This paper argues that the social foundations of education, and particularly the disciplines of history, philosophy and sociology of education, must continue to play an integral role in programs of teacher education. We report on the decline of the study of history of education within Faculties of Education in Canada as an example of the…

In the context of information and communication technologies in five Newfoundland coastal communities, this article deals with participatory research and outreach. Outreach in these communities, reeling from the near-collapse of the fishery and struggling to survive in a climate of neo-liberal restructuring, is considered to be a holistic…

In this article, we challenge the common liberal assumption that religious schooling undermines the goals of liberal civic education, making it impossible for children to acquire tolerance, critical reasoning skills, or personal autonomy. As a framework for this argument, we respond to some of the claims made by Harry Brighouse in his recent book,…

Through a discussion of two videos--The Take (Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis, 2004), and a student project--I argue that media education can further the role of youth as critically engaged, democratic citizens most effectively when educators develop students' capacity for reflection and self-expression through engagement with those power structures that…

Canadians live in a world of mega-spin where public relations corporate lobbyists play an increasingly larger role in news-making. To resist this trend, I have studied political ideology to understand the relationship between corporate media and systems of social, economic, and political power, and their hegemonic function, and indicate the bias…

In this article, I argue that despite common assumptions that peace education efforts achieve social change, it is often a normalizing, nation-building project that obscures hierarchies of power. Focussing on a lesson from a popular peace education program currently used in Canadian schools, I have analyzed the convergences between peace and…

Drawing on historical and contemporary scholarship on citizenship education, I have outlined how such education both excludes those outside the normative construction of the Canadian citizen and fails to prepare students for participation in the public sphere. I argue that contemporary citizenship education is in danger of creating individualistic…

In this article, I have used the 2004 Greatest Canadian contest as an example of media's educational function. Contrary to mainstream discourse of gender-neutral citizenship, this contest reiterates a notion of Canadian citizenship as masculinized, classed, and raced. Gramsci's concepts of "hegemony," "ideology", and "common sense" and Arnot's…

First Nations people have both a Constitutional and a Treaty right to education; however, the Crown's jurisdictional obligations to provide educational services have not lead to similar educational opportunities and attainment achievement for First Nations students as compared to Canadian students in provincial schools. Canada's Auditor General,…

In this article, I offer a reading of the psychoanalytic concept of identification, with specific attention to its meaning in the context of children's historical learning. In educational contexts, it is not identification but historical empathy that teachers and researchers typically regard as holding pedagogical status. Using examples from my…

In 2002, Marc Hall's principal denied him permission to take his boyfriend to his Catholic high-school prom. In examining the politicization of the ensuing prom predicament, we critique Catholicized education and what we perceive to be the Catholic Church's efforts to privatize queerness as it segregates being religious from being sexual. We…

I present autobiographical writing and photographic imaging, an arts-based research methodology, to understand my personal knowledge as a means to understand my professional knowledge. Using my passions for writing and photography, I explore the conflicts, opportunities, and purposes of using a visual form of arts-based narrative inquiry from a…

In this article, we have explored the issues that Ministries of Education confront in their large-scale assessment policies and practices as literacy curricula expand to include the new literacies of information and communication technologies. Based on a series of interviews with Ministry personnel, we have described their current progress to…

In Canada, non-permanent faculty are no longer simply a reserve, flexible labour pool available for administrators to draw on when needed (e.g. during times of fluctuating enrollments); rather, they represent a strategy utilized by universities to reduce overall labour costs. In this article I bring together Women's Studies, feminism, contingent…

Fragile, ethereal, beautiful, the butterfly is at the same time decidedly strange in appearance. They are without mandibles, unlike most insects, but sport instead a proboscis, sometimes one and a half times their body length, which they use to drink liquids as if through a straw. They have large, compound eyes, tiny nails or claws, and strange…