Archives of articles published from the first issue in 1995 through 2009.
Issues are listed in descending chronological order.
Issue Ninety-Seven
December 10, 2009
First Nations Educational Governance: A Fractured Mirror
Sheila Carr-Stewart, University of Saskatchewan, and Larry Steeves, University of Regina
The Constitutional Act 1867 established a dual system of education in Canada – provincial authority and federal responsibility for First Nations’ education. As a part of its treaty obligations, Canada agreed to provide western schools and services equitable with that provided by provincial systems (Morris 1880/1991). The authors argue that the federal system of education for First Nations children has only a surface similarity with the provincial systems. The fractured federal approach to First Nations education – lack of a governance system, educational policy, limited second level services and funding inequities – contributes to dissimilar educational services and inhibits First Nations’ student learning and effective educational outcomes.
Issue Ninety-Six
November 9, 2009
“The First Year, They Cried”: How Teachers Address Test Stress
Ruth A. Childs and Lina Fung, OISE, University of Toronto
Grade 3 teachers in Ontario must administer the Primary Assessment of Reading, Writing and Mathematics to their students. In this study, we analyze how four teachers framed and addressed the problem of the stress some of their students experienced when sitting the test. The teachers framed the problem in different ways: as related to students’ perceptions of the test, students’ preparation for the test, teachers’ attitudes about the test, or the developmental appropriateness of the test administration instructions. Their approaches to addressing the problem were related to how they framed the problem and whether they believed the test administration instructions must be strictly followed. We believe it is important for educational policy makers and test developers to understand the problem of test stress and to engage teachers in finding ways to address it.
Issue Ninety-Five
October 26, 2009
Marianne A. Larsen, University of Western Ontario
Teacher performance appraisal policies are a part of a global complex of accountability based teacher policies. This paper is a study of the Ontario teacher performance appraisal (TPA) system. First, the paper describes the education reform contexts associated with the origins and adoption of the TPA policy. Then the paper reports on the results of a mixed methods study that aimed to understand the effects and implications of the TPA policy from the perspective of the teacher. The study, based on a survey and interviews with 125 teachers focused on the implementation stage of the policy and demonstrates the disparate ways the policy has been taken up across the province.
Issue Ninety-Four
April 17, 2009
Symbolic Policy and Alcohol Abuse Prevention in Youth
Marcella Ogenchuk, College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan
In Canada, the prevalence of alcohol use among school-age students has emerged as a leading public health issue. Though governments at all levels have called for inter-organizational collaboration to address the issue, the representation of youth interests by key community groups is critical to the efficacy of those initiatives. This article describes the case of a community project supported by provincial and local governments in which an integrated community centre (ICC) was combined with a new high school. The ICC included a soccer centre, a track, and a licensed beverage room on the premises that opened on a daily basis. Government support for the ICC policy and related values is examined from the perspective of symbolic policy. The point is argued that the best interests of youth (the main interest group associated with the ICC) must be defined, represented and mobilized materially and symbolically in policy related to their well-being.
Issue Ninety-Three
April 4, 2009
The Science Gap in Canada: A Post-Secondary Perspective
Dietmar Kennepohl, Athabasca University
Despite having its students score among the top in the world in mathematics and science, the level of science literacy and participation in science-related fields in Canada is relatively low. In the context of the economic and societal benefits afforded by science, this article reviews what is already being done in support of science, technology and engineering, as well as identifying some missing pieces that may explain declining interest in its pursuit. The focus is primarily on the role of post-secondary institutions in addressing the challenges from both organizational and student-centred perspectives.
Issue Ninety-Two
March 14, 2009
Character Education Re-conceptualized for Practical Implementation
Mira Bajovic, Kelly Rizzo, and Joe Engemann, Brock University
In this paper we explored conceptual ambiguities of character education within the present Ontario Ministry of Education initiative. Through the critical lens of moral development theories and theories of mind, social and cognitive domains and their affect on character development were examined. Based on these findings three shortcomings in implementation were identified: a lack of clarity in defining ‘character’, a lack of recognition of the importance of cognitive and social processes in moral development, and a lack of clarity in effective strategies for character development. The recommendations for future implementation of character education were proposed.
Issue Ninety-One
February 23, 2009
Dick Henley, Brandon University, and Jon Young, University of Manitoba
Canada’s provincial and territorial governments are committed to implement the Labour Mobility chapter of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) in 2009. This article examines the implications of this agreement for teacher certification and teacher education programs. It argues that the full impact of AIT will not be immediately apparent, but over the long term the new circumstances have the potential to bring about profound changes to public education. This is a two-part paper: the first half examines the development of the Agreement on Internal Trade with reference to its labour mobility provisions. The second half lays out what we see as four troubling aspects of the Agreement.
Issue Ninety
February 9, 2009
Jerome Cranston, University of Manitoba
Using a naturalistic inquiry approach and thematic analysis, this paper outlines the findings of a research study that examined 12 Manitoba principals’ conceptions of professional learning communities. The study found that these principals consider the development of professional learning communities to be a normative imperative within the educational culture of their schools, yet their understandings of what constitutes a professional learning community, as defined by Toole & Louis (2002) are varied and partially limited. However, the principals suggested that there are eight dominant themes that are central in their conceptions of “professional learning community.” The themes are: professional learning communities are about process; structural supports enable the development of professional learning communities; trust as the foundation for adult relationships; congenial relationships dominate conceptions of community; learning is an individual activity; professional teaching is derived from attitudinal attributes; teacher evaluation shapes how principals think about learning in professional communities; and, teacher evaluation impacts principal and teacher relationships in professional learning communities.
Issue Eighty-Nine
January 22, 2009
The Catholic School Administrator: Using Tacit Assumptions to Promote Human Dignity
Randall Woodard, Saint Leo University
The discussion about the meaning and intended results of education is a conversation that must be undertaken frequently by all stakeholders in the educational process. One of these conversation partners is the Catholic school system. As in the public school sector, the question of school mission is taking place among leaders in the parochial system. Within our current context of high stakes testing and school accountability, today’s Catholic school leaders are also working to provide a clear vision of education in their school mission and practice that relates to core beliefs about life and the human person. Although differing in many considerable ways, leaders from both public and separate school systems can delve deeper into the dialogue of educational mission by sharing what is valued within each system’s context, and by reflecting on the practices of the other. The purpose of this article is to invite those interested in the social mission of education to consider the perspective of Catholic education in order to continue discussion and debate about the role and meaning of education. Specifically, this paper will attempt to articulate how school administrators might use reflection on tacit assumptions as a means to promote human dignity within their school communities.
Issue Eighty-Eight
December 22, 2008
The PhD Dissertation Defense in Canada: An Institutional Policy Perspective
Shuhua Chen, McGill University
Drawing upon publicly accessible information on the websites of ten Canadian research universities, this paper aims to shed some light on the assumed variation of institutional policies regarding the PhD dissertation defense in Canada. It discusses How are the institutional policies on the doctoral dissertation defense different across Canadian universities?; What do these differences imply about the role, function, and purpose of the oral defense in the PhD examination in Canada?; and How might these differences inform PhD education in Canada?. It concludes with a call for academics and students’ awareness of these variations in policy and practice.
Issue Eighty-Seven
December 3, 2008
Philip Burge, Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz, and Nancy Hutchinson, Queen's University, and Hugh Box, Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute
Understanding the views of the public is an important factor in developing and evaluating policy on inclusive education. This article presents the results of an opinion poll conducted by an alliance of researchers and community partners to measure public perceptions regarding inclusive education of students with an intellectual disability, the related impacts, and obstacles to expansion. Participants were 680 adults across a large region of Ontario. Respondents held divergent views about the best type of schooling for children with intellectual disabilities; 52% viewed some degree of inclusive education in regular schools as best while about 42% believed that education in special schools was best. When asked to first assume inclusion in regular schools was occurring, about one third of respondents believed that it would cause discipline problems, and make it harder for other students to learn. Schools’ lack of special resources (79%) and teachers being unprepared to teach students with intellectual disabilities (69%) were seen as obstacles to inclusion. Analyses identified younger age and having known someone with an intellectual disability who was not a family member, as associated with inclusive views. Policy implications are discussed.
Issue Eighty-Six
November 19, 2008
The Urgency of Postsecondary Education for Aboriginal Peoples
Jane P. Preston, University of Saskatchewan
Canada has an unprecedented need to increase the number of Aboriginal peoples who undertake and complete postsecondary programs. Endorsing postsecondary education for Aboriginal peoples advocates an invigorating, fortifying future for Aboriginal peoples, their families, and their communities. Additionally, the postsecondary educational achievements of Aboriginal peoples support the health and sustainability of the Canadian nation; spearheaded by Western Canada’s current economic prosperity, human resources supplied by Aboriginal peoples have become increasingly important. Captured herein are demographic, social, educational, and economic trends reinforcing the rationale that Aboriginal peoples urgently need to be provided with greater opportunities to succeed in postsecondary education.
Issue Eighty-Five
November 2, 2008
Trust in the Contemporary Principalship
Brian Noonan and Keith Walker, University of Saskatchewan,
and Benjamin Kutsyuruba, Queen’s UniversityThe social relevance of trust and the principals’ obligation to foster trust in schools have been strongly advocated. This paper describes an in-depth, qualitative study that engaged a group of twenty-five Canadian school principals over a period of seven months, exploring the issues of trust as it affects principals’ roles and responsibilities. Four central concerns were identified by the participants: i) defining trust, ii) establishing trust, iii) maintaining trust, and iv) trust breaking. The principals’ multiple relationships produce a complex web of issues related to trust; including intensity of relationships and the contingent role of school principals in trust brokering within learning communities. This research has further established a basis for on-going examination of the nature, extent, and effect of trust relationships in the lives of school administrators.
Issue Eighty-Four
October 18, 2008
Examining Factors that Influence School Administrators' Responses to Large-Scale Assessment
Louis Volante, Lorenzo Cherubini, and Susan Drake, Brock University
This study examined factors at the school, district, and provincial level that influenced school administrators’ responses to large-scale assessment. To understand administrators’ perspectives, 5 secondary and 4 elementary administrators from a suburban school district in southern Ontario, Canada were interviewed. Key factors noted by administrators included school improvement planning (elementary versus secondary), departmental structures and teacher resistance within schools, lack of professional development opportunities, inadequate resources and direction from districts, ministry initiative overload, lack of an easily identifiable provincial assessment and evaluation policy document, and pressure to reach provincial achievement targets. The findings underscore the need for greater initial and ongoing professional development for school administrators as well as more thoughtful support from district leaders and provincial policy-makers.
Issue Eighty-Three
October 3, 2008
A Tale of Two Provinces: Who Makes Stronger Vertical Equity Efforts?
Xiaobin Li, Brock University
Policy makers in Ontario and Alberta provide financial assistance to disadvantaged students. Three special allocations in 2006–2007 school year for disadvantaged students in grades one to eight in the two provinces are compared to answer the question: Who makes stronger vertical equity efforts? The three compared allocations are: the allocation for special education students, for English as Second Language students, and for students from low socio-economic status families. Since stronger measures are needed for equal educational opportunity, measuring how strong vertical equity efforts are is a highly relevant topic. The results indicate that Ontario provides more assistance through these allocations. The answer to the question is, “Ontario makes stronger vertical equity efforts.”
Issue Eighty-Two
September 18, 2008
Norming and <Re>forming: Challenging Heteronormativity in Educational Policy Discourses
Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria
Since the early 1990’s, the advocacy of teachers and other queer allies have sought to alter the curriculum and educational policies of British Columbia’s schools so that queer youth are no longer harassed, bullied, ridiculed or discriminated against by the system, teachers, and other students. Court decisions and Human Rights Tribunals have recently imposed more inclusive policy responses by government and school districts respectively. This article considers to what extent such legal discourses are remediated by competing discourses and practices. The article concludes by considering the limitations of policy priming as an advocacy strategy, and considers what approaches might be taken to achieve civically informed outcomes.
Issue Eighty-One
September 3, 2008
Julie Domitrek and Rebecca Raby, Brock University
Recently, there has been much media coverage about cell phone and personal music player usage in schools, including in the Toronto and Whitton regions. However, there is little literature on how students and teachers view rules on the use of such electronic devices. Using data gathered from focus groups with students in Toronto and Whitton and interviews with teachers and administrators from Whitton, we present the viewpoints from these stakeholders on the usage of cell phones and personal music players. We frame this preliminary discussion around six themes: the importance of context; public/private space and cyberbullying; safety; regulation and enforcement; and tension between integrated and peripheral users of digital technology. We conclude that the role of such electronic devices in school is understood quite differently between administrators, teachers and students, that music players and cell phones are not equivalent and that movements towards top-down ‘blanket’ rules limit input from most stakeholders.
Issue Eighty
August 19, 2008
Ontario’s Challenge: Denominational Rights in Public Education
Dawn Zinga, Brock University
Denominational rights in education have a long and controversial history within Canada. Ontario has struggled with denomination rights and continues to face the challenges posed by accommodating denominational rights. This paper examines those challenges and considers the future of denominational rights in Ontario, in light of John Tory’s 2007 election campaign platform to extend funding to all faith-based schools or to none. It includes a consideration of the historical roots of denominational rights, their expression throughout Canada, the conflicts between denominational rights and the Charter, the media storm that surrounded the faith-based funding campaign, and proposed solutions to the question of denominational rights in Ontario.
Issue Seventy-Nine
August 2, 2008
Dr. Lorenzo Cherubini, Faculty of Education, and John Hodson, doctoral candidate, Tecumseh Centre for Aboriginal Research and Education, Brock University
The Ontario Ministry of Education has made a recent commitment to address the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-aboriginal students with the release of various policy documents. Yet, there appears to be a disconnect between the policy principles and the standardized means of reconciling these differences in achievement, teacher education, and parental involvement. The dualities between the expressed intent presented in the policy documents and the reality of Aboriginal epistemologies imply overtones that are symptomatic of the colonial treatment of Aboriginal peoples in this province and country. There is, then, a need to rethink critical aspects of the policy, for the profound implications it has on educational policy and student achievement in this province and beyond.
Issue Seventy-Eight
July 17, 2008
Do British Columbia's Recent Education Policy Changes Enhance Professionalism among Teachers?
Peter Grimmett and Laura D'Amico, Institute for Studies in Teacher Education, Simon Fraser University
Since 2001, British Columbia instituted a number of policy changes to bring about cultural and economic restructuring of its school system. This study reports on teachers' perceptions of these policy changes, especially with regard to their impact on professional collaboration. In general it was found that the new policies have made collaboration more difficult than before 2000, and raise concerns about their possible impact on teachers' professionalism.
Issue Seventy-Seven
July 1, 2008
Julie Marcotte, Department of Psychoeducation, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Québec
Using the new “emerging adulthood” developmental period (Arnett, 2000) as a theoretical framework, this article emphasizes the chal lenges faced by emerging adults (17- to 24- year-olds) enrolled in adult education. First, emerging adulthood as a developmental period and the additional difficulties experienced by youths with emotional, behavioral and school disabilities during this period are briefly discussed. Then, a description of adult education within the Quebec’s school system and its potential role as a turning point is presented. Finally, barriers to improvement are identified and the need for better knowledge about this clientele to establish evidence-based interventions is asserted.
Issue Seventy-Six
June 15, 2008
The Evolving Culture of Large-scale Assessments in Canadian Education
Don A. Klinger, Christopher DeLuca, and Tess Miller, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University
In recent years, an increase in the number of large-scale assessment programs in Canada has been observed. However, due to the provincial/territorial control of education throughout Canada, the format and purposes of these assessment programs vary. The central purpose of this study was to document the format and explicit purposes of the current large-scale assessment programs in each of Canada’s ten provinces and three territories. Through document analysis of publicly accessible policy documents, examination of Ministry websites, and telephone interviews with Ministry of Education officials, specific and general characteristics and purposes of large-scale assessment practices in Canada were obtained and analyzed. This analysis provided an opportunity to examine the commonalities and variations in the frameworks guiding the current large-scale assessment culture that is evolving in Canada. Assessment programs were categorized by their explicit purposes as they related to the functions of accountability, gatekeeping, instructional diagnosis, and monitoring student achievement over time.
Issue Seventy-Five
June 1, 2008
Dr. Gerald Fallon, University of Saskatchewan, Dr. Jerald Paquette, University of Western Ontario
This critical policy study provides an understanding of the different actors—individuals, interest groups, and other organizations—involved in influencing and defining, through their narratives what public education in BC ought to be, thus capturing the core intellectual dispositions that informed and determined the kind of policy problems that were posed, the kinds of explanations that were offered, and the kinds of policy options suggested as solutions in the restructuring of public education in BC. The study provides an account of the manner in which policy problems were posed, of the explanations constructed, of the policy directions formulated, and of the policy issues to which policy makers ultimately paid attention with enactment of Bill 34.
Issue Seventy-Four
May 15, 2008
Professional Learning Communities: Developing a School-Level Readiness Instrument
Ray Williams, Ed.D., Ken Brien, Ed.D., Crista Sprague, M.Ed., and Gerald Sullivan, M.Ed
Professional learning communities have become a focus of educational reform in New Brunswick. The implementation and sustainability of this reform is dependent on shifting many of the organizational and operational characteristics of the traditional bureaucratic model into those that support a learning community approach in schools. The study examined traces the process for developing a school-based instrument that identifies systemic barriers that may prevent schools from becoming professional learning communities. The instrument examines culture, leadership, teaching and professional growth & development factors in an attempt to determine the readiness of a school to become a PLC.
Issue Seventy-Three
May 1, 2008
Working Towards a Model of Secondary School Culture
Dr. Patrick Brady, Faculty of Education, Lakehead University
Contemporary secondary schools in Canada and the United States are complex institutions whose organizational structures, program delivery mechanisms, and institutional community members combine to produce distinctive mini-societies within their walls. Replete with complex arrays of rituals, ceremonies, as well as traditions and founded on a variety of basic assumptions, these unique cultural entities have a profound effect on the individuals, and groups who inhabit them. Indeed failure on the part of individual inhabitants to comprehend and accommodate the cultural nuances of the organizations they dwell in has the potential to significantly diminish their prospects for success in those domains. Furthermore, many of the structures and rituals of secondary school life have developed into something akin to cultural icons that have proven to be remarkably resistant to change. This article, therefore, proposes a model of secondary school culture that is intended to serve as a potential starting point for the further examination of these complex institutions.
Issue Seventy-Two
April 15, 2008
School Boards and Education Finance in Manitoba: The Politics of Equity, Access and Local Autonomy
Dick Henley , Brandon University, and Jon Young, University of Manitoba
This paper provides an analysis of current educational finance debates in Manitoba within a broader discussion of the essential character of public education in Canada. Arguing that public accessibility and equity, public funding, and public control constitute three touchstones of public education, the paper describes the Manitoba debates over provincial and local funding of schools and the use of property taxes to fund education and analyzes them in relation to these criteria. Significant continued local school board funding from property taxes, along with a greater commitment to provincial equalization initiatives, is the direction that the paper suggests offers the greatest potential for sustaining and nurturing a strong publicly funded school system characterized by both public accessibility and public control.
Issue Seventy-One
March 31 , 2008
Francine Dénommé and Ruth Childs, OISE, University of Toronto
On national and international assessments, students attending French-language schools in Ontario usually perform worse than students attending English-language schools. Interpreting these results is challenging because the French- and English-language schools differ both in prescribed curriculum and in how the curriculum is taught. In addition, the French- and English-language versions of the tests and scoring procedures sometimes differ. Even how students in the French- and English-language schools take the tests may differ. Finally, the populations of students differ in important ways. In this paper, we illustrate these challenges using results from the 2001 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.
Issue Seventy
February 28 , 2008
Safe Schools and Zero Tolerance: Policy, Program and Practice in Ontario
Yvette Daniel and Karla Bondy, University of Windsor
This paper examines zero tolerance discipline policies in Ontario’s public school system legislated as the Safe Schools Act (SSA) 2001. The intent of our paper is to argue that the SSA set within a discourse of zero tolerance as the panacea to the problems of violence in schools has had a detrimental impact. Since the SSA is part of the episteme of standardized solutions to complex problems, Ball’s interpretation of “policy as text” and “policy as discourse” serves as the guiding framework for the study in which we examine the perspectives of professionals who implement these measures. In conclusion we state that the discursive frames within which zero tolerance policies are situated have shifted to some extent in order to consider other possibilities to the zero tolerance approach.
Issue Sixty-Nine
February 7 , 2008
Lisa L. Wright, University of Alberta
Although claiming leadership to be critical to school improvement, few studies seek the informative voice of principals regarding their understandings of roles and sources of leadership. Using a distributed perspective as a theoretical lens to reconceptualize leadership, this article explores principals’ perspectives of leadership in relation to their roles as defined by legislation and policy. By examining the primary merits and limitations of Spillane’s (2006) distributed framework, consideration is given to persistent issues yielding implications for the practice and study of educational leadership. Lastly, I urge further investigation into the extent to which distributed forms of leadership may contribute to school improvement.
Issue Sixty-Eight
January 26, 2008
Reforming Education: Is Inclusion in Standardization Possible?
Rosalyn Adamowycz, M.A., University of Prince Edward Island
Two reforms have evolved over the past fifteen years in the North American public education system, inclusion and large-scale assessment. The inclusion movement emerged from an educational reform to establish equal access to education, and the implementation of large-scale assessments stemmed from standards-led reform to encourage high standards for students. This article examines the implementation of these two complex educational movements; analyses how the large-scale assessment movement has incorporated inclusive practices; and presents existing examples that attempt to facilitate inclusive processes in large-scale assessment practices.
Issue Sixty-Seven
January 14, 2007
Catherine E. Casey and Ruth A. Childs, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Most teacher education programs receive many more applications than they can accept. How should programs select among applicants and how should the programs evaluate the success of their selection processes? In this article we review the criteria utilized throughout North America to select prospective teachers into education programs. The strengths and weaknesses of each criterion are discussed. We propose a conceptual framework linking the knowledge, skills, and attitudes beginning teachers need, the preparation that teacher education programs provide, and the programs’ application criteria. In the conclusion, the authors make numerous suggestions about how to adapt and change the current selection criteria so that the resultant product is the successful teacher. The authors challenge teacher education programs to critically examine their admission criteria.
Issue Sixty-Six
December 5, 2007
Sue Winton, Ryerson University
The claim that the character education policy of a school board in Ontario, Canada supports citizenship education is examined. 181 documents were analyzed to determine the ways the policy supports and/or undermines citizenship education’s goal to prepare students to become “knowledgeable individuals committed to active participation in a pluralist society” (Sears, Clarke, and Hughes, 2000, p. 153). The findings show that the policy encourages students to acquire specific values, behaviours, and interpersonal skills rather than conceptual or situational knowledge. While the policy encourages active citizenship by promoting the development of decision-making, conflict resolution, and communication skills, it emphasizes participation in activities that support rather than challenge the status quo. The policy also offers some support for developing students’ commitment to pluralism, but its narrow definition of diversity and emphasis on shared values, behaviour, and language contradict these efforts. I conclude that the policy supports citizenship education that adopts an assimilationist conception of social cohesion and/or social initiation as its purpose(s).
Issue Sixty-Five
November 3, 2007
Dr. Dale Kirby, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Since 2004, a number of Canadian provinces have initiated comprehensive reviews of their respective public post-secondary education systems. This paper examines the ways in which these provincial post-secondary education reviews are consistent with the pervasive influence of economic globalization on higher education and a more market-driven and commercially-oriented ideological outlook on post-secondary education’s raison d'être. Taken together, these provincial reviews provide an informative and interesting repository of the current tendencies in Canadian post-secondary education policy.
Issue Sixty-Four
October 9, 2007
Dr. Brian Lewthwaite, Centre for Research, Youth, Science Teaching and Learning, University of Manitoba
This paper explores the history and processes associated with the transformation of a northern Canadian Aboriginal school into a culture-based community school for its Metis, Inuvialuit and Gwichin citizens. In particular, the role of the principal, a local Aboriginal, as a leader in initiating and facilitating the transformative change is examined. The factors providing the impetus for change and processes fostering change are examined through the critical lens of Kaupapa Maori Theory, a guiding framework for transformative praxis in New Zealand Maori schools. Finally, the paper examines current developments in the area of science curriculum development and delivery within this school community that are consistent with culture- and place-based education practice and the aspirations of the community.
Issue Sixty-Three
August 27, 2007
Dr. Dawn C. Wallin, University of Manitoba
Rural communities that envision a bright future for themselves and their children have become innovative out of necessity—they learn, and adapt, in order to flourish and to provide opportunities for their children. As the formal centers of learning, and often as the largest employer in the community, rural schools become the heart and symbol of learning and community identity. Unfortunately, their policy and legislative environments often lead to tensions between rural priorities/lifestyles and urbanizing/essentializing agendas which impact upon the quality of schooling they wish, or are able, to provide.
This tension was the focus of a study on rural educational priorities and school division capacity, based on a provincial survey and four case studies of rural school divisions representing four educational regions in the province of Manitoba. Findings suggest that three educational priorities remain central to the creation of high quality learning environments in rural schools: Improving Student Outcomes, Quality of Teachers and Administrators, and Educational Finance. This paper elaborates on the challenges facing rural school divisions for these issues, and discusses some of the ways in which four Manitoba school divisions, the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents (MASS), the Manitoba Association of School Trustees (MAST), and Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth (MECY) are working to address these difficulties in what has become a policy window (Kingdon, 1995) for rural education in Manitoba.
Issue Sixty-Two
July 8, 2007
Emery J. Hyslop-Margison, University of New Brunswick, Adrian McKerracher, Concordia University, Janice Cormier, Concordia
University, and Sarah Desroches, Concordia University
The sharp decline in voter participation among Canadian youth requires an examination of how our students are being prepared for democratic citizenship. Public schools, including programs falling under the purview of career education, provide the means to prepare learners for vocational, community, and political participation. In Canada, career preparation occurs under a variety of names – Career Planning in British Columbia, Career Preparation in Alberta, Guidance and Career Education in Ontario – to mention a few. In this article, we offer a policy analysis of New Brunswick’s Youth Apprenticeship Program (NBYAP) to determine its respect for the principles of democratic learning (Hyslop-Margison & Graham, 2003). These principles are designed to provide students with a sense of community responsibility, political empowerment and social understanding. Our analysis reveals that NBYAP violates fundamental democratic values that foster student understanding of Searle’s (1995) distinction between brute facts and social facts. Students must appreciate this distinction to recognize how their own agency and democratic decision-making effects change in the formation of social, political, and economic reality.
Issue Sixty-One
June 4, 2007
What Shapes Inner-City Education Policy?
Ben Levin, Jane Gaskell, and Katina Pollock, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
This paper is part of a larger study looking at the issues involved as two large urban Canadian school boards, in Winnipeg and Toronto, responded to the demands of poor, inner city areas over the last thirty years of the twentieth century. In this paper we focus our attention on the broader stage on which education policy takes place. We draw from our data three overarching themes that we believe are critical for understanding change in inner-city education over this period. These are: 1) The diminishing role of school boards, as provincial governments took more control of education policy and limited the scope of school boards, 2) The importance of unique, and sometimes unexpected local events, and 3) The powerful implications for schools and education policy of increasing population diversity in cities.
Issue Sixty
March 11, 2007
Designing a Successful New Teacher Induction Program:
An Assessment of the Ontario Experience, 2003-2006
Larry A. Glassford and Geri Salinitri, University of Windsor
Pedagogues and practitioners alike accept the vital importance of an effective professional induction for new teachers. This paper examines the evolution of such a policy in Ontario, from a mandatory pencil-and-paper qualifying test for graduating teacher candidates, to a modest province-wide induction program for newly-hired teachers. It assesses programmatic strengths and weaknesses using both theoretical and practical templates of comparison, and notes the attention devoted to ensuring political validity with interested stakeholders. The authors conclude that the new program combines professional orientation with school-based assessment, while falling short in the crucial area of mentoring.
Issue Fifty-Nine
February 11, 2007
Portrait of Rural Virtual Schooling
Michael K. Barbour (Doctoral Candidate), University of Georgia
Over the past two decades, distance education has become a reality of rural schooling in Newfoundland and Labrador. In this article, I provide historical background into the challenges facing rural schools in the province and how distance education was introduced to address that challenge. I also describe how that system of distance education evolved from a system that used the telephone lines and bridging technology to one that uses a combination synchronous and asynchronous system delivered over the Internet. Finally, I examine recent literature concerning the nature of today’s secondary students that would need to avail of this system and relate how this may not be an applicable portrait of youth in rural areas, such as Newfoundland and Labrador.
Issue Fifty-Eight
January 21, 2007
Educational Quality and Accountability in Ontario: Past, Present, and Future
Louis Volante, Brock University
This paper outlines the genesis, limitations, and future directions for the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) in the province of Ontario. Recent assessment reforms are analyzed and examined in relation to broader Canadian and international literature. Research describing the impact of Ontario’s large-scale assessment programs on students, teachers, and the school system is also reported. The discussion outlines measures for strengthening large-scale assessment within the province and proposes a set of three overarching principles to guide future assessment-led reform.
Issue Fifty-Seven
December 18, 2006
Karen Brown, Margaret Jackson, and Wanda Cassidy, Simon Fraser University
The article reviews existing research on cyber-bullying, framed through a policy lens. It is clear that public policy issues for cyber-bullying involve tensions between the values of freedom of speech, the best interests of the child, and parental and school protective authority over the child. Given the complexity of the problem, as well as conflicting values, the development of effective policy requires a collaborative effort involving all stakeholders – policymakers, school officials, parents and youth. It is important to emphasize literature that delineates the differences between conventional bullying and cyber-bullying because the two are very different and must be treated and analyzed separately. Thus, the following sections set out the definitions and mechanisms of cyber-bullying for policymakers contemplating new and/or modified policies, review the characteristics of the problem and the psychology of Internet abuse, explain the physical and mental consequences of it, and outline the results of recent surveys on cyber-bullying. Finally, the article concludes with recommendations on implementing acceptable use policies at the School Board and individual school levels, as well as family contracts for home use.
Issue Fifty-Six
November 4, 2006
Demystifying Assessment Leadership
Brian Noonan and Patrick Renihan, University of Saskatchewan
In a climate of accountability, the development of assessment literacy among school professionals has become critical to school success. The provision of assessment leadership is viewed as the means by which such literacy can be enhanced. The writers examine the conditions under which student achievement gains can be realized. Implications of assessment reform for the instructional leadership role are translated into the knowledge, appreciations and skills that can help principals transform assessment leadership expectations into instructional leadership practice.
Issue Fifty-Five
September 8, 2006
Implementing Nunavut Education Act: Compulsory School Attendance Policy
E. Fredua Kwarteng, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
This paper discusses the implementation of Nunavut compulsory school attendance policy as part of the Nunavut Education Act (2002). Using a bottom-up approach to policy implementation in the literature and the author’s six years teaching experience in Nunavut, the paper argues that the compulsory school attendance policy may not achieve its objectives unless the District Education Authority (DEA) of each community is allowed the flexibility to adapt the policy to its local context. Because each community in the territory has a different micro-implementation environment, the DEA in consultation with principals, teachers, parents, and other community members would be able to construct effective implementation plans based on the latitude that the policy allows them.
Issue Fifty-Four
June 26, 2006
Jan Stewart, University of Winnipeg
Over the past four decades, the concept of leadership has become increasingly more complex and elaborate. Considerable debate has emerged over the most suitable model for educational leadership. Dominating the literature are two conceptual models: instructional leadership and transformational leadership. This paper will review the conceptual and empirical development of transformational leadership as it evolved through the work of James MacGregor Burns, Bernard M. Bass, Bruce J. Avolio, and Kenneth Leithwood. Moreover, the paper will discuss some of the conflicting opinions and diverging perspectives from many of the critics of transformational leadership. The author argues that transformational leadership will continue to evolve in order to adequately respond to the changing needs of schools in the context of educational accountability and school reform.
Issue Fifty-Three
May 25, 2006
Leadership for School Reform: Do Principal Decision-Making Styles Reflect a Collaborative Approach?
Raymond B. Williams, St. Thomas University
Economic growth in New Brunswick is increasingly dependent on the improvement of our educational system. Current initiatives to reform education and improve student performance are based on transforming the province’s schools into professional learning communities (PLCs). A key factor that will determine this reform’s success is the capacity of principals to adopt a collaborative leadership style. This paper examines a study of principal decision-making and the forces both for and against the adoption of the collaborative leadership style required to implement the current school reform. While the majority of principals studied, exhibit the capacity to lead using a collaborative decision-making style, the bureaucratic system in which they work may be preventing them from doing so.
Issue Fifty-Two
May 2, 2006
Brian Lewthwaite, University of Manitoba
This research inquiry explored the factors influencing successful science program delivery among early- and middle-years schools within a rural school division in central Canada. The study is framed by the author’s personal inquiry into how psycho-social factors at the classroom, school and school division level influence science program delivery. In line with case study methodology, the inquiry uses a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods and data sources to identify the contributors at the classroom, school and divisional level to science delivery. A validated science program delivery evaluation tool, the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire (SCIQ), is used as the foundation for the quantitative data collection and ensuing teacher, administration and science education community discussions. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model and Rutter’s views on resiliency are used as a framework for interpreting the data collected and understanding the factors supporting successful science delivery. Participants identify a variety of personal attribute and environmental factors and the interplay between these factors as supportive factors contributing to effective science delivery at the classroom, school and divisional level. Implications of this inquiry are discussed, especially within the context of the role of the superintendent in influencing curriculum delivery.
Issue Fifty-One
March 31, 2006
Teachers' perceptions of their role in educational marketing: Insights from the case of Edmonton, Alberta
Izhar Oplatka, Ben Gurion University of the Negv
Based on semi-structured interviews with high school teachers in Edmonton, Alberta, the reported study examined teachers' attitudes towards their roles and responsibilities in marketing their school, and the perceived impact of educational markets upon teachers' well-being. The teachers define marketing negatively and narrowly, resist any involvement of teachers in marketing their schools, and feel that working in a market-like environment leads to high levels of stress and uncertainty in their work. Yet many of them provided evidence of their contribution to prospective students' recruitment by promoting their subject matter in the open house. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested.
Issue Fifty
February 10, 2006
Anita Arvast, Georgian College
Adopting a post-structuralist and critical perspective, the author situates The Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002, often referred to as the New College Charter, and its developing Ministerial bodies regarding curricula at the colleges, in discourses of standardization, neoliberalism and globalization. Of concern is the shifting accountability for curricula development and reviews from the state to the local level amidst growing infatuation with market discourses. The author concludes with recommendations for further questioning about the interrelationships of governance and marketplace.
Issue Forty-Nine
January 26, 2006
Analysis of an Abandoned Reform Initiative: The Case of Mathematics in British Columbia
Helen Raptis and Laurie Baxter, University of Victoria
Throughout this era of greater educational accountability, assessment researchers have argued that large-scale comparative assessment data can enhance learning within and across systems of education and can foster reforms based on the practices of high achieving jurisdictions. Other researchers are less optimistic, warning that educational reform is fraught with danger. This paper explores an unsuccessful British Columbia Ministry of Education initiative to reform its mathematics curricula. This case study illustrates the myriad factors which prevent the success of planned reforms.
Issue Forty-Eight
January 5, 2006
An Additional Way of Thinking about Organizational Life and Leadership: The Quantum Perspective
Dr. Joe Fris, University of Alberta, and Dr. Angeliki Lazaridou, Athens School of Pedagogical and Technical Education, Athens, Greece
In this paper our first purpose is to outline a way of thinking about organizations and administration that has recently been gaining ground among theoreticians and practitioners, one that is portrayed frequently as a replacement for the well established newtonian or systems perspective. This way of thinking is the quantum perspective. Our second purpose is to illustrate how the metaphors of this emergent perspective can add to understandings about leadership, in particular when fostering commitment and dealing with conflict. To these ends, we first describe selected differences between the entrenched perspective on organizations and administration – the newtonian perspective – and the new quantum perspective. In this section we give particular attention to the quantum notion of a pervasive energy field that drives change as well as recent discoveries about the ways humans think. Next we contrast the values ascribed to an individual’s public and private selves in newtonian and quantum organizations. Finally we consider how the newtonian and the quantum orientations in leadership are likely to affect the commitment of an organization’s members. And we relate this to findings from research on the management of conflict.
Issue Forty-Seven
December 5, 2005
The Democratic School: First to serve, then to lead
Carolyn Crippen, University of Manitoba
Today there has been a shift in the organizational structure in our schools (Murphy and Seashore Louis, 1999). These include educational leadership shifts in roles, relationships, and responsibilities; the alteration of traditional patterns of relationships; and the fact that authority tends to be less hierarchical. Senge (1990) believes systems that change require a variety of leadership types at different times in organizational development. As schools move toward democratization, it appears that servant-leadership may be one such vehicle for possible systems change, within educational organizations. Servant-leadership is not a panacea. It is a transformational, democratic form of leadership that requires time to implement and to provide abundant opportunities to involve all members of the learning community. The following paper will present the theoretical framework of servant-leadership, a concept identified by Robert K. Greenleaf in his seminal work, The Servant as Leader (1970/1991), and link servant-leadership to current literature on democratic schools. The paper will conclude with suggestions for the sustainable development of servant-leadership in the educational milieu.
Issue Forty-Six
November 19, 2005
School Closures in Ontario: Who has the final say?
E. Fredua-Kwarteng, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
This paper uses Foucaultian theory of governmentality as a conceptual lens to view school closings in Ontario. Governmentality relates to regulations, rules, systems, and procedures that allow governments to exercise control in society. Based on a critical review of select court cases, the paper argues that boards have substantial power to close down schools provided they satisfy the spirit of their own closure policy and ministry regulations. The paper concludes that boards need more legitimization to make closure decisions, given the conflictual nature of such decisions. Legitimization role of community members may be found in a participatory model of policy-making.
Issue Forty-Five
November 3, 2005
A Triumph of Politics over Pedagogy?
The Case of the Ontario Teacher Qualifying Test, 2000-2005Larry A. Glassford, University of Windsor
At a time when most American states have embedded an initial certification test into their teacher preparation programs, Canadian educational authorities are faced with a choice: to test or not. One province, Ontario, has experimented with a standardized entry-to-the-profession testing instrument. For three years, 2002-04, teacher candidates were required to take an externally-administered examination, on top of the normal Bachelor of Education requirements, prior to certification. The results were decidedly mixed: politically viable, but pedagogically questionable. Now, the debate has been re-opened, as a new government seeks a more effective form of entry-level assessment for aspiring teachers.
Issue Forty-Four
August 1, 2005
The Depreciated Status of FSL Instruction in Canada
Scott Kissau
An analysis was conducted of relevant documents published by federal and provincial governments and other French as a Second Language (FSL) stakeholders to examine whether governmental and school board policies are contributing to the general decline in status of FSL instruction in Canada. Federal documents published by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Canadian Heritage, and other branches of the Government of Canada were included in the analysis, as were provincial documents produced by Ministries of Education. Published documents by several FSL stakeholders such as Canadian Parents for French were also included in the analysis, as were conversations held between the researcher and school board officials. The analysis demonstrated that drastic cuts to federal funding of FSL programs, inconsistencies in programming within and amongst provinces, and a general lack of respect for FSL studies at the school board level have all contributed to the message that French is a subject of lesser importance in Canada.
Issue Forty-Three
June 21, 2005
Policy and Practice: Acquired Brain Injury in Canadian Educational Systems
Dawn Zinga, Sheila Bennett, and Dawn Good, Brock University,
and John Kumpf, Ontario Brain Injury AssociationWithin Canada, the needs of students with exceptionalities are addressed through a variety of policies and procedures that allow those students to receive effective and meaningful education. However, in most provinces and territories these policies are serving more as barriers than supports in addressing the needs of students with acquired brain injuries (ABI). Within Canada, only two provinces acknowledge ABI as an exceptionality in any significant way. For the most part, ABI is under-recognized and often poorly responded to in Canada’s educational systems. The issues associated with the problematic delivery of services to students with ABI include: the lack of federal guidelines as to the definition of “exceptionality”, the lack of awareness of ABI as an exceptionality requiring accommodation, the connection between the categorization of exceptionalities and funding, and the lack of training and support for educators. The ramifications of these issues and the changes in educational policy needed to adequately address these issues are discussed with reference to children’s right to education.
Issue Forty-Two
June 9, 2005
The History of Post-Secondary Finance in Alberta - An Analysis
Calvin P. Hauserman and Sheldon L. Stick, University of Nebraska-LincolnPost-secondary systems throughout Canada and the United States have struggled with funding issues during most of the last decade of the 20th Century, and the new millennium did not open with great enthusiasm for change. This article examines the impact of post-secondary education funding changes in Alberta, Canada, by tracing the historical development of funding initiatives. Historically, the province has relied extensively upon federal financial support to maintain programs of higher education, but that support has diminished as the federal government reduced transfer payments for social programs to all provinces. The decrease in federal funding coincided with the Alberta Government’s initiative to reduce the provincial fiscal deficit. Concomitantly, the provincial government sought to impose performance-based funding, and emphasized a business-planning model upon public colleges and universities. The nature of the government actions is analyzed in relation to the concepts of efficiency of teaching, goodness of fit, and value-for-money.
Issue Forty-One
May 24, 2005
Alternative Strategies for Large Scale Student Assessment in Canada: Is Value-Added Assessment One Possible Answer
R. Marc Crundwell, University of Michigan, DearbornRecent focus on student achievement and the effectiveness of schools, school boards, and teachers has lead to increased demands for accountability in education. Large scale assessments are now used in most provinces in Canada to examine the degree to which educational standards are being reached and explore issues of accountability. Alternative models of accountability such as value-added models are gaining popularity in other countries. The current paper explores weaknesses of large-scale annual assessment and investigates the degree to which value-added models may be helpful in looking at educational accountability.
Issue Forty
May 14, 2005
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Rationale for
Implementing Participatory Rights in Schools
Leanne Johnny, McGill UniversityAs a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has pledged to uphold the participatory rights of children and youth. The purpose of this paper is to provide a rationale for implementing these rights in schools. It argues that while there appears to be a strong philosophical, legal and political argument for encouraging youth participation, school policy and practice often excludes children from the decision-making process. It concludes with suggestions for the implementation of participatory rights in schools.
Issue Thirty-Nine
April 30, 2005
Savoir-enseigner et approche constructiviste des apprentissages en formation initiale des maîtres: Les paramètres du développement professionnel dans les productions étudiantes des futurs enseignants Franco-Ontariens
or
Learning to teach: A constructivist approach to the professional development of prospective francophone teachers in OntarioPounthion Diallo, Université Laurentienne
À partir d’une expérience que nous avons menée dans un cours universitaire de planification de l’enseignement aménagé selon le paradigme constructiviste de l’apprentissage, nous montrons, à travers cet article, comment de futurs maîtres assurent à leur niveau un développement autonome du savoir enseigner. L’accent est mis sur la construction des connaissances dans la matière étudiée en prenant appui sur les divers processus d’élaboration de sens et de développement professionnel dans lesquels s’engagent les futurs maîtres. Les résultats montrent que même s’il a pour cadre premier le contexte isolé de la formation universitaire, le cheminement des futurs maîtres se révèle comme un processus complexe de participation où se joue l’entrée de l’étudiant dans les méandres des pratiques de toute une communauté. Le constructivisme est le cadre de référence à partir duquel sont analysés les apprentissages effectués par les futurs enseignants à l’intérieur du cours. L’expérience étudiée a été menée auprès de la cohorte 2003-2004 des étudiants de l’École des sciences de l’éducation à l’Université Laurentienne.Based on an experiment we conducted in a university course about instructional planning that was guided by a constructivist perspective, we show in this article how future teachers consolidate their own personal knowledge of teaching. Emphasis is put on the construction of knowledge about the discipline being studied, while getting a sense of the diverse processes of making meaning and of professional development in which future teachers are engaged. Results show that even in the isolated context of university education, the developmental pathway of future teachers can be seen as a complex process of participation, where students begin to engage in the practices of the community. Constructivism is the frame of reference from which effective learning about teaching is analyzed by future teachers during the course. The study was based on a cohort of education students at Laurentienne University during 2003-2004.
Issue Thirty-Eight
April 12, 2005
Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of the Nature and Impact of Large-Scale ReformsThomas G. Ryan and Peter Joong, Nipissing University
The goal of this study was to examine how and to what extent Ontario secondary teachers have implemented educational reforms that had a direct impact on students, teachers, and the curriculum. The survey concluded that secondary school teachers at randomly selected Ontario secondary schools were overworked, lacked in-service professional development, resources, and support. This situation impacted curriculum planning, teaching, student evaluation, reporting, technology, and the delivery of special education programs. Yet, teachers were able to make changes that supported the reforms even though changes required more time, effort, and new knowledge in the areas of assessment and the integration of technology.
Issue Thirty-Seven
March 12, 2005
What Parents Know and Believe About Large-Scale Assessments
Ming Mu and Ruth Childs, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of TorontoMost provinces and states that require students to take large-scale assessments provide information about the tests for parents; however, parents vary in their uses of this information. In this study, parents in an urban Ontario elementary school were surveyed about where they obtained information about the Ontario assessments, what they knew about the assessments, and what they believed about the assessments. Most of the parents were knowledgeable about the assessments and held positive opinions. In general, the more sources of information they used, the more knowledgeable they were, and the more knowledgeable they were, the more positive were their opinions about the assessments.
Issue Thirty-Six
March 4, 2005
Kelvin Seifert, Editor, and Karen Poetker, Assistant Editor
CJEAP has come a long way since it began in 1995: readership now numbers close to 10,000 per month, submissions are numerous, and reviewers' standards have become more selective. But issues remain about where CJEAP should move in the future. In this article, the editors consider these past trends and lingering questions about the future.
Issue Thirty-Five
September 25, 2004
Teaching To the Test: What Every Educator and Policy-Maker Should Know
Louis Volante, Concordia University
Teachers typically receive the brunt of the criticism for poor performance on large-scale standardized tests. In order to stave off this criticism, some teachers have begun to provide instruction that utilizes actual or cloned items from these high-stakes tests. Such teaching to the test rarely helps learning and has a detrimental effect on the teaching profession as a whole. The present paper addresses the dangers of directly teaching to a standardized test and the implications of this practice for students, educators and policy makers. It also discusses measures designed to promote constructive test preparation activities. It argues that educators and policy makers both have important roles in ending this practice.
Issue Thirty-Four
September 20, 2004
Athletic Gender Equity Policy in Canadian Universities: Issues and Possibilities
Dean M. Beaubier, University of Nebraska
Establishing gender equity in Canadian inter-university athletics has been a challenging endeavor for policymakers. The problem of crafting and implementing an effective policy has taken considerable time and continues to be a difficult task for administrators. However, success in this undertaking is important to higher education because such policy provides an environment of opportunity and fairness for participants. Furthermore, its establishment in post-secondary athletics demonstrates a natural promotion of tenets central to tertiary institutions. This paper investigates whether U.S. Title IX athletic gender equity policy could be adapted for use in Canadian higher education. This focus is relevant to Canadian inter-university athletics because American Title IX legislation has been in place for over thirty years and has withstood challenges in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government. A discussion of how U.S. policy directives might be implemented in the Canadian environment and whether an adaptation may be in the contexts of a partial exercise rather than a wholesale application is put forth.
Issue Thirty-Three
September 1, 2004
Schooling in Babylon, Babylon in School: When Racial Profiling and Zero Tolerance Converge
R. Patrick Solomon and Howard Palmer, York University
This study is about systemic containment of Black youth by authority structures within schools and law enforcement agents in racialized communities. Through the retrospective narratives of incarcerated Black students in a secure custody institution, vivid insights are provided into the construction of fear of Black youth and of the ways that arbitrary power and authority operate within the contested terrain of schools. Safe-schools policies of "zero tolerance" and the ongoing practice of "racial profiling" appear to converge in moving Black students through the "school-prison pipeline."
Issue Thirty-Two
July 1, 2004
Special Issue: Initial Teacher Education in Canada and the United Kingdom
Guest Editors:
Jon Young, University of Manitoba, and Christine Hall, University of NottinghamThis special issue consists of nine chapter-length articles discussing teacher education in Canada and the United Kingdom. In Part 1, the authors focus on large, fundamental issues of teacher education, especially as seen in the emerging post-modern international context. In Parts 2 and 3, they discuss how these issues manifest themselves in emerging, innovative practices in the two societies.
Contents in Brief:
Part 1: How is teachers' work changing?
1. Theorising Changes in Teachers' Work
--Christine Hall, University of Nottingham
2. New Technologies and Teachers' Work
--Tony Fisher, University of Nottingham
3. Teachers' Ethical Responsibilities in a Diverse Society
--Nathalie Piquemal, University of ManitobaPart 2: How is teacher education changing?
4. Systems of Educating Teachers
--Jon Young, University of Manitoba
5. The Impact of Quality Assurance on Mentor Training in Initial Teacher Education Partnerships
--Bernadette Youens and Mary Bailey, University of Nottingham
6. Redefining Classroom Boundaries: Learning To Teach Using New Technologies
--Do Coyle, University of Nottingham
7. Learning To Teach Collaboratively
--Peter Sorensen, University of NottinghamPart 3: Developing teacher identity
8. Melissa's Story: Bridging the Theory/Practice Gap
--Wayne Serebrin, University of Manitoba
9. Learning To Feel Like a Teacher
--Kelvin Seifert, University of Manitoba
Issue Thirty-One
June 18, 2004
Bonnie Stelmach, University of Alberta
School improvement literature emphasizes collaboration of teachers, parents, and community members. Schools are challenged to create mutually beneficial partnerships that result in improved student performance. One source of challenge is schools’ organizational structures and processes do not contribute to full and meaningful involvement of non-professionals. Using the lens of institutional theory, this paper reports a study that examined the organizational resistance to including parents and others in one rural Alberta school district. The district implemented Joyce Epstein’s school-home-community partnership model in its Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) project. The study used the District AISI Coordinator’s field notes, as well as interviews with three parents who directly participated in AISI.
Issue Thirty
May 12, 2004
Recruitment and Selection: Meeting the Leadership Shortage in One Large Canadian School District
Anthony Normore, Florida International University
This article investigates the recruitment and selection strategies of one large Canadian school district in Ontario, called here the "Northwestern School District." Data collection included interviews, document analyses and observations, and were gathered in 2001. Findings indicated that designated structured teams, financial and emotional support from district office, and support for developing professional growth portfolios were key to attracting candidates. Other findings indicated a need to revisit district policies such as the practice of rotating school principals every three to five years, and the policy favoring internal promotion over promotion from outside the district.
Issue Twenty-Nine
March 5, 2004
An Intersectoral Response to Children with Complex Health Care Needs
Wendy Young, University of Toronto, Jasmin Earle, Saint Elizabeth Health Care, Toronto,
Mark Dadebo, York UniversityThe purpose of this paper is to stimulate debate on how to define and enact public responsibility to children with complex health care needs and their families. We present a program, developed using the Auditor General’s framework for accountability that involves Community Care Access Centres, schools and Saint Elizabeth Health Care, a complex care nursing provider. The case study illustrates how public responsibility was successfully enacted at a local level within existing policies for children with complex health care needs. There is no urgent need for policy to ‘catch up' with reality. Rather there is a need for the cross-sectoral development of programs that support policies.
Issue Twenty-Eight
February 15, 2004
Helen Raptis and Thomas Fleming, University of Victoria
During the first half of the twentieth century in British Columbia, French language was considered a school subject to be taught as any other using formal classical approaches. Generally, no specific provincial or local policies existed to guide how French was taught and learned. By 1981, however, British Columbia had developed explicit language policies for implementing various programs, such as “core French,” “French immersion,” and “programme-cadre.” It did so despite the fact that fewer than two per cent of British Columbians spoke French as their mother tongue, and only about one-half of one per cent used French to communicate at home. The discussion in this article reconstructs the historical context and events that led British Columbia to embrace French language as a subject of study as well as French as a vehicle for learning and instruction. Why, from the end of World War II to the 1980s, did the province embrace core French, cadre and immersion programmes?
Issue Twenty-Seven
July 25, 2003
Rosemary Foster, University of Alberta, and Tim Goddard, University of Calgary
This article reports findings from the completed third stage of an investigation of educational leadership, policy, and organization in select schools in Canada’s north. North as used here refers to the area coterminous with the boreal forest region south of the arctic (Bone, 1992). The research questions guiding this investigation were (i) what are school members’ (e.g., educators, parents, students, community members working with and in the school) perceptions and expectations of educational leadership in northern schools? and (ii) how are leadership and culture in these schools intertwined? In order to address the research questions, a qualitative case study methodology was adopted. The two case studies included in this article report on schools located in northern British Columbia. In the following, we present interpretations and a discussion of three themes as they relate to school members’ perceptions and understandings of the (i) purposes of curriculum and schooling, (ii) role of the principal, and (iii) relationship of the schools to their communities. In concluding, we draw on key findings as we urge researchers and educators to consider students’ perceptions and expectations of schooling in the future development of curricula and pedagogical approaches that will benefit all learners, including students of Aboriginal ancestry. Finally, we argue that practitioners, policy makers, and researchers need to examine the potential of models of leadership and community-based education informed by indigenous values, in addressing issues of equity and power in Canada’s northern schools.
Issue Twenty-Six
April 15, 2003
Educational Psychology as a Policy Science: A Conversation
Editor’s note: Under the guest editorship of Nancy Knapp, this issue of CJEAP experiments with a new format for exploring issues related to educational policy. The issue has several parts: 1) an introduction to the issue by Dr. Knapp, 2) an exploration policy implications of educational psychology by David Berliner, former president of the American Educational Research Association, and 3) responses by four prominent educators and educational psychologists (Jere Brophy, Jeanne Ormrod, Virginia Richardson, and Asa Hilliard). In the near future, in addition, CJEAP will publish a brief rejoinder to the responses by David Berliner.
Introduction to This Special Issue
Nancy Knapp, Guest Editor, University of Georgia
Educational Psychology as a Policy Science
David Berliner, Arizona State University
Educational psychologists should not ignore what they can contribute to the formulation of public policies about educational issues, even though they may have been trained to approach their work in "scientific" and value-free ways. Since policy-makers and leaders of society normally make decisions on the basis of particular social values, educational psychologists should engage with those values when describing research findings to the public. For example, educational psychology research has important information and conclusions to share with the public about high-stakes testing and about the training and certification of teachers. Educational psychologists have a professional obligation to share that information in ways that shows a commitment to serve society, that shows a simultaneous commitment to scholarly knowledge and practical action, and that shows a willingness to work with the uncertainty of the field of education. We are able to do this effectively because educational psychology itself is a scholarly discipline in the fullest sense: it has findings, concepts, principles, technologies, and theories about instruction.
Jere Brophy, Michigan State University
Addressing an Identity Crisis of a Different Sort: A Response to Berliner’s Call To ActionJeanne Ormrod, University of Northern Colorado (Emerita) & University of New Hamphire
Asa Hilliard III—Baffour Amankwatia II, Georgia State University
Virginia Richardson, University of Michigan
David Berliner, Arizona State University
Educational Psychology as a Policy Science: The Beginning of a Conversation...
Nancy Knapp, University of Georgia
Issue Twenty-Five
April 3, 2003
Home Schooling: Learning from Dissent
Catherine Luke, University of Victoria
This paper is a discussion of home schooling as an alternative to the public school system, an alternative at the furthest end of the spectrum of dissent. The discussion places home schooling on the menu of choice that has come to define many aspects of Canada’s publicly-funded service systems, looks at the ideological foundations of home schooling, and explores what its critique of the public school system may have to offer current school reform agendas.
Issue Twenty-Four
February 28, 2003
Moving From Denominational to Linguistic Education in Quebec
David Young, Eastern Shores School Board, and Lawrence Bezeau, University of New BrunswickIn April of 1997, the governments of Quebec and Canada, through a constitutional amendment, eliminated all denominational rights and privileges respecting education in the province of Quebec. Consequently, Quebec abolished denominational school boards, replacing them with English-language and French-language boards. This paper examines the nature of this transition with an emphasis on what is now the Eastern Shores School Board, an English-language board serving the Gaspe peninsula, the Magdalen Islands, and the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River.
Issue Twenty-Three
November 15, 2002
Why Teachers Participate in Decision-making and
The Third ContinuumKirk Anderson, University of Saskatchewan
Shared decision-making has been related to many reasons as to whether, when, or not to include teachers in the process. For the most part, the use of shared decision-making attempted to better implement decisions and sometimes is seen as a means to enhance teacher leadership. This article discusses the literature from a historical perspective presenting a review of factors affecting teacher participation in decision-making. While the history of shared decision-making can be seen as having two continuums (Taylor and Tashakkori, 1997) a third continuum of decision-making is put forward in the following pages, notably that of actual successful influence on decisions which relates to teacher leadership in schools.
Issue Twenty-Two
September 10, 2002
Policies Affecting ESL Instruction In Manitoba
Sandra G. Kouritzin and Patrick G. Mathews, University of Manitoba
This archival research review aims to examine what policies, federal, provincial, and local, have, or could potentially have, an impact on ESL teaching and learning in the province of Manitoba. A politically-motivated close reading of the language in the policies, and of the nature and intent of the practices they describe, reveals the institutional attitudes toward immigrants, English as a second language (ESL) students, and the nature of public education in Canada. The article demonstrates that there are numerous and considerable political barriers to the full inclusion of ESL learners in the educational system, and concludes that many federal, provincial and local policies support discriminatory practices.
Issue Twenty-One
June 28, 2002
School District Deficits and Program Spending in Alberta
Dean Neu, Alison Taylor, and Elizabeth Ocampo, University of Alberta
Starting from the financial information for the population of Alberta School Districts for the 1997 to 2000 fiscal years, this study examines the association between school district deficits and sub-program spending in the areas of severely disabled education, ESL education and technology integration. Our analysis highlights how the financial performance of individual school districts is closely associated with the specific program spending choices made by different school districts-choices that arguably influence the quality of education available to students in different programs in different districts.
June 15, 2002
John V. Brandon, University of Manitoba
The thesis of this paper is that biography does offer something valuable to educational administration that it currently lacks, and that biography ought to be reconsidered as a legitimate instrument for the study of educational leadership. Traditional research methodologies (questionnaire surveys, for example) normally associated with positivist approaches to the study of educational leadership remain theorists' predominant mode of inquiry. Such methods, however, do not pay sufficient attention to the role played by institutional contexts in the social construction of leaders and leadership systems. The difference between biography and social science also relates to the level of generality ? a sort of micro/macro distinction. Educational leadership theorists, by training and inclination, look to the general, while biography deals with the particular. Biography can be moved beyond narration and storytelling to the construction of case studies to test or evaluate theories. And it can be argued that to understand a system, we need to look at leadership both close up and from a long view. Previous approaches to the study of educational leadership decontextualized not only the decisions but also the process involved in developing them. Biography can restore the wholeness of the entire act of leadership.
Issue Twenty
October 15, 2001
Encountering Resistance to Gender Equity Policy in Educational OrganizationsJanice Wallace, University of Western Ontario
I became interested in researching the phenomenon of resistance to employment policy that attempted to increase gender equity in educational organizations because it came up over and over ... at social gatherings, a cash register in a store while I was Christmas shopping, in my graduate courses, and in my work at the Faculty of Education at The University of Western Ontario with both colleagues and students. I found that students in the Social Foundations course that I teach could generally see the fairness of gender equity in the classroom ? at least in terms of calling on girls more often, assessing their work fairly, ensuring that they developed an interest in highly valued courses such as Math and Science, meeting the learning needs of boys in language and so on. However, when we talked about gender equity employment policy, the men were often openly hostile and the women resistant to what they perceived as "needless" efforts on their behalf. I found that rational argumentation and statistical evidence, which strongly demonstrated sex-based discrimination in educational organizations, while compelling in some ways, was simply not enough to persuade students or colleagues that there was a need for policy to rework the gendered distribution of labour in educational organizations.
Issue Nineteen
February 24, 2001
Building Capacity For A Learning CommunityCoral Mitchell, Brock University, and Larry Sackney, University of Saskatchewan
Since the early days of the 20th century, schools and educators have been subjected to numerous calls for improvement of their performance. A curious aspect of this phenomenon is that school-based educators (teachers and school administrators alike) have usually been positioned as objects to be manipulated and controlled rather than as professional creators of a learning culture. In recent years, however, this position has lost considerable credibility because school-based educators are exactly the people who deal directly with the learning of children. From that standpoint, scholars and change agents have begun to advance the notion of the learning community as a preferred strategy for school improvement.The metaphor of the learning community assumes, first, that schools are expected to facilitate the learning of all individuals, and, second, that educators are ideally positioned to address fundamental issues and concerns in relation to learning. Within this metaphor, school people are central to questions of educational practice, change, and improvement; they are the ones charged with the tasks of identifying and confronting the problems and mysteries of professional practices. But simply charging them with this responsibility will not necessarily bring about the types of profound improvement that are envisioned within a learning community. Instead, capacity for a learning community needs deliberately and explicitly to be built among educators and within schools and school systems.
In this paper, we present a model that frames our understandings about the ways in which people can construct a learning community. The model consists of three pivotal capacities that we believe need to be built if a school is to function as a learning community: personal capacity, interpersonal capacity, and organizational capacity. In a recently published book (Mitchell & Sackney, 2000), we provided a fuller development of the model and we embedded it in data from several studies and projects that we have undertaken over the past decade. In this paper, we present a summarized version of the model and of our foundational assumptions.
Issue Eighteen
December 30, 2000
The Flight of the Middle Class from Public Schools: A Canadian MirageTim Goddard, University of Calgary
In this article I challenge the widely held perception that an increasing number of middle class Canadian parents are forsaking the public school system and enrolling their children in private schools. After first providing an overview of the governance of Canadian education, I describe five versions of private education. Following a review of current student enrolment outside the public system, I discuss alternative strategies to privatization. Although examples from across the country are cited, the governance of education in Canada is a provincial rather than national affair. The majority of the examples used are drawn from Alberta.
Issue Seventeen
November 30, 2000
Stephen Jull, Mount Saint Vincent University
In response to growing public concern and the reported increase in child/youth aggression and violence, the efficacy of school disciplinary practices and school discipline polices are being reevaluated in schools throughout Canada. In many instances, provincial departments of education, school boards, and schools are basing the reconstruction of their school discipline policies on the principles of Zero Tolerance. There is some concern that a Zero Tolerance approach to managing student behaviour will reinforce the marginalization of underrepresented individuals and groups through a set of disciplinary practices favouring the social behaviours of persons representative of the Anglo-European Canadian community. A major challenge for school policy makers, therefore, is the construction of school social/behaviour management policies that are effective, inclusive, and sensitive to the specific yet ever-changing needs of students and their respective socio-political communities.
Issue Sixteen
October 30, 2000
Implementation of the Alberta Accountability Framework
John Burger, Government of Alberta, Merla Bolender, Government of Alberta, Valerie Keates, Government of Alberta, and David Townsend, University of Lethbridge
In 1994 the government of Alberta introduced legislation that mandated a comprehensive accountability framework for basic education. The action research project reported here is based on participant observation of the implementation of the accountability framework during the 1997-98 school year from the perspectives of a school principal, a central office administrator and a ministry of education official. The research is based on a literature review, daily journal writing, and documents analysis. The paper is supplemented by an independent critique. Observations and conclusions are organized around the perspectives of the researchersÅ respective roles. The overall conclusion is that the Alberta accountability model is in an evolutionary period of development with substantial adjustments needed to ensure successful implementation.
Issue Fifteen
April 13, 2000
Successful School Improvement in the United Kingdom and CanadaAlma Harris, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
The process of school improvement remains something of a 'black box'. While there are ample descriptions of different approaches to school improvement, there are fewer studies of a comparative nature. This article provides a comparison of two well-established school improvement programmes in England and Canada. The Improving the Quality of Education For All Project in England and the Manitoba School Improvement Programme in Canada have both demonstrated considerable success in their work with schools. This article analyses their different approaches to school improvement and concludes that their common strength lies in their ability to encourage teacher collaboration and to foster professional learning communities.
Issue Fourteen
April 12, 2000
Framing Reform for the New Millennium: Leadership Capacity in Schools and Districts
Linda Lambert, California State University at HaywardThe following is a script of the keynote address that Dr. Linda Lambert of California State University at Hayward, presented to the delegates attending the 1999 Western Canada Educational Administrators' conference in Edmonton in October. Dr. Lambert is the author of the book "Building Leadership Capacity in Schools." As well, she is first author of the books "Constructivist Leadership" and "Teachers as Constructivist Leaders."
Issue Thirteen
December 6, 1999
Gustav E. Karlsen, School of Teacher Education, Trondheim, Norway
This article focuses on decentralization as a governance strategy in education. The author, Gustav Karlsen, first presents theoretical aspects of the phenomenon of decentralization and contextualizes them within the education research literature. He then analyzes the dynamics of decentralization that normally take place when governing strategies designed to decentralize authority and power are implemented. In particular, he emphasizes four aspects of that dynamic interactive process. In support of his argument, he provides evidence gathered from Norway and, to some extent, from the province of British Columbia, Canada. The dynamic interaction in the decentralization process, Karlsen contends, is implicit in the title of the article, "decentralized centralism."
Issue Twelve
January 19, 1999
The Origins of Educational Reform: A Comparative Perspective
Benjamin Levinand Jonathan Young, University of Manitoba
This paper examines the origins of reform programs in four countries. The authors interest is in the origins of and justifications for educational reforms, in particular, the role of ideology in the initiation and direction of some of the educational reforms examined in this study. The paper is a four year study that examined education in four countries, namely, Canada, the United States, England and New Zealand. The authors focused on these four aspects of reform in the countries: 1) Origins, 2) Approval, 3) Implementation, and 4) Effects.
Issue Eleven
November 28, 1997
Provincial Initiatives to Restructure Canadian School Governance in the 1990s
Thomas G. Fleming, University of Victoria
This paper examines the character of developments in the restructuring movement now underway in Canada. It is divided into three parts. The first part reviews the broad historical context in education and government which has given rise to the resturcturing movement. Part two examines the main forms, features, and traits of restructuring initiatives as they are now presenting themselves in provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And part three explores several of the central ideas underlying provincial restructuring efforts, the agendas and implications of restructuring largely unstated in official documents, or what might otherwise be described as restructuring's "sub-text."
Issue Ten
January 14, 1997
School Boards, District Consolidation, and Educational Governance in British Columbia, 1872 - 1995
Thomas G. Fleming and B. Hutton, University of Victoria
It was not surprising to see that Education Minister Art Charbonneau's November 17, 1995, plan to "reduce significantly the number of school boards" in British Columbia was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism both within and outside the educational community.1 Criticisms of the NDP Government's proposal to restructure educational governance in the Province by reducing the number of school boards from 75 to 37 were immediate and largely predictable in nature.
Issue Nine
December 15, 1996
Globalization, Professionalization, and Educational Politics in British Columbia
Charles S. Ungerleider, University of British Columbia
Despite the fact that they are public employees in a bureaucratic institution, teachers in British Columbia, Canada, have achieved a measure of professional autonomy and influence unparalleled in other North American jurisdictions. This achievement is in part a consequence of conflict between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and successive provincial Social Credit governments, groups representing divergent views about education, the part education plays in the lives of citizens, about the relationship between citizens and the state, and about globalization.
Issue Eight
November 20, 1996
Changing Employment Practices? Teachers and Principals Discuss Some "Part-Time" Arrangements for Alberta Teachers
Beth Young and Kathy Grieve, University of Alberta
There are many theoretical arguments that support diverse staffing arrangements in school organizations, but surprisingly little evidence of progress in achieving equitable rather than exploitative forms of such diversity. In a trend that echoes changes in the structure of the wider labor market, an increasing proportion of Alberta teachers is employed part time. In 1995-96, 14.9% or 3500 of Alberta's 23,600 teachers were part-timers, nearly a 40% increase over five years (Alberta Education, 1996).The overall restructuring of employment has been widely discussed from many different perspectives, but no systematic scholarly attention has been directed toward this phenomenon as it pertains to Canadian public school teachers. What are the day-to-day realities of living out "non-standard" teaching arrangements, and what politics and ideologies engender those realities?
Our exploratory research compares the enactment of three types of part-time work employment policies for teachers in one Alberta school district. About 30 teachers and administrators participated in interviews and told us their views about the professional, personal, educational, and organizational implications of these different part-time work policies and arrangements. We report an overview of our findings in this article by organizing the participants' perspectives according to three general themes -- Motivations, Negotiations, and Implications -- with an emphasis on implications related to "postmodern" employment in schools.
Issue Seven
April 29, 1996
From the Mail Room to the Vice-Presidency: The Socialization of Alberta School Trustees
Dale Erickson, Alberta School Boards Association, and Robert Stout,
Arizona State University
A study in the Province of Alberta similar to work done in Arizona, U.S.A. (Stout, 1982), indicates that many of the same dynamics are at play during the time that citizens become seasoned school trustees.
Issue Six
March 25, 1996
Preparing Teachers for Urban Schools: A View From the Field
Ethne Erskine-Cullen and Anne Marie Sinclair,
Faculty of Education, University of Toronto
Schools in large urban centres are places where teachers are faced with a plethora of challenges that range from poverty, violence, cultural diversity and a multitude of languages. Preparing teachers to teach in these environments is a problem which many faculties of education are beginning to examine more closely. The purpose of this study was to discover what practising teachers in urban schools saw as the major differences between urban and other schools, day-to-day life in these schools, and what recommendations they had for teacher preparation programs. The findings provide interesting perceptions and recommendations from teachers about the characteristics of an urban school, challenges they present, characteristics of a successful urban teacher, as well as recommendations for teacher preparation programs. The authors suggest that the distinction between urban and suburban schools is geographic only, and that possibly, describing schools based on a continuum of challenging needs would be more accurate and beneficial to educators.
Issue Five
January 11, 1996
Variations in Value Orientations in the Implementation of Multi-Grades: Implications for Moral Leadership
Pauline Leonard, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
In an effort to understand the administrator's role in implementing change and the influence of values on the change process, a study of the implementation of multi-grades in a traditionally single-graded school in rural Newfoundland was undertaken. Ashbaugh and Kasten's (1984) typology of operant values in educational administration was used to analyse the data. The findings provide insight into the value orientations of the various stakeholders involved in the multi-grade change. This study underscores the role of the administrator for understanding variations in value orientations as a prerequisite for the development of shared values in the successful implementation of educational change.|
Issue Four
November 24, 1995
Negotiating New Models of Curriculum in Changing Times:
Year 1John P. Miller, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
and Susan M. Drake, Brock UniversityThis paper explores the findings from the first year of a three-year study involving four school boards. The study focuses on how these boards are dealing with the changes mandated in curriculum policy documents developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training.
Issue Three
August 2, 1995
On Framing the Problem of Violence in Schools: A Response
Juanita Epp, Lakehead University
This article responds to the issues about violence raised by Hanne Mawhinney in Issue Two.
Issue Two
August 2, 1995
Hanne B. Mawhinney, University of Ottawa
This article examines the construction of youth violence as a problem requiring legal and regulatory responses by different levels of government. The author takes direction for this effort from critics who argue that there is a need to examine the assumptions guiding the way in which the problem of school violence is framed at both macro (provincial government), and micro (school board) political levels (Matthew, 1992).
Issue One
May, 1995
Benjamin Levin, University of Manitoba
The context of secondary schooling has changed significantly in recent years, leading to a need for change in secondary education. There are few signs that the necessary changes at the required scale are occurring. The paper suggests some priorities for change, and outlines some actions that would help bring these about.