tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/alberta-schools-64818/articlesAlberta schools – La Conversation2020-09-29T21:05:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1419222020-09-29T21:05:43Z2020-09-29T21:05:43ZRacism contributes to poor attendance of Indigenous students in Alberta schools: New study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360608/original/file-20200929-22-1moccxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C42%2C2048%2C1223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rocks painted with the message "every child matters," commemorate Orange Shirt Day, Sept. 30, about creating meaningful discussion about the effects of Residential Schools and their legacy. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Province of British Columbia/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Regular attendance in schools is a factor that affects <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30835245/">positive and healthy childhood development</a>. Students with poor school attendance are at an increased risk for a number of negative outcomes. Students who experience chronic stress, such as socio-economic disadvantage, mental health challenges or cultural marginalization, are at an increased risk for school absenteeism. </p>
<p>In Alberta, recent data from Rocky View Schools — the province’s <a href="https://www.rockyview.ab.ca/jurisdiction">fifth largest school board serving students west, north and east of Calgary</a> — suggest that of the population of students who identify as Indigenous within the district, 30 per cent can be considered chronically absent the 2017-18 school year. Of the population of on-reserve students attending Rocky View Schools, a staggering 80 per cent of all on-reserve students were chronically absent. Enrolment of on-reserve students has also decreased significantly in the past five years. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/focus-truth-and-reconciliation-in-canada-77341">Click here for more articles in our ongoing series about the TRC Calls to Action.</a></span>
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<p>These findings prompted Rocky View Schools to undertake further research, funded by Alberta Education, to examine this gap.</p>
<p>As a white educator who spent years teaching in kindergarten to Grade 12 schools, predominately in Rocky View Schools, I conducted <a href="https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/112217/Final%20Report%20RVS%20Attendance.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">research</a> with my colleague Mairi McDermott to probe deeper into on-reserve Indigenous students’ attendance patterns. We used a mixed methods study that included education staff (teachers, educational assistants, administrators, guidance counsellors and central office staff) and families from the Stoney-Nakoda Nations whose children attended Rocky View Schools. Education staff completed an online survey, and families were interviewed in person.</p>
<p>We found a form of cross-cultural anxiety was a barrier to attendance. <a href="https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/112217/Final%20Report%20RVS%20Attendance.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">Cross-cultural misunderstandings compounded by educators’ unexamined white privilege and racism</a> are barriers to on-reserve Indigenous students’ school attendance.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Video from Stoney Nakoda: Bearspaw Nation Treaty 7 Project.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What Indigenous parents, teachers said</h2>
<p>Rocky View Schools serves the Stoney-Nakoda First Nations communities of <a href="https://www.stoneyeducation.ca/Bearspaw%20First%20Nation.php">Bearspaw</a>, <a href="https://www.treaty7.org/about">Chiniki</a> and <a href="https://www.treaty7.org/wesley-first-nation">Wesley</a>, as well as the <a href="https://tsuutinanation.com/">Tsuu T'ina</a> Nation.</p>
<p>Indigenous parents in the study reported that they chose to send their children to an off-reserve public school for increased access to specialized programs, such as mechanics, and special education support. </p>
<p>Parents felt that attending off-reserve schools would assist with children’s learning to bridge different cultural worldviews and might help them with future employment opportunities.</p>
<p>But parents said that sending their children to off-reserve schools also meant their children showed signs that they were experiencing racism. </p>
<p>One parent said they anticipated this, and wanted to gradually expose their children to the settler-colonial worldview and to gradually experience racism so it was not such a shock later in life. Another parent struggled to understand their eight-year-old child’s request for more sunscreen on a family vacation. The child said they did not want to return to school more brown. </p>
<p>Therefore parents say Indigenous or racialized students do not feel safe or a sense of belonging in schools.</p>
<p>Education staff who participated in the research overwhelmingly said they felt anxiety and mental health concerns were a key barrier to student attendance. The educators connected this to the legacy of residential schools. </p>
<p>One parent in our study said that this assumption by educators was demeaning and served only to delegate the issues of contemporary racism into the background. </p>
<p>Despite educators not recognizing this as a barrier, daily experiences of racism and a lack of cultural understandings are contributing to the poor attendance of on-reserve students.</p>
<p>Particularly given our findings about students’ experiences of racism, an important area for future research could be the attendance pattern of racialized students. </p>
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<img alt="A man holds up an orange shirt at a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C98%2C4383%2C2913&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360347/original/file-20200928-24-g7i3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Perry Bellegarde holds up an Orange Shirt Day T-shirt as he speaks during the Honouring National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ceremony in Gatineau, Québec, in September 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
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<h2>Current reconciliation education</h2>
<p>The teaching profession in Alberta is <a href="https://work.alberta.ca/documents/industry-profile-educational-services.pdf">70 per cent white and female</a>. Having an homogeneous teaching population in Alberta classrooms presents a challenge to reconciliation. If educators consistently see their own identities and perspectives reinforced, and are not encouraged to critically examine how white privilege shapes these, it limits educators’ capacities for perceiving Indigenous or racialized students’ experiences. </p>
<p>In Rocky View Schools, educator <a href="https://register.rockyview.ab.ca/public/">professional development</a> has focused on Indigenous education through increasing teachers’ knowledge about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, residential schools and trauma. Activities have included the <a href="https://www.kairosblanketexercise.org/">blanket exercise</a> and examining teaching approaches. Indigenous scholars have spoken at leadership meetings and Elders have engaged with classrooms. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Video from Rocky View Schools featuring Grade 4 students in dialogue with Saa'kokoto, Elder and Storyteller Randy Bottle.</span></figcaption>
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<p>However, there has been little attention paid to how forms of systemic racism and oppression remain ingrained in policy, curriculum and teaching or classroom practices in our current kindergarten to Grade 12 school system. </p>
<p>As I have explored in other research, beyond Rocky View Schools’ own professional development offerings, trends in teacher professional development are focused on <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjnse/article/view/53057">self-reflective practices, which often ignore social structures and systemic forms of racism in schooling</a>. Narrow professional teacher education may in fact contribute to Indigenous student absenteeism. </p>
<h2>Being accountable</h2>
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<img alt="An orange T-shirt made of paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360609/original/file-20200929-18-1mg941h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A handmade paper orange T-shirt reads: ‘My reconcliation includes respect, humility, truth, courage, honour, love, wisdom, goals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(Flickr/Delta Schools)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Making new and better commitments to how educational systems interact with Aboriginal communities was a key focus of <a href="http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf">the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action</a>. Who is accountable for its call towards truth and reconciliation?</p>
<p>While the ministries of education and the the Council of the Ministers of Education Canada, an intergovernmental body that works to support ministers of education, are engaged in <a href="https://cmec.ca/docs/108CMEC%20B.2%20CMEC%20Indigenous%20Education%20Plan%202019-22%20APP1%20EN%20POSTED%202019.07.15.pdf">work to prioritize Indigenous education</a>, on-reserve families we spoke with are not seeing improvements in their children’s educational experiences when attending off-reserve schools. The data from Rocky View Schools indicates that on-reserve students are not feeling safe or included in Alberta’s schools. </p>
<p>There is clearly more work to be done, and yet there remains a lack of accountability surrounding reconciliation to ensure educators are partners in removing barriers to accessing public education — rather than furthering the opportunity gap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was funded by Alberta Education and supported by Rocky View Schools.</span></em></p>A study in one Alberta school board found racism contributes to poor attendance of on-reserve Indigenous students in public schools, despite educators not recognizing this as a barrier.Teresa Anne Fowler, Assistant Professor, Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1414342020-07-07T19:54:09Z2020-07-07T19:54:09ZCharter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345384/original/file-20200702-111269-3z5ji8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C251%2C2658%2C1396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beginning in September in Alberta, an individual can apply directly to the provincial government when seeking to establish a new charter school. Here, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, March 20, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Alberta, the once-radical idea of charter schools, placed largely on the back burner for the past two decades, has been brought back to the fore under Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP). The party’s <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/assets/documents/educ-choice-in-education-act-what-is-changing.pdf">Choice in Education Act</a> will come <a href="https://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_status&selectbill=015&legl=30&session=2">into force Sept. 1, after the government passed it June 24</a>. </p>
<p>Under the new act, individuals will be able to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7000587/alberta-government-ucp-charter-schools-home-schooling-education-may/">bypass the local school board</a> and apply directly to the provincial government to seek to establish a charter school. This follows a move last fall by the newly elected UCP to <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/parents-educators-worry-ucps-amended-education-act-creates-inequity-in-public-system">remove the cap</a> (previously 15) on the number of <a href="http://www.taapcs.ca">charter schools in the province</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.taapcs.ca/members-2/">In Alberta</a>, there are now <a href="https://education.alberta.ca/alberta-education/school-authority-index/everyone/school-authority-information-reports/">13 charter school authorities operating more than 20 schools or campuses</a> — for instance, the province lists seven Calgary schools run by the <a href="https://www.ffca-calgary.com/">Foundations for the Future Charter Academy</a>. </p>
<p>These recent developments provide the opportunity to better understand what charter schools are, how they’ve been taken up by advocates of educational reform and how their re-emergence and promotion under the UCP reflects the influence of neoconservative and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">neoliberal ideologies</a> in education. </p>
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<h2>Roots of charter schools</h2>
<p>Charter schools emerged largely from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-school-of-economics">Chicago School of Economics</a>, inspired by the ideas of prominent thinkers like <a href="https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf">Milton Friedman</a>. Friedman argued state “monopoly” over public education was problematic, and thus education should be instead subject to consumer choices and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/politics-markets-and-americas-schools/">dynamics of the free market</a>.</p>
<p>While differing based on country and context, charter schools can be understood as a hybrid type of school — both public and private. Individuals or groups may seek <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/charter-schools.aspx">to establish a school</a> under a particular educational philosophy or approach. This charter then guides the administration and organization of the school. </p>
<p>To date, Alberta’s charter schools include a schools for children who are “<a href="https://www.newhorizons.ca/about/">academically gifted</a>,” <a href="https://indspire.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MECCS-Final.pdf">an Indigenous school</a> and a school <a href="http://esl-almadina.com/about/about-us/">for children learning English</a>.</p>
<p>As public institutions, however, charter schools must still abide by the <a href="https://education.alberta.ca/media/3227599/charter-schools-handbook-september-2015.pdf">policies, rules and regulations</a> set out by the government. In this way, these schools can be seen as offering students and parents choice different from the local public school.</p>
<p>With funding is typically determined on a per-pupil basis, if parents decide not to choose a particular charter school, it may then close. Charter schools are also subject to competitive market pressures and often have to raise capital funding for expenses such as the school building or transportation themselves. That means charter schools may turn to fundraising from <a href="https://www.thecaafoundation.com/about1">community-based</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRYAHyplko">corporate</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/enbridge/enbridge-helps-mother-earth-childrens-charter-school-find-new-home/400919133287752/">sources</a>. In the U.S., for instance, some charter schools can be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I">run as for-profit</a> entities.</p>
<h2>Entry into Alberta</h2>
<p>Charter schools, once hailed as a solution to <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=PjqcqVl98zQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s">the numerous apparent failures</a> of the public education system, arrived in <a href="https://www.edcan.ca/articles/the-alberta-public-charter-school-system/">Alberta with the first school opening in 1994</a>, just two years after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/charter-school">first charter school opened in the United States</a>. </p>
<p>Up until recently, discussion around their future or promise in Alberta has been somewhat ambiguous. But <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/bill-8-gsas-school-fees-power-of-boards-to-be-tweaked-under-education-amendment-act">since the UCP</a> was elected last year, the provincial government has sought to revive charter schools as part of broader educational and public sector reforms. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jason-kenneys-common-sense-education-platform-gets-it-wrong-119069">Why Jason Kenney’s 'common sense' education platform gets it wrong</a>
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<h2>‘School choice’</h2>
<p>As the UCP government’s <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/speech-from-the-throne-to-kick-off-11-week-session">throne speech</a> outlined, the party stresses expanding school choice. For instance, new legislation makes it easier for parents to home-school since they will <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bill-15-choice-in-education-act-introduced-1.5587398">no longer need Alberta school board supervision to do so</a>.</p>
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<p>Last fall, the UCP also <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/public-alberta-school-boards-1.5275561">removed the word “public”</a> from Alberta’s public schools boards, a move that can be critically viewed as <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/kenney-government-orders-alberta-public-schools-to-remove-the-word-public-from-their-name/">an attempt to obfuscate</a> the demarcation between public and private schools. </p>
<p>Kenney, himself a <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jason-kenney">product of elite private schooling</a>, appears focused on the expansion of more privatized forms of education. </p>
<p>Charter advocates contend that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/431184?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">as schools of choice</a>, they offer students more specialized and meaningful educational experiences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2017/12/Blasetti%3ASilva.pdf">Critics often respond</a> that choice is already available in public school systems and that charters don’t demonstrate any significant improvements in performance, and may in fact <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19879714">further segregate</a> students, leading to greater educational inequalities.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20news/Vol53/Number-11/Pages/Q-and-A-Charter-education-is-not-public-education.aspx">Educational labour unions remain unsupportive</a> as well, as charters often seek to hire <a href="https://slate.com/business/2016/09/the-lengths-that-charter-schools-go-to-when-their-teachers-try-to-form-unions.html">non-unionized</a> teachers. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the evidence <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED526353.pdf">remains mixed</a> as to whether charters provide any significant improvements to student achievement. The research and policy landscape is often contentious and heavily influenced by competing <a href="https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research/selected-publications/the-institutional-landscape-of-interest-group-politics-and-school-choice">interest groups</a>.</p>
<h2>Privatization</h2>
<p>In Canada, charter schools only exist in Alberta — a province with a <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-politics-of-educational-reform-in-alberta-2">history of school choice policies</a>. As I discussed in my research into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2015.991162">the development of Alberta’s charter schools</a>, their existence can be largely attributed to political ideas rather than educational developments in the province. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Charter schools were first introduced in Alberta under former premier Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservative Party in 1994. Here, Klein in front of a campaign poster in February 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In 1994, when charters were first introduced in Alberta, it was under a <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ralph-klein">provincial government focused largely on values of individualism, consumerism, privatization, commercialization and deficit reduction</a>. Charter schools emerged as they fit in under this particular political and economic ideology. </p>
<p>Today we see many of the <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/united-conservative-party-mla-the-idea-of-public-education-is-inanity-and-absolutely-backwards">same values</a> once again on the rise in Alberta at the same time as charters and “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/charter-school-cap-removal-criticized-1.5164989">school choice” ideas are being amplified</a>.</p>
<p>Neoconservative and neoliberal advocates of educational reform in particular continue to push them forward — <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/21624">as witnessed in the United States</a> under <a href="https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/grant-frost-will-trumps-war-on-public-schools-cross-into-canada-410788/">President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-cyber-charter-schools-are-and-why-their-growth-should-worry-us-68471">What cyber charter schools are and why their growth should worry us</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Educational reforms and democracy</h2>
<p>While educational reforms can and must occur in response to a changing world, <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/public-school-and-political-ideas-1">public schools are meant to be resistant</a> to political changes because they represent our core democratic values and are meant to develop to serve the needs of a diverse society.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly then, the debate over charter schools points to the fundamental political nature of public education. </p>
<p>Recent pre-pandemic educational reforms proposed in Ontario for mandatory online courses were seen by many educators, parents and students not as learning improvements, but rather as reforms motivated by a Conservative government with similar neoliberal <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2020/01/13/secret-document-shows-ford-government-changed-its-mind-before-making-online-course-mandatory-for-high-schoolers.html">politics, ideas and value systems</a>. </p>
<p>Ontario also touted its <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/edu/en/2019/11/ontario-brings-learning-into-the-digital-age.html">“enhanced” (mandatory) online learning as offering “more choice.”</a> Those advocating <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8TZIhpIV6c">school vouchers</a> and the <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/matthew-lau-after-doug-ford-maybe-ontarios-liberals-will-finally-embrace-school-choice">expansion of charter schools</a> in Ontario have used the same rhetoric. </p>
<h2>Education as industry?</h2>
<p>With Alberta’s charter schools set now to expand, as I asserted in 2015, it is worth noting that to date, the rest of Canada has continued to largely — <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/42892">though not entirely</a> — resist calls for “school choice” that imply forms of privatization. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, across Canada, chronic public underfunding of education has forced school boards to seek <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-high-schools-are-underfunded-and-turning-to-international-tuition-to-help-127753">tuition revenue</a> and promote <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/secret-document-exposes-doug-fords-plan-to-replace-human-teachers-with-cheap-computers/">for-profit curriculums</a>.</p>
<p>The presence of privatization looms large and when education is defined as an industry, there will always be those who seek to <a href="https://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/edtech-industry-profit-from-covid-19-lahm-200323/">profit from it</a>. </p>
<p>As Canadians, the rejection of charter schools demonstrates our collective commitment to the some of the most important core principles of public education, including access, quality and equity. The idea of charter schools allows us to think deeply about our core values surrounding public education and the many promises which it’s asked to uphold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mindzak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>First, the United Conservative Party lifted the cap on charter schools, and now new legislation has cut school boards out of the process to establish a charter school.Michael Mindzak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151222019-06-16T17:23:40Z2019-06-16T17:23:40ZLarge classes make it hard to notice ‘off-task’ kids with bigger questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274191/original/file-20190513-183096-k9i0qm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The complexity of student experiences can be lost in larger groups. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The benefits of having smaller classes, particularly in the early elementary school years, are <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/pb_-_class_size.pdf">well-documented</a>. My work as a <a href="https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/trtr.1701">researcher of language and literacy</a> has examined what takes place on the edges of the classroom — precisely the places that are more <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-larger-classes-teachers-cant-attend-to-childrens-needs-110556">difficult to notice when classes are large</a>. </p>
<p>Last year in my province of Alberta it was reported that more than 85 per cent of the kindergarten to Grade 3 classes in five of the province’s largest school districts are <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/day-1-classes-sizes-are-way-over-provincial-guidelines">larger than provincially recommended averages</a>. In the lead-up to the recent provincial election, there was no sign that <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/alberta-teachers-association-slams-ucp-education-platform">the United Conservative Party, now newly elected, would prioritize tackling this problem</a>. </p>
<p>I often inquire into what individual children are doing while their teachers are diligently working to effectively teach the curriculum and maintain order in increasingly larger, <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/Publications/Human-Rights-Issues/MON-3%20Here%20comes%20everyone.pdf">culturally diverse classrooms</a>, <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/Publications/Research/COOR-101-5%20The%20State%20of%20Inclusion%20in%20Alberta%20Schools.pdf">with wide ranges of learning needs</a>.</p>
<p>In particular, I am interested in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1086296X16658982">those children who seem to be chronically “off task” during language arts instructional time</a> — children who are clearly doing something, albeit not exactly what their teacher had in mind. </p>
<p>Here, I share the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351256766/chapters/10.4324/9781351256766-14">story of one such child</a>, whom I will call Charlene, with the aim of illustrating how educators can miss valuable opportunities to attend to particular students when class size <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Learning_to_Teach_in_the_Early_Years_Cla.html?id=Hn1GbwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">and complexity</a> expand. </p>
<h2>Charlene among 49 other students</h2>
<p>Charlene was in the fourth grade and part of a class of 50 students and two teachers. Charlene had an attention disorder and was one among a group of children in the class with individual education plans.</p>
<p>My involvement with the class centred around an interdisciplinary project looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/testing-literacy-today-requires-more-than-a-pencil-and-paper-114154">how children develop literacy in multiple ways</a>. In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19388071.2016.1162234?journalCode=ulri20">this project</a>, the students worked in small groups to examine various aspects of the history of Alberta becoming a province.</p>
<p>Charlene’s group investigated the growth of the oil industry. The students began their exploration by developing inquiry questions, and Charlene’s group collectively asked several questions related to oil and Alberta’s economy. Unsurprisingly, the questions they asked reflected the ongoing social, political and economic debate currently taking place in Canada. Their list culminated with the following: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Was the oil boom bad for our Earth, our plants and our wildlife?” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Majority of children took economic angle</h2>
<p>After discussing a broad range of possible questions to pursue, three of the four members of Charlene’s group pursued the economic angle and diligently went about their work. </p>
<p>Charlene, however, always seemed to be at the periphery, not appearing to engage at all with the group’s discussion. Time after time when I would find her three group mates sitting side by side in the computer lab, discussing what they found online with regard to Alberta and oil, Charlene would be seated further away. She was watching puppy videos with the sound turned off. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278559/original/file-20190607-52739-1er2tdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charlene acknowledged, with a sheepish smile, her love for animals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Charlene’s ongoing puppy viewing, puppy talk and bouts of puppy writing were both a source of interest and annoyance in her group. On one occasion, a group mate exclaimed in frustration, “She’s obsessed with puppies.” Charlene seemed to agree with this statement as she acknowledged, with a sheepish smile, a declaration of her love for animals.</p>
<p>I too found myself concerned and wondering about this seeming breach of what some literacy researchers identify as the <a href="https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jaal.571">pleasure-purpose divide</a> — in other words, the frequent mismatch between students’ interests and teacher’s goals for students’ uses of literacy. </p>
<p>Tensions can exist between the students’ desires to pursue texts that their teachers might argue are of lesser quality (for example, comics, trading cards, online videos and fan fiction) and a teacher’s desire to use “high-quality” literature and teach essay-writing skills in the classroom.</p>
<p>I was somewhat comforted because Charlene could verbally explain the oil-extraction and refining process with remarkable precision. However, she had not completed the work she promised her group: a poster advertising oil production in Alberta. </p>
<h2>Puppies vs. price</h2>
<p>Instead, Charlene had written a story of farm animals that lost their lives during an oil spill. It was some time later that it hit me: despite her puppy watching, seeming inattention and separation from the group, Charlene was the only member of her group whose work ultimately took a critical position. </p>
<p>She was the only one to follow the group’s ethically oriented inquiry question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Was the oil boom bad for our Earth, our plants and our wildlife?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What can happen to teachers’ capacities to notice as class sizes creep upward? I am left with some pointed questions. </p>
<p>What might have happened in Charlene’s classroom had her teachers, and I, for that matter, been able to take note of the way she linked her love for animals and concerns regarding oil spills? How might the teachers have been able to assist her and others like her to participate more fully, both academically and socially, in her group’s work, had there been time for them to notice what was happening? </p>
<p>These questions are not to suggest that teachers will necessarily teach differently with fewer students — some research points out <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Visible-Learning-A-Synthesis-of-Over-800-Meta-Analyses-Relating-to-Achievement/Hattie/p/book/9780415476188">teachers might use the same teaching approach regardless of class size</a> — but they may illustrate how easily the complexity of student experiences may be lost in larger groups. </p>
<p>I close with the following musings: What might happen if class sizes gave educators more time to notice the personally meaningful questions and ideas their students are pursuing? What if they had more latitude to adapt their practices to the varied students before them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Kimberly Lenters receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and the Alberta Advisory Committee for Educational Studies (AACES) . </span></em></p>Grade 4 student Charlene seemed chronically off-task – until an educator noticed she was, in fact, the sole student pursuing the question, ‘Was the oil boom bad for our wildlife?’Kimberly Lenters, Associate Professor of Education, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126432019-05-07T23:21:38Z2019-05-07T23:21:38ZArab Muslim Canadian high school students call for globalized curriculum to change stereotypes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272611/original/file-20190504-103082-1nhmdab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C566%2C5184%2C2429&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">None of the students in this study talked about classrooms as a place to deconstruct or challenge stereotypes and misinformed views they face about Arabs and Islam.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">loubna benamer/unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was a full-time high school teacher in an Ontario Islamic school in 2008 when I noticed that my Arab Muslim students led lives of religious conformity at school that reflected their Islamic values at home but did not necessarily define their full selves.</p>
<p>For example, many students who wore the hijab or who prayed at the required times were skeptical of beliefs parents and teachers expected them to take for granted, like creationism. At the same time, they studied the Ontario provincial curriculum and they were equally unsure if this curriculum resonated with how they see themselves in the world.</p>
<p>I was aware of my existence as both an authority figure and a lifelong learner in a system that approached religious teaching with rote learning. I did not feel the curriculum reflected traditional Islamic ways of knowing which are related to infinite wonder (and wondering) and also resonate with Western contemporary ways of knowing. </p>
<p>When I moved to Edmonton to start my PhD at the University of Alberta, I was invited by the university’s outreach program to give cultural bridge-building workshops at high schools about topics like Islam and politics. </p>
<p>Through these experiences, and also through my encounters with people I met through the Muslim Community of Edmonton (MCE) Mosque, I noticed Edmonton high school students had similar issues to my former students.</p>
<p>I decided to learn more by gauging Muslim Arab-Canadian high school students’ responses to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09574042.2014.944414">literary texts</a> relevant to their ethnic identity. I wanted to better understand their cross-cultural sense of identity to help educators envision a curriculum that addresses students’ lived experiences. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272294/original/file-20190502-103068-1hj33wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">E-mails From Seheherazad by Mohja Kahf: A book of poems that appealed to students in the study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Other)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research about <a href="https://csrs.nd.edu/evaluations/canadian-islamic-schools-unraveling-the-politics-of-faith-gender-knowledge-and-identity/">youth in Islamic schools in Canada</a> shaped my questions. I gave 11 public school students a selection of Arab Anglophone short stories and poems. I then interviewed them and conducted surveys with them and four more youth who chose not to be interviewed.</p>
<p>The students’ responses demonstrated a sense of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-consciousness/">double consciousness</a>: they felt perceived as being Canadian, and yet not quite. Both my interviews and surveys reveal a condition of the Arab-Canadian identity as one that must constantly defend or apologize for itself. The respondents said they felt stereotyped by others because of media representations of Islam. Arab-Canadians, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030162825">based on the findings of this study, struggle with ambivalence about the need to refute stereotypes while refusing to be defined by them</a>. </p>
<p>The participants expressed a desire for opportunities for interfaith and cross-cultural dialogues. Yet such opportunities are rarely available because of the lack of curriculum focused on intercultural literacy — the ability to “read” and respond to diverse cultures and identities — in high schools. </p>
<h2>Dialogue not happening</h2>
<p>Almost all the students I spoke with lamented the loss of fluency in their Arabic first language, which over time has subconsciously led to losing contact with their parents’ culture. </p>
<p>Some said Canadian children are generally raised to mature faster and this had noticeable effects on notions of childhood and innocence. The same student referred to an act of “letting go,” which represents a general attitude of detachment toward one’s culture and behaviour: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“That made me let go of everything that I valued when I was just nine years old and changed my thinking completely to fit what those other people are doing.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many of the students said Edmonton was where they attended school and made friends, so Canada was where they feel most comfortable, and therefore call home. However, school and home seemed to be conflicting spaces so there is ambivalence about where home is. One student seemed exceedingly conscious of that doubleness, especially in school:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I find it hard to, since I’m a minority at school … there was only five kids out of six hundred that were Arab. So it was definitely hard for me to do it all on my own to embrace my own culture, and I guess that’s why I had two personalities.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She could not think of any time she saw her experiences reflected in the curriculum. I asked her, if she were to move to a new school and was asked to introduce herself, would she bring in the Arab part of her identity? Her response was that mentioning her ethnicity would be undesirable: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“At school I feel that’s just people automatically just judge, abruptly, not that I’m ashamed of it, but people just automatically go off.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘I did find a lot of really odd questions’</h2>
<p>Another student found the religious aspect of her identity the most estranging. The hijab she wears became a constant reminder of foreignness: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I came when I was wearing the hijab ‘cause I already wore it in Dubai, and so I did find a lot of really odd questions that I’ve never been exposed to before … It is just a bit extreme here, and I didn’t like that at first, and there were situations where I kind of wanted to move back but then I think over the time I had to adapt to what they say and stand up for myself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Students were also aware of how some forms of media reinforced uneducated and extreme ideas about the hijab, Islam and Muslim women. Such views are continuous challenges for Arab female students. </p>
<p>Another female student spoke of stereotypical representations linking Arabs with terrorism and violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272358/original/file-20190502-103060-16he7ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘I want to explain to my Canadian friends that my culture is not what they see on the media, all the stereotypes,’ said one student.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Not what they see on the media’</h2>
<p>All the students sought a curriculum that is more directed towards understanding the roots of global conflict, but none could recall any such experience. One student discussed being singled out in class by social studies teachers due to assumptions the student had personal experience of war: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When we study about war and stuff, they would always ask me certain questions and certain situations if I’ve been in them. Some of them are extremely stereotyped …it gets hard to explain because media has affected how people see things nowadays.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This moment of classroom interaction seems to show a misguided and misinformed attempt at <a href="https://theconversation.com/culturally-responsive-teaching-in-a-globalized-world-109881">culturally responsive teaching</a>. None of the students talked about the classroom as a productive space for cultural discussion and deconstructing misconceptions, or for addressing a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/hate-crimes-jews-muslims-statistics-canada-police-1.4925983">rise in hate crimes</a> or <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-mosque-hate-mail-anti-islam-1.5008013">Islamophobia in Alberta</a>.</p>
<p>Some students suggested a way to resolve misunderstandings about cultural differences could be through writing an assignment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I want to explain to my Canadian friends that my culture is not what they see on the media, all the stereotypes … I want to let them know more about my culture and how it actually is in reality.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We must understand isolation, like extremism, is caused by failure of communication. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-schools-can-foster-civic-discussion-in-an-age-of-incivility-106136">Schools could create classroom practices</a> that clarify uninformed opinions about religion, challenge racialized stereotypes and allow more focus on common grounds. But this curriculum has yet to be envisioned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112643/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar received funding from a SSHRC Doctoral Award. He is affiliated with the University of Alberta. </span></em></p>Interviews with Arab Albertan students reveal encounters with uneducated views of who they are in schools – a troubling situation particularly when hate crimes have been on the rise.Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1150872019-04-08T21:36:09Z2019-04-08T21:36:09ZWhy gay-straight alliance clubs could sway the Alberta election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268217/original/file-20190408-2921-si0d1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gay-straight alliance clubs have become a sign of safer schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Denin Lawley/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With an Alberta election ahead next week, party leaders are declaring their positions. A topic that has captured headlines in recent weeks involves an unlikely focus — namely, school clubs that support students who identify as <a href="https://egale.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Egales-Glossary-of-Terms.pdf">lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/two-spirited, queer and others (LGBTQ+).</a></p>
<p>These school groups, commonly known as <a href="http://albertagsanetwork.ca/">gay-straight alliances (GSAs),</a> offer a safe and collegial gathering place for any students who seek to improve a school’s climate for gender and sexual minority students.</p>
<p>It is important to know that GSAs have only existed in Alberta for less than two decades. In my past career as a high school teacher, I was honoured to help a small group of students found the <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20news/Volume%2049%202014-15/Number9/Pages/Viewpoints-Alberta%27s-first-gay-straight-alliance-still-offering-relevant-lessons.aspx">first GSA in Alberta at Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School in Red Deer in 2000</a>. </p>
<p>In a relatively conservative social climate, courageous students convinced our principal and staff the group was needed to help students feel safer at school. At a memorable staff meeting, a few brave students stood in front of more than 100 adults. They talked candidly about growing up gay in Red Deer, about wishing to be like the cast members of the popular sitcom Friends, but knowing they were somehow different. </p>
<p>Their stories were unscripted and compelling — and they touched the hearts of all who listened. Our GSA held weekly meetings, made posters with inclusive messages, organized awareness events and offered support for all students.</p>
<p>Today the Alberta GSA network <a href="http://albertagsanetwork.ca/">has 78 registered clubs</a> and a <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/For%20Members/Professional%20Development/Diversity-Equity-and-Human-Rights/Sexual%20Orientation/Gay-Straight%20Student%20Alliances/Pages/Index.aspx">wealth of strong resources</a> to <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/Publications/Human-Rights-Issues/PD-80-6%20GSA-QSA%20Guide%202016.pdf">guide</a> the formation and sustenance of these groups. </p>
<h2>Legislated protection for GSAs under threat</h2>
<p>A public debate around GSAs in schools and other issues around sexual orientation during the <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/paula-simons-the-lake-of-fire-is-just-too-crowded-to-burn-the-wildrose-this-time-around">2015 election</a> may have bolstered the NDP’s success. The party fulfilled its election promise to support those students by enshrining their <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3862295/alberta-legislature-passes-contentious-bill-24-strengthening-gay-straight-alliances/">rights to form a GSA with Bill 24</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268218/original/file-20190408-2927-1xd41rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GSAs protect LGBTQ+ rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">denin lawley/unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.assembly.ab.ca/ISYS/LADDAR_files/docs/bills/bill/legislature_29/session_3/20170302_bill-024.pdf">Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances </a> <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/supporting-gay-straight-alliances.aspx">received royal assent in December 2017 and then came into effect April 1, 2018</a>. This act requires all publicly funded schools to create welcoming, caring and respectful policies and make the policies publicly available, and ensures principals help students create a GSA in a timely manner when one is requested. </p>
<p>Further, the act ensures schools comply with the law. Schools that do not put in place a relevant written policy and code of conduct, or who disallow the formation of a GSA, are subject to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4662671/eggen-gsas-gay-straight-alliances-alberta-schools-funding/">removal of public funding</a>. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2009%20National%20School%20Climate%20Survey%20Full%20Report.pdf">research is clear</a> that the existence of a gay-straight alliance in a school will <a href="https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/ae-winter2016poteat.pdf">improve the learning environment</a> for all of the students there, and particularly for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217265/">sexual minority students</a>. Safer schools benefit everyone. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/homophobia-in-the-hallways-lgbtq-people-at-risk-in-catholic-schools-109023">hostile school environments</a>, LGBTQ+ students are more likely to be targets of bullying, to struggle with higher rates of absenteeism, self-harm, suicide and generally more <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm">negative mental health outcomes</a>. They are also able to <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=_CWSCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Growing+into+resilience+:+sexual+and+gender+minority+youth+in+Canada&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib5MCIgsHhAhWqrIMKHYSwBLIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Growing%20into%20resilience%20%3A%20sexual%20and%20gender%20minority%20youth%20in%20Canada&f=false">thrive and find resilience</a> with appropriate adult and peer support in place. </p>
<p>But GSAs have come into United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney’s crosshairs. One of his <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/ucp-education-platform-reignites-fierce-debate-over-rules-around-gay-straight-alliances-in-alberta-schools">campaign promises</a> is to roll back GSA legislation: Kenney has proposed allowing school officials to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ucp-leader-jason-kenney-defends-allowing-parental-notification-if-child-joins-gsa-1.5072253">notify parents</a> when their child joins a GSA. Such a move could jeopardize student safety.</p>
<p>A political candidate threatening to remove important protections for some of our province’s <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/publications/periodicals/spf/volume-8/volume-8-issue-1-(spring-2014)/school-belonging-school-victimization-and-the-mental-health-of-lgbt-young-adults-implications-for-school-psychologists">most vulnerable students</a> may well turn off many voters.</p>
<p>I learned as a teacher that there are numerous reasons students may wish to join a GSA. Allowing schools to disclose membership to parents would put many students at additional risk. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C464%2C4019%2C2227&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268203/original/file-20190408-2912-1q75dm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters denounce a court challenge of legislation protecting GSA clubs in Medicine Hat, Alta. on June 20, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lauren Krugel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the students attending our GSA meetings did not enjoy supportive home environments, and there is no benefit to effectively <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-gsa-president-kenney-1.4048678">“outing” students</a> merely for attending a meeting. Some attendees are straight allies wishing to learn more about how to support their peers, or they may simply want to better understand the complex issues around sexual orientation and gender identity.</p>
<h2>Narrow and unsuited?</h2>
<p>Issues surrounding sexual orientation also came to the fore during the 2012 Alberta election, when the fledgling Wildrose Alliance Party attracted a number of candidates with extremist views. Candidate Allan Hunsperger wrote in a blog that homosexuals would <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/wildrose-candidate-under-fire-for-anti-gay-views-1.796664">suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire</a>, and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith’s <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/wildrose-candidate-allan-hunsperger-on-gays-you-will-suffer-the-rest-of-eternity-in-the-lake-of-fire-hell">refusal to admonish him or distance herself from his views</a> are <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/paula-simons-the-lake-of-fire-is-just-too-crowded-to-burn-the-wildrose-this-time-around">regarded as factors in her loss</a>.</p>
<p>Last November, UCP candidate and Calgary lawyer <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/lawyer-challenging-gsa-bill-compares-pride-flags-to-swastikas-1.4172917">John Carpay appeared to compare rainbow flags to swastikas</a>. During Carpay’s court challenges of the GSA law in 2018, court documents called GSAs “<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4283242/alberta-gay-straight-alliance-court-challenge/">ideological sexual clubs</a>.” </p>
<p>Just last week, a 2013 recording surfaced in which UCP candidate Mark Smith came under scrutiny for comments appearing to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ucp-mark-smith-drayton-valley-homosexual-1.5081799">question if homosexual love is real love</a>. UCP leader Jason Kenney formally <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ucp-leader-jason-kenney-stands-by-mark-smith-1.5083185">stood by Smith</a>, risking alienating voters who may already be concerned by his own past anti-LGBTQ+ positions. Further, the NDP recently released a campaign attack video that draws attention to a decades-old video showing a younger Kenney discussing leading a petition against <a href="https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2019/03/21/ndp-ad-showing-kenneys-role-in-aids-crisis-resurrects-painful-memories-for-lgbtq-community.html">gay spousal rights in San Francisco</a>.</p>
<p>Put together with his promise to roll back protections for students wishing for the support of a GSA in their school, Kenney’s consistently <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5080076/alberta-election-jason-kenney-lgbtq/">narrow views on this matter</a> may signal to voters that he is unsuited to lead the province. </p>
<p>Today we are not living in the Alberta of earlier generations, and many signs point to a more accepting and open-minded population. The most recent <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/2018-calgary-pride-parade-1.4808517">Calgary Pride parade</a> saw record-setting crowds numbered in the tens of thousands. As <a href="https://lethbridgecollege.ca/document-centre/publications/citizen-society-research-lab/traditional-or-progressive-albertans-6">more Albertans</a> than ever before support equality and human rights for all, GSA policies may well be a lightning rod issue that influences Alberta voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren Lund receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Insight Grant #435-2017-0420).</span></em></p>Gay-straight alliance clubs in Alberta schools have come into Jason Kenney’s crosshairs. Here’s why that might cost him votes next week in the provincial election.Darren E. Lund, Professor of Social Justice Education, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090232019-01-16T23:48:06Z2019-01-16T23:48:06ZHomophobia in the hallways: LGBTQ people at risk in Catholic schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253755/original/file-20190114-43517-1nt9sd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C979%2C2827%2C2441&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catholic pronouncements about LGBTQ people can be summarized as, "It's OK to be gay - Just don't act on it," a position some Catholics reject. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently, <a href="https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/former-principal-alleges-calgary-catholic-school-district-pushed-her-out-over-her-sexuality-1.4204633">a Calgary woman filed two human rights complaints with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The employee, Barb Hamilton, says she was pushed out the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) because of her sexuality</a> and was refused employment on the grounds of marital status, religious belief and sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Hamilton <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/principal-says-she-was-forced-out-of-job-over-sexual-orientation-1.4205296">says she knew of 10 LGBTQ students in the school where she was principal who had hurt themselves</a>, including by cutting themselves or attempting suicide because of homophobia at home or school. She says she went to the district for help but nothing changed. </p>
<p>Many Canadians may believe that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination. But my research into <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/That_s_So_Gay.html?id=bjNMLgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">religiously inspired homophobia and transphobia in Canadian Catholic schools since 2004</a> shows there are <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/homophobia-in-the-hallways-2">other LGBTQ-identified teachers who suffer similar fates</a>.</p>
<p>I personally experienced this risk when <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4741818/former-teachers-book-homophobia-in-the-hallways-takes-aim-at-calgary-catholic-schools/">I taught high school English for CCSD</a>. </p>
<p>It might seem strange that someone like me, a publicly “out” lesbian, sought employment with a Catholic school. But I was raised in a Catholic family that counts clergy among its members and I regarded myself as <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/03/who-are-cultural-catholics/">culturally Catholic</a>. Having a Catholic background also made it easier for me to find a teaching position at a time when they were hard to get. </p>
<p>In the years that I taught for CCSD, I experienced homophobia daily. I knew I could no longer work for CCSD when a student where I was teaching died by suicide after suffering months of homophobic bullying because he was gay.</p>
<p>I left teaching to research homophobia and transphobia in Canadian Catholic schools and also to begin to question and understand how these phobias are institutionalized. In other words, who or what systems are responsible for creating and implementing homophobic and transphobic religious curriculum and administrative policies?</p>
<h2>Hotbeds for homophobia?</h2>
<p>Using Catholic doctrine to fire LGBTQ teachers and to discriminate against queer students in Catholic schools violates <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art15.html">Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equality rights provision</a>. Shouldn’t publicly funded Catholic schools respect the law? </p>
<p>Publicly funded Catholic schools currently have constitutional status in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. These separate schools are operated by civil authorities and are accountable to provincial governments. <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-55425-3_33">Religious bodies do not have a legal interest in them, and as such, Canadian Catholic separate schools are not private or parochial schools as is common in other countries</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253940/original/file-20190115-152986-gh1h5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When teachers are not able to freely express their LGBTQ identities and relationships, queer students lose important role models.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rene Bohmer/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, the Charter also ensures <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2a.html">freedom of conscience and religion</a>. However, when the expression of particular religious beliefs calls for the suppression of another’s equality rights, freedoms are curtailed rather than safeguarded. </p>
<p>This recurring discrimination against sexual and gender minority groups could be due to <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-roman-catholic-church">the central contradiction within Catholic doctrine itself</a>: the church’s teaching best summarized as “It’s OK to be gay, <a href="https://www.dignityusa.org/">just don’t act on it,” — a position some Catholics reject</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/viewFile/405/211">An influential 2004 Ontario curricular and policy document</a>, <a href="https://www.hcdsb.org/Board/Equity/Documents/Pastoral%20Guidelines%20to%20Assist%20Students%20of%20Same-Sex%20Orientation.pdf">“Pastoral Guidelines to Assist Students of Same-Sex Orientation”</a>, presents a variety of guidelines, personal stories and <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm">sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church</a> pertaining to homosexual attraction to convey a <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/04/06/what-official-church-teaching-homosexuality-responding-commonly-asked-question">contradictory position</a>. While homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” people experiencing homosexual attraction are called to chastity and “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and therefore are in need of “pastoral care.” </p>
<p>The pastoral guidelines document includes a statement on building safe communities and a 1986 letter to Canadian Bishops from <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/index.htm">the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (a Vatican office)</a>. The letter elaborates on the official Church teachings, stating the “inclination of the homosexual person” is a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.” Many LGBTQ people refer to this document as the “Halloween Letter” because it is so scary and was issued October 1 (1986). The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario shares <a href="http://acbo.on.ca/downloads/pastoral-guidelines/">the resource, with this letter, on its website</a>.</p>
<p>Where schools promote such contradictory messages associating respect and depravity with LGBTQ people, they have made Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools potential hotbeds for homophobia — places where dedicated teachers fear for their jobs, and where LGBTQ youth are denied true acceptance and as a consequence are at risk of bullying and depression among other things. </p>
<h2>Impact on students</h2>
<p>My recent book <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/homophobia-in-the-hallways-2"><em>Homophobia in the Hallways: Heterosexism and Transphobia in Catholic Schools</em></a> explores causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Canadian Charter of Human Rights vis-à-vis sexual and gender minority groups. </p>
<p>Charter rights regularly clash with Catholic doctrine about sexuality in schools as this doctrine is <a href="https://www.catholicregister.org/item/28731-complaint-opens-debate-on-educators-catholicity">selectively interpreted and applied regarding how employees embody a “Catholic lifestyle</a>,” as <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-bishops-meet-over-growing-controversy-surrounding-catholic-teacher-contracts">suggested in Catholic lifestyle teacher contracts</a>.</p>
<p>I sought to document how such homophobic policies and views are impacting teachers and students and to uncover what is actually happening. </p>
<p>Through interviews with 20 LGBTQ students and teachers in some Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, and through media accounts, I found that publicly funded Catholic schools in Canada respond to non-heterosexual and non-binary gender students and teachers and in contradictory and inconsistent ways. </p>
<p>All of the research participants experienced some form of homophobia or transphobia in their Catholic schools. None described a Catholic school environment that accepted and welcomed sexual and gender diversity.</p>
<p>I documented the firing of lesbian and gay teachers because they married their same-sex partners; the firing of lesbian and gay teachers because they wanted to have children with their same-sex partners; the firing of transgender teachers for transitioning from one gender to another.</p>
<p>Something as simple as discussing holiday plans can reveal that a teacher who is a lesbian has a same-sex partner. If this detail is revealed to leaders, this teacher can be at risk of being deemed to be living contrary to Catholic teaching and therefore subject to punitive action.</p>
<p>The teachers are given very little, if any, warning and find themselves in meetings without the support of a union representative or lawyer.</p>
<p>I also documented how schools seek to prohibit students from attending their <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gay-teen-wins-fight-over-catholic-prom-1.348831">high school proms with their same-sex dates</a>, bar students from appearing in gender-variant clothing for official school photographs or functions like the prom; and deny students the right to establish <a href="https://egale.ca/portfolio/mygsa/">Gay–Straight Alliances</a>. </p>
<p>I noted a similarity of experiences among research participants in the distant provinces of Alberta and Ontario, in terms of how they were subject to heteronormative repression where schools are legally accountable to provinces <a href="http://www.livingwaters.ab.ca/documents/general/Marks%20of%20an%20Excellent%20Catholic%20Leader%20-%20FINAL.pdf">but look to Bishops for pastoral leadership</a>. </p>
<p>Oppression is a problem not only for LGBTQ people and our allies, but for all of us concerned about human dignity, human rights, love for our neighbours and social justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tonya D. Callaghan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Using Catholic doctrine to fire LGBTQ teachers and discriminate against queer students in Catholic schools violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Tonya D. Callaghan, Associate Professor, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.