the NPP and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), I consider the political context and debates surrounding the FSHSP. This helped me understand the broader discursive terrain around FSHSP to set the stage for school-based research. In Part Two of my study, I draw on an Anthropology of Policy Frame, four months of school-based participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups to understand how teachers made sense of and experienced FSHSP, paying particular attention to their role in the policy process, and the implications of the policy for teachers’ work and equity. I argue that the government excluded teachers from the policy formulation process while increasing teachers’ workload significantly, adversely affecting teachers’ health and social life, and restricting opportunities to engage in secondary employment beyond for-profit tutoring. While the policy affected all teachers, it disproportionally impacted female teachers and teachers in less-resourced schools. At the same time, I argue that the government’s new student placement system and non-targeted approach to reform across differently resourced schools exacerbated previous inequities, including those born from the colonial era. For these reasons, a policy justified by its commitment to equity perpetuated existing forms and differences and created new ones along gender, region, and class. Together, I demonstrate how a multi-scalar analysis of education policy reveals how power operates in the education policy arena and the resultant effect on teachers and students.
Access status: Open Access ,
The ‘Visa Student Dream’: An Examination of Shifting Trends and Vulnerabilities in Chinese International Student Populations Within Toronto’s Secondary Schools
(2025-07-23) Liu, Helen; Trilokekar, Roopa
This study aims to explore the experiences of Chinese international students in secondary schools in Canada, paying particular attention to the vulnerabilities and risks among this population. Along with the pre-existing systemic issues international students face, the COVID-19 pandemic placed these students in an even more precarious position due to the anti-Asian racism and discrimination that manifested itself during this time period. The study employed Critical Race Theory (CRT), specifically Asian Critical Theory (AsianCrit) which prioritizes Asian identity and their experiences with racism to understand and contextualize how prevailing systems of oppression impacted the lives of Chinese international students. Utilized alongside these theories are complementary frameworks like International Student Security (ISS) and neoliberalism to further explore the experiences, vulnerabilities and risks among this population. Multiple constructs were also used like model minority, yellow peril, neo-racism, and racial capitalism to expand understanding and application of theories such as CRT and AsianCrit to this international student population. The principles highlighted within CRT and AsianCrit theories, utilized alongside the frameworks and constructs all built upon each other to provide further insight into how educational institutions continue to operate within a dominant culture paradigm and with whiteness as a norm and how programs are maintained and/or implemented based on assumed notions and ideologies of Asian international students. Interview data was collected from six teachers and six Chinese international students from public secondary schools within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Findings revealed that neoliberalism has ultimately created unethical and unsafe policies and practices that negate EDI initiatives, and the push towards standardization and individualism perpetuate racial inequities. Standards of success are rooted in Whiteness that validates Western knowledge, with concepts like racial capitalism playing a role in exploiting Chinese international students. Issues and concerns regarding the academic, social, and housing/guardianship experiences of Chinese international youth were also revealed, as students faced discrepancies between the services and support that was advertised in comparison to what they actually experienced in Canada. Key concerns and gaps in policy and programmatic supports were also identified for international students with the study outlining recommendations and interventions to better support international secondary students during their studies in Canada.
Access status: Open Access ,
Language and Literacy Achievement of Deaf Students in Minority French Settings
(2025-07-23) Simpson, Melanie Lana; Mayer, Connie
This doctoral study investigated the bilingual spoken language and literacy achievement of four francophone deaf learners living in an English-dominant area of Ontario in Canada. Much bilingual research in the field of Deaf Education prioritizes learner experiences in signed bilingual-bicultural settings and reports of a grade four literacy level continue to plague the field (Allen, 1986; Qi & Mitchell, 2012; Traxler, 2000). The current changed context reflecting the implementation of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and improved technology indicates language and literacy achievements commensurate with typically-hearing-aged peers. Meanwhile, evidence of spoken language bilingualism among deaf learners is limited, despite the growing number of spoken language bilingual and multilingual deaf learners. In Canada, proficiency in both official languages (i.e., French and English) is an asset and a right for children of francophone parents (see Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights); it is also well-known that bilinguals enjoy many lifelong cognitive and social benefits. There are an increasing number of deaf learners from bilingual/multilingual homes, however, topics related to spoken language bilingualism have only recently started to emerge in the literature. This mixed-methods case study gathered data from four deaf students with various experiences of enrolment in minority French-language schools to highlight their bilingual potential when given early access to technology and appropriate supports while living in an English dominant community. Parent participants (n = 8) and student participants (n = 4) engaged in semi-structured interviews to provide data towards developing a detailed profile of each learner (Seidman, 2006). Parent participants provided additional information by responding to a questionnaire eliciting early intervention experiences and home language and literacy practices. The scores on the CAP and the SIR checklists illuminate each learners’ auditory access in both languages. All four student participants engaged in four separate assessment sessions with two standardized measures (i.e., CELF-5 & WIAT) completed in French and English. Thematic analysis of the interviews alongside the extensive standardized assessment results revealed three major findings: 1) deaf learners have the potential to become balanced bilinguals in language and literacy; 2) in Ontario, there is limited support for spoken language bilingualism at identification; 3) early access to technology paired with early intervention alongside robust home literacy practices may contribute to strong bilingual spoken language and literacy development for deaf learners. The data revealed average to above average achievement on all four standardized assessments corroborating the conversational skills observed during the bilingual interviews and assessment sessions. Findings reveal that there is a need for more evidence-based research to identify the range of potential across the heterogeneous group of deaf learners across minority languages. Given the small participant size, this study serves as a launching point for future research into spoken language bilingualism among deaf learners especially in response to minority language learning or language maintenance.
Access status: Open Access ,
An Uneasy Truce: The Significance of Schooling and Academic Achievement for Rohingya Refugee Youths in Ontario
(2025-07-23) Phyu, Hnin Pwint; Schecter, Sandra Ruth
This dissertation explores how Rohingya refugee youths are navigating their historical legacy and past and ongoing lived experiences as they familiarize themselves with the culture of mainstream schooling in Canada and attempt to determine their place within this complex network. In particular, it investigates the role that the habitus and social position of participants within this migration community in southwestern Ontario play in structuring refugee youths’ choices and opportunities in and through education. Given these goals, I pay special attention to the youths’ evolving attitudes to the predispositions of their parents with regard to child language socialization and cultural continuity, and the influences that schooling experiences have in introducing youths to alternate cross-cultural currents. I use two primary conceptual frameworks: (a) Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977a, 1977b) perspective on habitus and cultural capital and (b) linguistic and cultural socialization (Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Schecter, 2015; Schecter & Bayley, 2002, 2004). These frameworks ground ethnographic case studies representing the perspectives I have identified in my empirical research—through participant observations, surveys/questionnaires, ethnographic interviews, and other, secondary data sources. My research findings revealed that participating youths are struggling to adopt a concept of victimhood that their parents, as genocide survivors, have embodied, but that is not part of the youths’ direct experiential reality. In addition, although my focal participants were well aware of the shortcomings and weaknesses of the school system in providing for their learning, they didn’t appear especially surprised or unsettled by these inadequacies; nor did they expect school personnel to initiate imminent improvements in meeting their academic needs. These generally positive attitudes reflected an appreciation of the affordances of the public education system in Canada in terms of freedom of association and life choices as compared with their desperate status in Myanmar and/or horrible existence in refugee camps.
Access status: Open Access ,
Unveiling Voices: Engaging Syrian Refugee Children and Educators Through Digital Storytelling Project
(2025-07-23) Najeemudeen, Fathima Safra; Ippolito, John
While a child's primary sources of supportive relationships and learning experiences are at home, schools play a critical role as the first significant social environment for refugee children. In Ontario, thousands of young refugee children, including many from Syria, attend mainstream schools. However, many educators are not adequately prepared to address the specific needs of these children. This participatory visual research study seeks to bridge this gap in teacher education by exploring the pedagogical potential of digital storytelling to do the following: 1) enable Syrian refugee children to express their resettlement experiences through first-person digital, multimodal narratives; 2) provide educators with deeper insights into the perspectives of Syrian refugee children; and 3) foster social awareness among both educators and refugee students. The study aims to highlight Syrian refugee children’s resettlement experiences from their own viewpoints, enhance educators' understanding of these experiences, and investigate both the children's experience of creating digital stories and the educators' experience in facilitating digital storytelling workshops. Exploring the educational potential of digital storytelling with Syrian refugee children and educators may also support the resettlement needs of refugee children from other regions entering Canadian schools. Grounded in the new sociology of childhood, sociocultural theory, and critical pedagogy, this study employs participatory visual methodology and digital storytelling to challenge dominant narratives and promote a more inclusive understanding of knowledge. These approaches are aligned with the inquiry-based learning commonly used with marginalized communities. The findings demonstrate that digital storytelling offered refugee children a meaningful way to represent their experiences and foster social transformation, strengthening their sense of connection with others. For educators, facilitating the digital storytelling project challenged preconceptions about refugee children and positively impacted their approach to working with culturally diverse students.
Access status: Open Access ,
Rebellious Creative Making: A Meme-Making Studio Pedagogy
(2025-04-10) Han, Yaqing; Brushwood Rose, Chloë
Rebellious Creative Making: A Meme-Making Studio Pedagogy explores the potential for meme-making to function as a heightened form of studio pedagogy in design education. It investigates how meme-making can effectively critique and challenge conventional design methods, inspiring students to be bold and take risks by considering non-conventional design processes and outputs. This dissertation begins with a brief introduction to the contemporary social and political impact of memes, linking them to art and design history to speculate on their potential in creative making. It then details a meme-themed workshop that was conducted to directly observe participants’ meme-making processes. Participants’ meme work, presentations, and interviews were closely analyzed to achieve an understanding of how their learning through meme-making differed from their previous experiences in design school. Participants’ meme works reflected a variety of design styles and topics pertaining to political, social, and personal issues. These works and the participants’ own responses suggest that the workshop functioned as a stress-free design-making process in which makers felt sufficiently relaxed to comfortably explore their desired topics and styles. As participants expressed themselves and their viewpoints through meme-making, they also felt healed from both their negative thoughts and experiences in life and, more specifically, their previous oppressed experiences with design education. The results of the meme workshop provide valuable insight into current issues of studio pedagogy in commercialized education institutions; these insights give way to potential improvements aimed at valuing the benefits of creative education beyond its practical purposes in pursuit of self-growth among learners.
Access status: Open Access ,
Black Girls Need Love Too: An intersectional analysis of the lived experiences of Black girls in French Immersion Programs
(2025-04-10) Brissett-Foster, Shayna Sherise; Prasad, Gail
Black girls in the French immersion program are silent scholars. They continue to remain under the radar, significantly under-researched and hidden behind the generalization of Black students without considerations for the intersectionality of race and gender. Using the narratives of four Black girls through semi-structured interviews, this thesis addresses this gap by exploring the lived experiences of four Black girls in Southern Ontario’s French immersion programs. By thematically analyzing their experiences using Black Canadian feminism, raciolinguistics, and intersectionality, we can critically assess their experiences and provide strategies to counter colonial institutions and policies. The findings reveal insights into their identities, sense of belonging, representation, and treatment, and how these themes impact their educational experiences. The experiences of these Black girls highlight several key areas for improvement and offer opportunities to enhance educational experiences for Black girls by informing more equitable policies and practices in the French immersion program.
Access status: Open Access ,
Love as a Remedy to the Malaise of the Soul in Modernity
(2025-04-10) Berezowski, Madelyn Helena; Di Paolantonio, Mario
The purpose of this thesis project is to both diagnose the current malaise of the soul, and offer a potential remedy to this malaise. By attending to Hannah Arendt’s notion of “worldlessness” drawn from her book The Human Condition, I will argue that the condition of worldlessness and subsequent feelings of loneliness result in a “malaise of the soul”. The remedy to this malaise may be found, I will argue, in the proper type of love. When viewed within the canon of literature on philosophy of education, this project addresses a significant lack of philosophical depth when considering love as central to education and pedagogies of love. While numerous scholars have argued for the importance of love in education, these works fall short in offering a complete philosophical understanding of love itself. This project draws on ancient philosophy, specifically Socrates’ arguments as presented by Plato in Phaedrus and Symposium, to address this lacuna. By bringing a robust understanding of love to Arendt’s work, it aims to offer love as a remedy to the current malaise of the soul.

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