Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education (JCIE)
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Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater? Revisiting Debates around Educational Inequalities, Social Capital, and Solutions
No full textI review debates around the persistence of stratified educational outcomes. Three explanatory perspectives on social inequality, including educational inequality, are discussed: the “culture of poverty” perspective, the resistance perspective, and the “cultural wealth” perspective. Recent perspectives that emphasize the need to recognize and validate cultural wealth within marginalized urban communities offer an important counterbalance to viewpoints that highlight perceived deficiencies within such milieus. Cultural wealth scholarship views structural discrimination as the primary force that produces inequalities based on race and class. There is, however, a tendency in progressive scholarship to romanticize such communities and focus predominantly on structural change within schools. Many such scholars view community-based social capital initiatives with suspicion and generally deprioritize the urgent need to expand and diversify social capital within minoritized urban communities. I attempt to illustrate that, while structural forces are important to consider when addressing educational inequalities, overlooking social capital-related factors will result in marginalized urban communities continuing to suffer disadvantage
Postmodern Paradox: Artificial Intelligence, Pedagogy and the Return of Robot Slavery
No full textDespite the contributions that postmodernism has made to teaching and learning in the computer age, several scholars and practitioners in education persist in proclaiming its demise or death. This philosophical survey challenges this argument by recalibrating Jacques Derrida’s and Jean-François Lyotard’s contributions to postmodern thought as complementary meditations on the simultaneity of differences. With this reset in mind, one discovers that the evidence critics use to substantiate the end of postmodernism in education is often tenuous and paradoxical. In fact, the simultaneity and indeterminacy at the core of postmodern thinking make it indispensable in contemporary debates on the dichotomy between human and non-human entities, especially as artificial intelligence and robots become increasingly efficient partners and rivals in our classrooms and workplaces. While robot slavery has been introduced as a resolution to the binary opposition between humans and non-humans, postmodernism reminds us that this remedy is contentious and not new. Before robots such as Figure 02 and Mobile ALOHA, there was Rastus Robot, a technological innovation that courts the idea of a black mechanical slave. This study reveals how postmodernism and technological advancements continue to inform our conversations about education and trouble the border between humans and the robot slaves of tomorrow
Educators’ Perceptions of Human Trafficking and Implications for Professional Development
No full textAround 3.3 million young people are trafficked worldwide, with over half subjected to sexual exploitation (Data and Research on Forced Labour, 2024). However, little research exists on the role of school-based educators in learning about, preventing, and identifying human trafficking. This study examines educators’ knowledge of trafficking both locally and globally. Grounded in critical anti-trafficking frameworks, Schulman’s (1987) framework of teachers’ knowledge, and Bronfenbrenner and Cici’s (1994) Bioecological Model, the study surveyed 205 educators in Central Florida in the United States. Findings show that over 60% had received no training on human trafficking, while 24.3% of those who had training were uncertain about how to report trafficking cases. Educators also expressed a desire for more school-based training and professional development. Implications suggest using critical, pedagogical approaches like Ginwright’s (2018) healing-centred engagement to enhance educators’ understanding and help deter global trafficking networks
Well-Being Since the Pandemic: Still an Issue for Students
No full textManagement of the health crisis reduced social contact for children and adolescents and led them to spend months schooling from home. During case studies conducted in 12 schools in 2021 and 2022, interviews with principals and school board directors revealed an increase in student difficulties whose dimensions vary widely. To assess the extent to which the difficulties identified were present throughout Quebec in 2023, an online survey about students was sent to all school boards. A total of 309 elementary and high school principals responded to the survey. It appears that difficulties have increased since the pandemic. Those difficulties have various dimensions; they are not only cognitive and methodological, but also and especially social, affective and psychological. Although they do not affect all students and tend to diminish over time, the aftereffects of the health crisis are still apparently present and students continue to require help overcoming difficulties they have encountered
Book Review: Media Arts Education: Transforming Education Through Multi-modal Cognition, Holistic Learning, and Techno-Embodiment.
No full textSchool Leadership in Crisis: A Job Demands-Resources Model of Saskatchewan School Administrators’ Work, Stress, and Burnout
No full textThis article mobilizes the Job Demands-Resource (JD-R) model and draws on data from a longitudinal study of Saskatchewan school administrators’ work and wellbeing to situate and trouble the enduring nature of high job demands, low job resources, and stress for incumbents in this province. Our findings point to serious implications of continued inattention to issues of stress, with school administrators either retiring from, leaving, or expressing their desire to leave, the role. We position this reality as a crisis not just in Saskatchewan school administration but as a more widespread, urgent equity issue that requires urgent attention before burnout becomes more widespread among school administrators
Employable Wealth: Reframing Community Cultural Wealth as Employability for Students of Color in Higher Education
No full textInstitutions of higher education have increased their focus on their students’ post-graduate outcomes, primarily these students’ ability to become successfully employed after graduation. Known as employability, many researchers have explored how postsecondary institutions do or do not prepare students for the world of work. However, many conceptions of employability do not adequately capture the lived experiences of students of Color, many of whom have been minoritized from the higher education system, and thus, do not access gainful post-graduate employment at the same level as their White peers. For this reason, we argue that traditional models and practices related to post-graduate employability in higher education must reframe ideologies surrounding employability, namely Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model, which aligns nicely with and expands extant theoretical and conceptual frameworks. We then address directions forward and implications for policy and practice to support students of Color on their path toward post-graduate employment.
Neoliberal White Corporate Saviourism in Public Education Outsourcing: A Critical Examination of Project 11
No full textPrivate and corporate interests continue to find new ways to penetrate public K-12 education in Canada, often through the outsourcing of services that are best provided by school-based professionals. In this article, we explore how neoliberal privatization intersects with the discourse of white corporate saviourism through philanthropic non-profit organizations that infiltrate schools under the guise of goodwill and benevolence. Using Project 11 (a mental health non-profit program largely funded by the organization who owns the Winnipeg Jets) as an example of this phenomenon, we illustrate how such organizations may embed themselves in under-resourced schools —made vulnerable by neoliberal reforms— while simultaneously reaping additional social and economic benefits for their involvement. We caution that while programs such as Project 11 may appear —or indeed be— well intentioned, we must maintain critical vigilance against the creeping of white corporate saviourism into our schools. These programs often personalize deeper structural issues, advance corporate interests, reinforce neoliberal ideologies, diminish the role of educators, and perpetuate whiteness and colonial legacies within public education. The presence of private actors within public schools must be scrutinized for the ways in which they may attempt to reshape education to benefit corporate agendas rather than the public good
Chinese International Secondary Students’ Experiences with Racism: “It Was the Same Before and After COVID… It Was Just Something Really Normal.”
No full textThe number of international students enrolled in Canadian K-12 schools has grown tremendously, but there remains limited research available that provides insights into the unique perspectives and challenges of this population. Through in-depth interviews with five Chinese international secondary school students and using Critical Race Theory (CRT), neo-racism and Asian Critical Theory (AsianCrit), this study identifies four key themes that help explore their experiences during the COVID-19 period with anti-Asian sentiments and racism in GTA schools. The article highlights both the strengths and limitations of CRT and AsianCrit and the contributions of Neo-racism in fully accounting for the racist experiences of Chinese international secondary students. It suggests the importance of exploring newer frames such as neo-racism, but also co-ethnic racism and new geopolitics to analyze what shapes and defines international students’ experiences. Finally, the article stresses the need for K-12 schools to confront their problematic institutional cultures and make a sincere and concerted effort to establish an inclusive and supportive environment for international students.