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.)...