Alternative Public Education and Solidarity Economy: Values, Ideologies, and Looking for Spaces of Change

Violence and exclusion are experienced by children of colour in the Toronto public school system through disproportionate suspension, expulsion, dropout rates, police presence and the streaming of Black youth. The solidarity economy has a long history of organizing through education programs that serve to teach and mobilize groups of oppressed peoples as well as to instruct the masses about their ideological agendas. Grounded in critical theoretical approaches, this dissertation explores if and how the solidarity economy might intersect with public education in Toronto, Canada. Through analysis of empirical interview data from Toronto alternative public-school actors, and thematic analyses of policies informing the establishment of alternative public schools, the values and ideologies of the policies are uncovered, along with the logistics of how others have navigated these policies. It arrives at an understanding of the values and ideologies of the solidarity economy through brief case studies. The study concludes that while there are pockets of struggle and resistance within individual schools and classrooms in the Toronto District School Board, the values and ideologies of the solidarity economy are not able to inform a different vision of schooling, within the current Toronto alternative school system and its establishment policies.