Through this four episode special series of Public Good, Stephen and Shannon speak to presenters from a SSHRC funded symposium, Public Conversations About Privatization: Rejecting the Marketization of Public School Systems in Canada. The symposium, held on May 26 & 27th, 2023, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), brought together academics, educators, activists and community groups from across Canada to discuss: a) the ideological motivations of educational reforms; b) the way these reforms are manifesting “uniquely” in each province; and c) the political and community resistance to the reforms. The two-day symposium included ten thought provoking presentations on the three symposium themes (ideological motivations, provincial privatization, resistance). Through this special podcast series, we will speak to presenters from within each theme. In this first episode of the special series we speak to Ee-Seul Yoon (U of M), Erika Shaker (CCPA), Pamela Rogers (CTF/FCE) and Nichole Grant (CTF/FCE) about the ideological motivations of this reform.

Bios:
Dr. Ee-Seul Yoon's scholarship focuses on how market-based educational reforms -- including choice, competition, entrepreneurship, and deregulation -- reproduce existing power structures based on social class, race, and community wealth, which are entrenched in residential segregation because of colonial racism and neoliberalism. Dr. Yoon has published in the top journals in the field, and their research highlights how the current reforms of school marketization (re)produce inequitable ideologies, structures, and practices. Dr. Yoon's ground-breaking critical spatial research is known for illuminating the impact of educational marketization on the differentiated and unequal educational opportunities, experiences, and outcomes of diverse learners and families. In a recent collaboration with Dr. Lyn Daniels, Director of Instruction, Aboriginal Learning (BC), they show that Indigenous families' school choice is economically and spatially constrained in the face of colonial racism; therefore, school choice policy needs to change in order to reduce this type of systematic and racial inequity. https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=xDUaNrcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Since 1997, Erika Shaker has directed the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' (CCPA) Education Project, established to monitor corporate intrusion in public education. In 2000 she became co-editor of the popular education journal Our Schools / Our Selves, established in 1987, and in 2020 Erika became director of the CCPA's National Office. She writes, researches and speaks on a wide variety of education issues including privatization and commercialism, inequality, standardization and social justice. Erika has a BA in History from McGill, and an MA from the University of Guelph in English with a focus on critical literary theory. Her dissertation, completed in 1995/96, was on the commercialization of curriculum in Ontario. https://policyalternatives.ca/authors/erika-shaker

Pamela Rogers is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, and CTF/FCE Principal Investigator on educator mental health research funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Her research focuses on discursive policy formations and teachers' lived experiences in neoliberal educational governance structures. She has publications in the Canadian Journal of Education, Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, and Historical Encounters, focusing on anti-oppressive education, critical historical consciousness, and understanding cultural productions of history in public spaces. Pamela is an...

Through this four episode special series of Public Good, Stephen and Shannon speak to presenters from a SSHRC funded symposium, Public Conversations About Privatization: Rejecting the Marketization of Public School Systems in Canada. The symposium, held on May 26 & 27th, 2023, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), brought together academics, educators, activists and community groups from across Canada to discuss: a) the ideological motivations of educational reforms; b) the way these reforms are manifesting “uniquely” in each province; and c) the political and community resistance to the reforms. The two-day symposium included ten thought provoking presentations on the three symposium themes (ideological motivations, provincial privatization, resistance). Through this special podcast series, we will speak to presenters from within each theme. In this third episode of the special series we speak to Beyhan Farhadi (OISE), Justin Fraser (P4PE), and E. Wayne Ross (UBC) about resistance. That is, the moves to resist the undermining and privatization of public education across Canada.

Bios
Dr. Beyhan Farhadi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education at OISE, U of T. Prior to joining the faculty at OISE, Dr. Farhadi was the Research Cluster Lead for Community Engagement and Public Scholarship at the Institute for Research on Digital Literacies at York University and a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ontario. She was also a secondary teacher with the Toronto District School Board and a community organizer with Scarborough Families for Public Education. Her research focuses on the impact of online learning on educational equity in Ontario and, more recently, Alberta. Dr. Farhadi's lead-authored publications in The Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy (2022) and The Journal for Teaching and Learning (2021) reflect a commitment to open access scholarship and meaningful engagement with education stakeholders. She also mobilizes knowledge for the public in sole-authored publications for the Broadbent Centre and The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, as well as The Conversation, Canada, and First Policy Response at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Justin D. Fraser (he/him) is an educator, activist, musician, and graduate student from Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a public school teacher specializing in popular music education, he has firsthand experience with neoliberal education reforms such as funding cuts, "back-to-basics" curricular emphases, and the marketization of arts education. Fraser is a founding member of People for Public Ed, a Manitoba-based community group dedicated to promoting consistent and substantive public funding for public education, and is committed to ensuring that all students in Manitoba have equitable access to high quality public education. Specifically, his work with PfPE includes community organizing, outreach, writing, and popular education. Finally, as a graduate student at the University of Manitoba, Fraser's research interests include the impacts of neoliberal education reforms on public education as well as designing and facilitating more equitable and just models of popular music education within a critical education paradigm.

E. Wayne Ross, PhD is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at The University of British Columbia. His research and teaching focus on the role of curriculum and teaching in building democratic communities that are positioned to challenge the priorities and interests of neoliberal capitalism as manifest in educational and social policies that shape both formal and informal education experiences. His work includes books such as Neoliberalism and Education, Battleground Schools, Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom, Defending Public Schools (4 Vols.)...

In our eighteenth episode, Stephen and Shannon are joined by Dr. Gillian Parekh.

Dr. Parekh is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Disability Studies in Education (Tier 2) within the Faculty of Education at York. Gillian is cross-appointed with York's graduate program in Critical Disability studies. As a previous teacher in special education and research coordinator with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Gillian has conducted extensive system and school-based research in Toronto in the areas of structural equity, special education, and academic streaming. In particular, her work explores how schools construct and respond to disability as well as how students are organized across programs and systems.Source: https://edu.yorku.ca/edu-profiles/index.php?mid=732857

In this episode we speak to Dr. Parekh about her new book, Ableism in Education: Rethinking School Practices and Policies. Through the conversation, Dr. Parekh discusses the “unbreakable relationship” between ability and schooling. Ability is used to organize students, and this results in hierarchies and ranking of students; this is reinforced by assessment and grading. Dr. Parekh speaks to the way notions of ability re/produce deficit narratives. We speak about the impact of academic streaming, special education, and gifted programs. Through this conversation, we also talk about the ways that race, gender and parental education level intersects with constructions of students’ ability. At the end of the conversation, we speak about the rationale for inviting and involving students in decisions surrounding policies and practices. We also speak about a resource that Dr. Parekh helped co-create, Equity and Human Rights in Education: Critical Reflective Practice Guide

Relevant Publications:
Archer, L., Francis, B., Miller, S., Taylor, B., Tereshchenko, A., Mazenod, A., Pepper, D., & Travers, M.-C. (2018). The symbolic violence of setting: A Bourdieusian analysis of mixed methods data on secondary students’ views about setting. British Educational Research Journal, 44(1), 119–140

Annamma, S., & Morrison, D. (2018). Identifying dysfunctional education ecologies: A DisCrit analysis of bias in the classroom. Equity & Excellence in Education, 51(2), 114–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2018.1496047

Brantlinger, E. A. (2006). Who Benefits From Special Education?: Remediating (Fixing) Other People’s Children. Routledge.

Connor, D. J. (2017). Who is responsible for the racialized practices evident within (special) education and what can be done to change them? Theory into Practice, 56(3), 226–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2017.1336034

Duncan-Andrade, J. M. R., & Morrell, E. (2008). The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools. Peter Lang.

Gallagher-Mackay, K., Brown, R.S., Parekh, G., James C.E. & Corso, C. (2023). “I have all my credits – now what?”: Disparities in postsecondary transitions, invisible gatekeeping and inequitable access to rigorous upper year curriculum in Toronto, Ontario. Toronto: Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and the Diaspora at York University. Show more...