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This paper reports on curriculum analysis of climate change expectations in Canada's provincial curricula. The research is focused on curriculum policy in Canadian provinces; however, it pertains to an international audience as Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate mitigation, adaptation and finance, calls for signatories to "enhance climate change education," and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have called for environmental education to be a core curriculum component by 2025, which will require all countries to evaluate and improve their curricula globally. Curriculum policy within Canada has not yet been aligned with these policy calls, and our analysis showed fractured and uneven inclusion of climate change. Data findings present explicit climate change education curriculum expectations for each province according to grade, subject, and mandatory versus elective courses. The review shows uneven inclusion of climate change topics, themes, and units within grade 7-12 curricula, with most expectations occurring in elective senior secondary courses. A second level of analysis with a ranking tool indicates shallow inclusion. The paper concludes with recommendations for addressing gaps.

A clear, well defined policy can help empower school personnel to make informed decisions on how to handle cases of suspected child abuse. This article presents an analysis of (N = 64) school board child abuse reporting policies and procedures in Ontario and explored what training, resources, and support school boards state they will provide to help teachers recognize and report cases where a child may be in need of protection. The results showed that, while most boards had documentation, the amount of information provided by each school board varied greatly, with documents ranging from 1 page to 155 pages long. An analysis of the documents revealed a lack of clear expectations around training and support to assist teachers in reporting child abuse. Policy recommendations are proposed based on the results of the online search.

Examining legislative change between 1997 and 2013, and analyzing the governance of Manitoba's post-secondary system using military concepts of strategy, operations, and tactics, this article argues that there has been a trend since 2006 of a general loss of university autonomy in the province. The article finds that changes in public policy in Manitoba's post-secondary system, and how that policy is implemented, have led to a progressive movement towards greater government intrusion in what heretofore have been internal matters at the province's universities.

Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again consolidated school districts. In this paper I examine the 1997 and 2004 reforms and argue that the "rationalization" agenda set by government was aggressive--driven primarily by fiscal and corporate factors. While the reforms accomplished their corporate goals, they also resulted in educational and organizational costs which should be weighed against potential benefits. (Contains 2 tables and 4 footnotes.)

Since the early 1990s, 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. (Contains 6 footnotes.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed the practice of school leadership, requiring greater flexibility, creativity, and innovation. Guided by institutional theory, this paper suggests that leadership adaptations are influenced by environmental pressures such as coercive (e.g., from governmental or regulatory agencies), mimetic (e.g., attempts to emulate best practices from other schools), and normative pressures (e.g., professional standards endorsed by professional societies or unions). By using a qualitative co-constructed autoethnographic approach (See Kempster & Iszatt-White, 2012), the paper presents the Covid-19 timeline in Manitoba, identifying stakeholders and associated environmental pressures. It also features the personal leadership adaptations experienced by a school principal (Susan). The findings suggest that coercive pressures are mostly associated with creativity and inventive leadership practices. Mimetic pressures may lead to copying behaviours, and normative pressures are associated with enhanced foundational knowledges, all depending on contextual factors. The findings also highlight the significant emotional and physical toll the pandemic has taken on school principals.

In late 2020 the Government of Alberta's Ministry of Advanced Education sent a guidance document to Alberta post-secondary institutions to lay out how work-integrated learning was to be conducted. This document also informed the institutions that work-integrated learning should be included in all future program proposals. The guidelines were sent without the context or purpose stated. This paper applies Carol Bacchi's "What's the Problem Represented to be" post-structural policy discourse analysis to the Ministry of Advanced Education guidelines. There is a broad consensus in work-integrated learning research that work-integrated learning is beneficial for participants beyond employment outcomes. However, this analysis shows the Ministry of Advanced Education's representation of the problem displays an assumption that the purpose of work-integrated learning is to improve labour market outcomes. The analysis also spotlights that the likely effects of the policy have more to do with making work-integrated learning programs easier to assess than to improve student education. This paper proposes an alternative framework that would integrate the constructivist and humanistic origin of work-integrated learning and allow institutions to develop appropriate experiential learning components for their programs while still standardizing work-integrated learning components across and within institutions. This proposed framework can improve work-integrated learning programs in Canada by widening the focus beyond human capital theory.

This paper is concerned with long term strategic planning in higher education and focuses on Ontario's strategic mandate agreement (SMA) sector planning framework. In 2012, the province initiated its new SMA planning process by requiring all higher education institutions to propose their own strategies for their academic visions, missions, and objectives. The proposals submitted by Ontario's universities furnish the empirical content of this paper: a historically unique, comprehensive and comparable set of documents capturing institutions' self-understanding and plans for their respective futures. Using concepts from organizational theory, content analysis of universities' SMA proposals reveals divergent strategies, both in terms of institutional administrative responsiveness to the SMA process as well as the academic (i.e., education and scholarship) content of the submissions. In addition, two further sub-themes are analysed: proposals for experiential learning and so-called town-gown connections. Both themes also reveal very different visions amongst institutions. In general, the proposals appear to be independent of institution type and community size/location. Setting the stage for future research, the paper concludes with policy discussion of: (1) the possibilities for institutional diversity in the context of policy discourses on institutional differentiation; and (2) implications for system planning given the structure and process of Ontario's ongoing SMA framework.

This paper presents an update of a 2010-literature review on class size research completed as background in preparation of an affidavit on class size provided by the lead author in the case of "British Columbia Teachers' Federation v. British Columbia," argued before the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2010, appealed ultimately to the Supreme Court of Canada and ruled on November 10, 2016. We find that smaller classes can improve teacher-student interactions and individualized instruction, decreasing time spent on discipline issues, leading to better student behaviour, attitude, and efforts. Smaller classes generally have greater advantages for younger students, and effects are more observable in class sizes of less than 20. Small classes may shrink achievement gaps, decrease dropout rates, and increase high school graduation rates, and appear to enhance academic outcomes, particularly for marginalized groups. Researchers have detected class size effects many years later. Small classes have been found to boost teachers' morale and job satisfaction. While some studies have found effects at the secondary and post-secondary level, results are generally inconclusive at this level. Finally, some researchers have argued that class size reductions are an inefficient use of funds which might be better spent elsewhere in the system. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the process of providing this research for Supreme Court case.

This paper presents case studies of teacher union-government relationships in three Canadian provinces -- British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta -- where teacher organizations have undertaken divergent strategic positions relative to educational reform. It identifies critical factors that may lead teacher unions to challenge government reforms, how and when a teacher organization might instead accommodate governmental reform, and under what circumstances union renewal drives an organization to establish reform strategies of its own. The paper demonstrates the results of these varied strategies and suggests that teacher unions' stances, including when they are resistant, are rational and, arguably, necessary.

Teacher federations are often criticized as "roadblocks" to educational change. It is arguable, however, that their advocacy work has been paramount in securing safer return to school conditions across Canadian Educational jurisdictions. Utilizing Carter et al. (2010) framework of union responses to changing policy environments, this paper draws on publicly available documents and social media posts from March through to October of 2020 to examine the ways in which teacher unions in various Canadian contexts have responded to the issue of school reopening plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the paper analyzes the extent to which Canadian teacher unions have been able to move into the realm of union renewal as a means of building internal capacity and developing external networks to strengthen their public advocacy work.

Despite the potential instructional benefits of integrating devices such as cell phones into schools and classrooms, research reveals that their improper use can negatively impact student behaviour, learning, and well-being. This paper reviews the literature and litigation on cell phone use in schools due to controversies over cheating, cyberbullying, sexting, and searches of student cell phones. Recent studies suggested that the presence of cell phones and related technologies in classrooms could detract from students' academic performances while contributing to higher rates of academic dishonesty and cyberbullying. The growing prevalence of cyberbullying is especially concerning because it can have severely negative, even tragic, effects on student mental health and safety. However, given the relatively discreet nature of cell phone use, regulations about their use can be difficult to enforce. After reviewing literature and litigation on the potential risks associated with inappropriate cell phone use in schools, this paper offers suggestions for educators to consider when devising or revising policies balancing students' individual rights with their safety and well-being before ending with a brief conclusion.

Through the lens of critical policy analysis, this paper examines the context of K-12 international education in two Canadian provinces. Both Ontario and Manitoba have seen the fastest growth in Canada when it comes to international students, yet those provinces represent distinctly different contexts. In this paper, we examine how international education has been approached as policy at the K-12 level in both provinces. Empirical data was collected through document analysis and stakeholder interviews. By using Ball's (1994) framework of three policy contexts-- (a) the context of influence, (b) the context of policy text production, and (c) the context of practice--this paper reveals that policy is not simply a government directive but rather a complex and contradictory process involving practitioners from schools, school boards, and non-government organizations involving educational administrators. Therefore, to effect change, policy needs to be understood through the perspective of multiple stakeholders. The paper cautions all stakeholders to be more critical of international education as policy, given that in its present form it privileges values that undermine the very foundations of a free equity based publicly funded K-12 educational system in Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented disruption to education and schooling at the end of the 2019-20 school year. Operating in a context of great uncertainty, education leaders were tasked with making key decisions with potentially far-reaching impacts on the educational and mental and physical health of students and families. Drawing on 9 cross-sectoral focus groups with school board administrators, representatives from education industry partners, and K-12 educational policy research organizations, this paper provides a historical record of the evolution of decision-making and points to promising lines of inquiry and lessons that can be learned from this moment in education.

Labour strife in the education sector in Ontario has repeatedly highlighted the precariousness of certain types of teaching and learning that are delivered under the catch-all designation extracurricular. This paper reviews education legislation in Ontario over the past 40 years that has impacted teachers' right to strike; examines how teacher unions and the provincial government targeted extracurricular activities during collective bargaining; and considers how extracurricular activities have come to be an expected part of public education.

International education has become a policy sector of increasing importance to the Canadian province of Manitoba. Provincial governments with opposing political ideologies can impact international education policy differently. Using narratives as an analytical framework, we identify themes by examining the approaches taken to the international post-secondary education (PSE) sector in Manitoba under the last two governments that held office. The analysis reveals that while both governments' policies are underpinned by neoliberalism reflecting the economic benefits of international student recruitment and retention, key differences are identified. While cultural diversity and global understanding, policy coordination and collaboration, associated leadership, strategy, and a regulatory framework were important components of international PSE policy, there has been a discernible shift towards an austerity agenda, free market policies, and a reconceptualization of international PSE as an immigration-focused policy. The paper concludes that the current government's focus on labour markets and immigration when it comes to international PSE means that other aspects of internationalization are little understood and supported.

Recent historical studies on the topic of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada looked mostly at the era of the 1960s and the 1970s. Some work has also been completed on the institution's role in international education and its responsibilities during the economic crises of these decades. This paper proposes to take this research one step further and now look more specifically at the decade of the 1980s. This paper will argue that in this era the CMEC found its raison d'être in several fields. These included official languages, and oversight of the testing programs run by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It also found its niche, to a lesser extent, through refining its connections to international education organizations. Finally, the decade saw the CMEC experimenting with a national agenda for education in conjunction with the provincial premiers and ministries of education.

Corporate school reform is a global movement that is gaining a growing momentum. Central to this reform agenda is "personalized learning," presented by its advocates as a better alternative to the traditional model of schooling. In spite of its appealing possibilities for education and society, scholars in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have criticized personalized learning for its reductive conceptualization of education. Focusing critically on the new Education Plan of British Columbia, which places personalized learning at its core, this paper examines the genealogy of the Education Plan and discusses its implications for public education in the province. Through construction of a network of actors and content analysis of key documents produced by the public and private sectors, the paper shows that the vision of the Education Plan is largely influenced by a broader neoliberalism-oriented social imagination reinforced by a network of political, social, and economic actors. The analysis shows that this vision for education promotes a perception of education primarily conceptualized in narrow economic terms. The discourse and practice employed to promote personalized learning contribute to turning education into a customizable consumer product, reduce the notion of "learning" to a list of skills and attributes, disregard the significant importance of socio-cultural contexts in teaching and learning, and minimize the crucial role of the teacher. The article concludes that the Education Plan has created a conducive environment for the emergence of "customized privatization" in public education in the province.

This paper reviews neoliberalism as an ideology that has influenced higher education generally and Ontario higher education in particular. It includes a discourse analysis of "Strengthening Ontario's Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge" (Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, 2012), a government discussion paper developed to focus roundtable conversations on the future of higher education in the province. The analysis reveals that, by framing higher education around such market values as competition, productivity, private interest, and profit, the discussion paper supports the government in its continuing efforts to construct, normalize, and advance a neoliberal vision of higher education.

This paper expands on the extant research on gay male educators by comparing two research projects on such educators who taught in international settings. One study focused on five gay, male, adult educators who relocated to Canada from countries in the Global South and the second study focused on eight gay, male, adult educators who relocated to Kosovo from countries in the Global North. Both projects demonstrated that (1) study participants are concerned with the safety and inclusiveness of their work environments, and (2) "sexual orientation" can be a self-limiting concept when used in education policy and practice. Recommendations for educational administrators conclude this paper.

This paper presents a case narrative of a university dean who is charged with instituting change within her faculty in order to resolve the faculty's financial issues. The case narrative explores academic conceptualizations of entrepreneurship and describes the dean's context in terms of: her executive leadership team, the financial issues she was facing, the financial contentions in instituting change, legal complexities, programmatic and marketing dimensions, poor academic cultures, and work intensification implications. The teaching notes present five leadership development activities that span these issues and encourage students to engage in a brainstorming, a mind-mapping, a placemat, a jigsaw, and a leadership reflection activities.

This study explored the practice of "teacher-volunteerism" in Ontario, Canada. A teacher-volunteer refers to those teachers who are fully certified to be employed as teachers in Ontario and who remain active in the teaching labour market. Teachers in Ontario, facing a competitive labour market, have increasingly volunteered inside of schools. Drawing on qualitative interviews with unemployed and underemployed teachers in Ontario, the paper examines and discusses experiences concerning volunteerism within this context. Findings revealed that teacher-volunteerism is largely motivated by employment-related concerns, with volunteers engaging in various teaching-related practices inside of schools. Teacher-volunteerism is understood as a new expectation faced by un(der)employed teachers as they seek paid employment. The exploration of teacher-volunteerism leads to further interrogation surrounding the intersections of teachers' work and labour in the field of education.

The Identification, Placement, and Review Committee (IPRC) process has been long established within Ontario special education practice and provincial legislation. Borne out of advocacy for advancing the right to education for children with disabilities, the IPRC process is now being critically explored as to whether the process itself creates an infringement on students' access and rights to quality education. Drawing on historical and contemporary shifts in education policy and human rights in Ontario, this paper presents the case that the current structure of the IPRC is outdated and may function as a significant barrier to students' academic futures.

Given the pace of their work, school administrators often find it difficult to sift through the massive volume of primary academic research produced each year to find specific pieces that might be useful to inform their practice. In response to this issue, the author developed and implemented a strategy to filter research for local relevance and distribute that research to preKindergarten-Grade 12 administrators in a mid-sized Canadian school district. This paper provides a brief description of the strategy and reports a portion of the results from a study examining the efficacy of the strategy. Since the strategy surfaced research specifically connected to local problems of practice, it was anticipated that participants would (i) see value in research, at least if it was explicitly connected to local issues; and (ii) actually consult research to inform their work. Findings included a general acknowledgement from participants that academic research has the potential to support leaders' practice. However, many noted barriers such as time, access, syntax, and relevance that made it challenging to translate research findings into actual practice. Respondents' suggestions to make academic research more useful for them are discussed.

This paper argues that while Ontario has witnessed an onslaught of equity and inclusion educational policies aimed at diversifying teacher demographics via "bias-free" hiring practices, teachers across the province do not equitably reflect the identities and demographics of the student population. We, the authors, refer to this as the "teacher diversity gap" which refers to the discrepancy in the proportion of racialized teachers to racialized students (Hrabowski & Sanders, 2014; Turner, 2014, 2015). Through a literature review and the accompanying responses of 10 educators interviewed, this article critiques the dominant narrative associated with the benefits of "bias-free" hiring practices embedded in equity and inclusive policies (James & Turner, 2017; Ryan, Pollock, & Antonelli, 2009) arguing that the teacher workforce has remained predominantly White and unadaptive in terms of representation with the increasingly minoritized student population. The authors further argue that bias-free hiring is a prime example of colour-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Zembylas, 2003) claiming to select candidates based on their individual merit and ability, simultaneously dismissing discussions about systemic racism and other barriers embedded within existing hierarchical educational policies and practices.

This study presents a pedagogical framework to inform culturally responsive teaching in a Yukon First Nations community. The paper describes the community-based processes used to develop the framework, and presents accounts from teachers who have used the framework to inform their teaching. Preliminary indications of the adjusted teaching practices' influence on student learning are presented, using qualitative data describing the changed teaching practices, and quantitative data specific to the changed practices' impact on student learning. Finally, the paper outlines the ongoing community-based research work in the Yukon context, with reference to the work's potential significance to the wider education community.

This paper reports on the first nationwide census examining sustainability uptake in policy initiatives in Canadian K-12 education. Included in the study are each of Canada's 13 provincial and territorial ministries of education, and all 374 public school divisions across the country. Sustainability was defined as including, at minimum, consideration of environmental issues, with the study also encompassing use of other related terminologies. Data were collected on three types of policy initiatives: (a) the existence of sustainability-specific policy, (b) participation in sustainability certification programs, and (c) the existence of sustainability staff, which were examined in relation to a range of geographic and institutional variables. Sustainability-specific policy was examined across five domains of a whole institution approach to sustainability: governance, curriculum, facilities and operations, research, and community outreach. We found that 54% of ministries of education and 59% of school divisions in Canada had sustainability-specific policy, most commonly in the curriculum domain at the ministry level and in the operations domain at the school division level. In addition, 43% of school divisions had participated in a sustainability certification program, and 25% had sustainability staff. We discuss implications for policy making in Canada as well for intergovernmental UN policy programs, in particular regarding new policy development and monitoring and evaluation efforts.

This paper explores the form and extent of sustainability uptake in education policy in First Nations-managed K-12 schools, and discusses strategies First Nations' educational communities use to overcome barriers encountered in sustainability education practice. Interviews were conducted with educators across four different Canadian schools and content analysis was used to draw out key themes of analysis. These include educators' articulations of relationships to land, including a relational legacy of living in an implicitly sustainable and respectful way. Participants also described how culturally and geographically relevant pedagogical approaches to sustainability are challenged by systemic and localized barriers. Participants perceived that under-resourcing and administrative challenges limit the integration of sustainability across curricular areas, hindering educators' abilities to develop appropriate innovative programming and resources for First Nations' students. They have been able to overcome these obstacles, to some extent, by harnessing community resources to indirectly include sustainability in the curriculum. Implications for educators, policy makers, and agencies are discussed.

Investing in Indigenous education has been identified as a key priority by provinces and territories across Canada. In response, the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) introduced the "Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework" (the Framework). This policy directive outlines the OME's commitment to working in partnership with Indigenous and non-Indigenous educational stakeholders to increase the capacity of the public education system to respond to the learning and cultural needs of the estimated 50,312 Indigenous students who attend Ontario's 5,000 elementary and secondary schools. While substantial progress has been made since the Framework's release, more work is needed to ensure all students gain an understanding of, and appreciation for, Indigenous cultures, experiences, and perspectives. One way the OME has shown their continued investment is through the sustained allocation of funds for Indigenous Education Leads (Leads). Since the Framework's release in 2007, these individuals have played an invaluable role in supporting the implementation of the Framework. However, little is known about their lived experiences. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative paper is to share Leads' stories of policy enactment, particularly their approaches to fulfilling a provincial mandate that carries with it the legacy of historical and contemporary trauma and mistrust between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The principles of Critical Narrative Research (CNR) combined with the sensibilities of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) are drawn on to foreground how Leads understand their own actions and interactions throughout the policy implementation process, as well as how they come to understand the actions, interactions, and intentions of other materialities of practice (e.g., professionals, standardized tests, curricula, bodies, and routines) within their milieus.

This paper outlines the process by which the Ontario Education Research Exchange (OERE), part of the Knowledge Network of Applied Education Research, developed and launched an online hub of education research summaries to facilitate greater use of research by stakeholders in the field of education. The project is an effort in knowledge mobilization funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education to help increase the use of research to inform policy and practice in Ontario. The paper begins with an outline of the background and history of the project. Next, the three main components of the project are outlined--collecting/writing the summaries and creating the inventory, putting together the peer review process, and creating the online hub for storing and sharing the summaries and facilitating the peer review process. This paper provides useful information that can be translated to similar projects with the goals of summarizing, storing, and/or sharing research with a broad audience. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This paper reviews the meaning and content of various First-Nation self-government discourses that have emerged over the last 40 years. Based on a detailed thematic analysis of policy papers, reports, and self-governance agreements on this issue of First-Nations control of education, this paper presents a coherent and defensible understanding of the current state of First-Nations rights to control education while mapping institutional arrangements or internal principles of organization for self-determination that have emerged over time in discourse on First-Nations rights and education in Canada. (Contains 1 table and 11 footnotes.)

This paper explores the relationship between neoliberal ideology and the discourse and practice of education governance reform in Ontario over the last two decades. It focuses on changes in education governance introduced by successive Ontario governments: the NDP government from 1990 to 1995, the Progressive Conservative government from 1995 to 2003, and the Liberal government from 2003 until the present. The analytical approach deploys the three models of education governance identified by Bedard and Lawton (2000)--policy interdependence, administrative agency and policy tutelage--to describe differences in the policy content of the neoliberal governance reform projects undertaken by each government. The paper uses the work and recommendations of three government-appointed bodies--the Royal Commission on Learning (RCOL), the Education Improvement Commission (EIC) and the Governance Review Committee (GRC)--to capture critical shifts and tensions in governance reform strategies. Three interrelated points are offered to further the understanding of education governance dynamics in neoliberal paradigms in Ontario: first, the influence of political ideologies on approaches to governance and accountability; second, the mediating role played by government-appointed bodies; and third, the incrementalism of neoliberal reforms in education governance policy. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This paper examines the processes of tenure denial and appeal from the standpoint of the author, who has been the Grievance Chair at Carleton University since 2000. The focus is on the ways that the grievance process as textually mediated provides for regulation and control over the forms of interaction between appellants and senior administration. The paper provides an ethnography of grievance work during the appeal process, to advance our understanding of ways that participants to the process deploy texts to produce accountable institutional orders. Further, by examining the ways that senior administrators justify their decision to deny faculty tenure, we can glimpse the emerging dynamics of inter-university competition for students, research funding, and prestige. It is argued that the decisions of senior administrators to use tenure denials, as a means to remake the university, not only threaten faculty, but threaten the integrity of the university mission. (Contains 1 table and 10 footnotes.)

This article argues for the importance of broad and on-going research to support initial or pre-service teacher education program admissions. Examples from a large initial teacher education program at one Canadian university illustrate the contributions of research to the evaluation and refinement of admission processes. These examples include anonymous surveys and confidential interviews of current pre-service teachers about their experiences of answering application questions about their social identity, how they decided to apply to and attend the program, and their expectations of teacher education and teaching. Research studies about the perspectives of and agreement among the application raters are also discussed. Finally, how the operational needs of the admission processes shape the research agenda and the emerging research findings in turn shape the admission processes is explored.

In 1965, Memmi introduced the concept of a protectorate. "Whenever the colonizer states, in his language, that the colonized is a weakling, he suggests thereby that this deficiency requires protection. From this comes the concept of a protectorate" (pp. 147-8). While this concept is 45 years old, it is an apt metaphor for thinking about current school landscapes, and about how educators are positioned on those landscapes to use their professional knowledge of teaching and learning as protectors of children and parents. We assert that while all parents experience "protection" in their children's schools, such protection plays out more strongly with First Nations parents because of historical, societal, socioeconomic, and political divisions (Shields, Bishop, & Mazawi, 2005). As we inquire into stories two Mi'kmaq mothers tell of their experiences with teachers and administrators, we pull forward narrative threads that make visible how parents are marginalized when schools are structured and administered as protectorates. We invite a reconsideration of who is seen to hold knowledge on school landscapes and whose knowledge counts.

This paper discusses a portion of the findings of a mixed-methods study that examined the career patterns of senior educational administrators in public school divisions in Manitoba, Canada. Data based on the career paths of senior administrators from both a survey and interviews of senior administrators were analyzed and compared along three variables: (a) position; (b) context; and (c) sex. This paper reports the findings of one aspect of the study that asked senior administrators to provide advice to aspirants interested in becoming senior administrators. Findings suggest that in Manitoba context, sex, and position interact to create differences in career experiences. Overall, senior administrators enjoy their work, but encourage aspirants to seriously consider the personal and professional responsibilities and ramifications of moving in to a position of such public and political responsibility. (Contains 1 table and 2 footnotes.)

This paper examines the immigration and credentialing experiences of Jamaican teachers in Alberta during the 1960s. Using teacher narratives as well as archival research the paper aims to develop a historical understanding of issues related to internationally educated teachers and how this historical understanding can inform the contemporary theoretical and policy debates on credential recognition. Contrary to an understanding that locates teacher credentialing only in the present day and a one-sided critique of its bureaucratic nature, we argue that historical analysis reminds us that bureaucracy can be both constraining and enabling. An understanding of this duality is of crucial importance for policy makers to rethink the contemporary credentialing process for internationally educated teachers. (Contains 2 figures and 2 footnotes.)

This paper reports on several phases of a five-year science education development project in Nunavut, Canada. The project, in its entirety, was established as a Pilot Program for Nunavut schools in effort to understand school community aspirations for science education and potential contributors and impediments to fostering the realization of identified goals. This paper focuses on the cases of three Inuit school communities in identifying and achieving their aspirations for science education. This paper describes the goals collaboratively identified and the processes utilized to work towards the realizations of such goals. Of importance is the identification by the school communities to offer an educational experience that combines the knowledge, processes and values of "both worlds" (western science and "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit") and to employ both traditional and contemporary methods for implementing and evaluating the success of the project. Finally, based upon the outcomes of this project, suggestions are provided for supporting developments in other jurisdictions aspiring to see the realization of local and Indigenous aspirations for science education. Of critical importance to seeing such efforts realized are the policy and leadership conditions manifest at the school-community, divisional and territorial level for fostering culture-based education programs. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

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.

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. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

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. (Contains 2 tables and 11 notes.)

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.

The purpose of this article is to advance a proposal for the analysis of how inclusive education policies in Ontario schools are adopted. In particular, I use the notion of "Policy Enactment" to re-conceptualize the processes of putting inclusive education policies into practice. The argument is that the traditional "implementation" model to analyze the adoption of inclusive education policies devalues the significant role of context in both policy analysis research and practice. Analyzing education policies based on the construct of "enactment" offers a context-informed approach that can help policy actors and researchers to better understand how inclusive education policies are incorporated into practices. The paper concludes that a policy enactment perspective empowered by the constructs of Neo-Institutionalism theory is a more robust tool for analyzing inclusive education policies as their translation is far from being a mere upfront conversion of text into action.

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. (Contains 2 endnotes.)

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. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

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.

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.

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.

This study examines how staff working for one Ontario school board perceive two distinct approaches to school discipline policy: the Safe Schools Act (Bill 81) and Progressive Discipline and School Safety (Bill 212). The more centrally controlled and rigid Safe Schools Act was criticized by interviewees and cited for human rights violations. However, the inherent flexibility and vagueness of the Progressive Discipline policy that replaced it was seen to lead to inconsistent policy implementation and unequal outcomes for students. This paper considers the broader implications of policies that are "tightly coupled" or "loosely coupled" in terms of teachers' professional discretion, accountability, and student outcomes.

Teacher movement within school boards is examined using multiple case study. Emergent themes achieved theoretical saturation and are consistent with the research literature. In this paper, the relationships between the themes are used to develop a substantive theoretical model of teacher movement within school boards. The model uses a two-phase chronology of events that arise during teacher movement. The two phases are the short-term chronology of teacher transfer events, and the other is a long-term chronology of lifestyle over a teaching career. The model is consistent with all findings in this study and concordant with findings by other researchers.