The role of the school leader (principal) in supporting educational reform is explored through a case study of one high school implementing the Three Block Model of UDL (Katz, 2012a) in an effort to meet the needs of a diverse student population. This case study is a part of a much larger study exploring outcomes for students and teachers of…

Rachel Wilson is a novice principal and new school leader of a large English junior-senior high school located in a rural township of a maritime province in Canada. Upon her appointment, she was challenged with having to establish herself as a credible leadership choice for the venue in addition to having to engage in new role learning as a…

Discrimination on the basis of homophobia/transphobia in many schools is an internationally recognised problem. The Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) Equity Foundation Statement and Commitments to Equity Policy (EFS) provides an explicit mandate to schools in its jurisdiction to address such discrimination and educate about sexual and…

As elsewhere in Canada, the provincial educational system has adopted an accountability framework to improve student success by putting the emphasis on the rendering of accounts and production of a success plan. However, the implementation of school success plans is not always self-evident for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. This case…

In this article, we investigate the change forces that act on administrators, subject department chairpersons and teachers as they seek to implement a change in a Canadian secondary school. Using a case study methodology, our analysis of the data uses Sergiovanni's (1998) six change forces: bureaucratic, personal, market, professional, cultural,…

In 2004 twin sisters Amy and Jesse Pasternak competed for the prospect of playing high school hockey, vying for the boys' team rather than the girls'. The sisters' opportunities were negated by the Manitoba High School Athletic Association (MHSAA). This paper examines the 2006 decision by the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and a 2008 judgment by…

A considerable amount of research in a number of different jurisdictions has shown student dissatisfaction with career counselling in secondary schools. This article explores policy and practice by reflecting on two counsellor interviews and 35 student responses to a questionnaire about career education in a single Ontario high school. Students…

This study sought to investigate the congruence between Aboriginal student citizenship development and the prescribed outcomes of citizenship development in secondary schools in Manitoba. The perceptions of 106 high school teachers and principals in the province of Manitoba were acquired through survey distribution and interviews. This study found…

This paper examines zero tolerance discipline policies in Ontario's public school system legislated as the "Safe Schools Act (SSA)" 2001. The intent of our paper is to argue that the "SSA" set within a discourse of zero tolerance as the panacea to the problems of violence in schools has had a detrimental impact. Since the "SSA" is part of the…

Contemporary secondary schools in Canada and the United States are complex institutions whose organizational structures, program delivery mechanisms, and institutional community members combine to produce distinctive mini-societies within their walls. Replete with complex arrays of rituals, ceremonies, as well as traditions and founded on a…

Based on semi-structured interviews with high school teachers in Edmonton, Alberta, the reported study examined teachers' attitudes towards their roles and responsibilities in marketing their school, and the perceived impact of educational markets upon teachers' well-being. The teachers define marketing negatively and narrowly, resist any…

As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has pledged to uphold the participatory rights of children and youth. The purpose of this paper is to provide a rationale for implementing these rights in schools. It argues that while there appears to be a strong philosophical, legal and political argument for…

At a time when most American states have embedded an initial certification test into their teacher preparation programs, Canadian educational authorities are faced with a choice: to test or not. One province, Ontario, has experimented with a standardized entry-to-the-profession testing instrument. For three years, 2002-04, teacher candidates were…

This paper uses Foucaultian theory of governmentality as a conceptual lens to view school closings in Ontario. Governmentality relates to regulations, rules, systems, and procedures that allow governments to exercise control in society. Based on a critical review of select court cases, the paper argues that boards have substantial power to close…

The dominant models of initial teacher preparation have relied primarily on a school-based practicum where a single student is placed with a single "cooperating teacher" or "mentor". This paper reports on a number of research projects of teacher preparation at the secondary level suggesting that placing student teachers in subject pairs can be…