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This synthesis of 30 qualitative studies examined young people's views on pornography related to their sexual health. Synthesis revealed pornography use is considered normal by young people, reinforced by its usefulness as a tool for pleasure, information, and instruction in the absence of sufficient sexuality education. However, youth can become distressed by misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or violent pornography content. Youth lack spaces to discuss pornography with trusted adults, leaving them to manage their use without support and potentially leading to harmful attitudes and unrealistic expectations about sex. Implications include the need for additional research and increased access to inclusive sexuality education.

Literature classrooms hold great potential to educate students for critical global citizenship through serious engagement with marginalized stories that test or subvert mainstream knowledges and structures, including the familiar humanitarian framework that dominates Western thinking about the Global South. Unfortunately, much existing literary curriculum in the Global North often does just the opposite. Instead, Western-oriented texts and safe, traditional reading practices contribute to a form of global citizenship that perpetuates Western hegemony and limits expressions of citizenship to benevolent actions. This is especially the case where global citizenship curriculum is developed by NGOs and humanitarian organizations, such as Me to We, a popular social enterprise with increasing influence over education in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Using the frameworks of critical global citizenship education, Slaughter's (2006) theory of humanitarian reading, and Stone-Mediatore's (2003) notion of reading for enlarged thought, this paper will undertake a close reading of the unit materials for "Free the Children," a unit developed by Me to We, which aspires to educate for global citizenship. Unit activities problematically appropriate the voices and viewpoints of child laborers in South Asia by establishing dichotomies between readers and the populations that Me to We aspires to help. This unit provides a means by which to examine the effectiveness of reading a memoir by an exemplary humanitarian, particularly when unit activities are framed by an organization with a particular humanitarian agenda.

The article deals with the research of special features of foreigners' integration and language learning in Canada as an integral part of adult education. The paper outlines a complex of basic scientific approaches such as system, structural and functional, andragogical, axiological, intercultural, and competency-based approaches. The study analyses a number of programmes for immigrants' integration in Canada, as well as language learning by adults. Critical overview allowed assuming that "Language Instructions for Newcomers to Canada" is the most popular programme among immigrants in this country. Taking into account the lack of similar programmes for foreign students in Ukraine and positive experience of Canada in this sphere, Lviv Polytechnic National University developed an elective course for international PhD students aimed at their adaptation in Ukraine. The article focuses on the features of the course which is based on the "Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada" programme. Its content component is based on the demands, individual needs and involves the acquisition of language skills and acquaintance with the culture of the country. At the end of the course, the PhD students took part in a survey. The results of the survey showed that in spite of some difficulties, it appeared to be quite effective and informative.

Thinking sexuality education and religion together often results in antagonisms that pit religious and secular values against each other. Political theology provides new insights into this tendency by showing how modern concepts of political legitimacy are based on secularised Christian theology. Neoliberal schooling, public sexual health and human rights provide legitimacy for sexuality education in post-Christian societies and all three are grounded in political theology. The political theology of sexuality education can be seen wherever ideal sexual subjectivities are presented which set up standards which one can succeed or fail to meet with clear consequences. These standards could be heterosexual, safe and marital, but equally agential, pleasurable, transgressive and self-aware. While there may be many ways of escaping the Christian political theological foundations of sexuality education altogether, a political theology of non-violence opens up a way for Christian and secular conceptions of sexuality education to move forward amidst significant cultural and moral difference.

What are the boundaries for teachers' freedom of expression in public, secular schools in Canada? Drawing from the constitutional text, legislation, and normative expectations emerging from the literature, this article examines the scope given to teachers' expression in landmark case law. The analysis shows that the binomial of trust and responsibility guides the interpretation of this fundamental freedom for teachers, who should neither act as class monarchs, absolutely free of restraints, nor as hired mouth, narrowly limited to the official curriculum. The article concludes that the ethical duties of preventing harm to students and engaging in responsible pedagogy circumscribe Canadian schoolteachers' freedom of expression.

This study sought to examine and compare conceptualizations and descriptions of family quality of life, from the perspectives of Korean immigrant and Canadian families of children with autism spectrum disorder. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews from 13 Korean immigrant parents and 12 Canadian parents of children with autism living in BC, Canada was conducted. For Korean immigrant families, three themes were identified: family cohesiveness, value orientation, and acceptance from society. For Canadian families, themes comprising family interactions, support, emotional well-being, individual characteristics, and comparisons to other families were essential elements in defining their family quality of life. Findings highlight how cultural values and differences may translate into different conceptualizations of family quality of life and underscore the need for cross-cultural and diverse perspectives in the study and development of future assessment tools.

This article explores the link between the OECD TALIS 2013 survey's framework for defining the ideal teacher and national educational goals by focusing on the teacher self-efficacy items, using cross-country comparisons. Surprisingly, cross-country analysis of the TALIS 2013 data combined with World Value Survey data about Desired Child Qualities demonstrates that the OECD TALIS teacher self-efficacy items are aligned with traditional collectivist educational goals. Thus, the findings indicate that the ideal teacher characteristics embodied in the OECD TALIS 2013 teacher self-efficacy items favour countries that prioritize socialization and culturalization. The implications for theory and practice are discussed herein.

The education systems of Inuit Nunangat (the four regions of the Canadian Arctic that are the traditional homes of Inuit) have undergone significant change and continue to experience transitions in terms of purpose, curriculum, administration, and control. A key part of this transition is ensuring that the assessment of student learning is culturally responsive. Hence, the purpose of this study was to explore Inuit educators' culturally responsive assessment practices. Five case studies were conducted in four regions of Inuit Nunangat (Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, and Inuvialuit) which resulted in a sample of 180 participants. In-depth interviews and focus groups were held with teachers, students, administrators, and Elders. Data were synthesized and resulted in themes related to the challenges and achievements in developing assessment practices that were grounded in Inuit culture, values, and worldview. We conclude recommending that more support and attention are needed to focus on developing culturally responsive assessment tools and understanding the impact of such tools on student success and engagement.

In 2020, the Canadian-based humanitarian organisation WE was the subject of a funding scandal in Canada that cast a critical light on its finances and mandate. The scandal tarnished the reputations of the organisation and its founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, who had been lauded as model global citizens for more than two decades. This paper uses the controversy as an example to distinguish between the increasingly disparaged trope of the white saviour and the continuing normalisation of saviourism as an orientation that naturalises philanthropic or charitable approaches to alleviating suffering as both just and effective.

This article examines relationships between children and youths' judgments and their justifications of truth telling and verbal deception, in situational and cultural contexts. Han Chinese, Euro-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians, seven- to 17-years of age were presented competitive scenarios in which protagonists told either lies to protect, or truths to harm, various levels of collectivity. Participants evaluated protagonists' statements, using a 7-point scale, and justified their judgments. Cultural variations in moral evaluations emerged among the three groups of participants. Older Chinese participants reflected significant collective cultural values in their judgements; by contrast, Euro-Canadians identified more individualistically; and Chinese-Canadians demonstrated notable variability between these perspectives in their judgments. The article enhances understanding of situational and cultural sources in the development of moral reasoning within a sociocultural framework.

Taking Quebec's mandatory religious education curriculum, Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC), as a case study, this paper examines the question of whether it is legitimate to teach about the illiberal and discriminatory aspects of religious belief and practice--misogyny, homophobia, racial discrimination and the like--in a religious education class. This paper seeks an answer the question by considering the pedagogical choice to raise a critical lens to the religions studied in class in relation to the cultural approach to religious education that ERC teachers are required to adopt, the critical, democratic and intercultural aims of ERC, and the legal constraints imposed on ERC by the Canadian and Quebecois constitutional framework. The conclusion of our analysis is that while the cultural approach to RE clearly rules out the use of learning activities specifically designed to reveal illiberal and discriminatory aspects of religions. However, perceived points of conflict with prevailing social values constitute a legitimate opportunity for religious education teachers to invest their specialised knowledge of religious traditions in the service of increasing pupils' religious literacy.

In most teacher education programmes in Canada and the United States, educators' opportunities to develop equity-related skills are concentrated into single 'multicultural' courses. These courses tend to have a conservative or liberal orientation, focused on appreciating diversity or cultural competence, rather than a critical orientation, focused on preparing teachers to address inequity. In this study, based on a survey of instructors of multicultural and intercultural teacher education courses in Canada and the US (N = 186), we examined the relationship between the criticality of their multicultural teacher education courses and their perceptions of institutional support for the values they teach. We found a negative relationship between the two -- the more critical the instructors' approaches, the less institutional support they perceived.

A case-study methodology was used to explore the process of change as experienced by 3 suburban families in an attempt to incorporate climate change mitigation behavior into their day to day life. Cross-case analysis of the findings revealed the emergence of three major conceptual themes associated with behavior adoption: collectively applied competences such as self-efficacy and perseverance; shared ecological values among family members; and collaborative family dynamics. Based on these findings, the authors conclude by outlining the lessons learned in terms of their potential for policy makers and possible educational programs for families looking to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.

Within the context of the education-care divide in the field, numerous studies have affirmed that preschool teachers feel unprofessional when they assume a caring role yet believe that love and care are central to their work. However, immigrant/refugee teachers may experience this tensionality more acutely since their own cultural beliefs and values about caring for young children are situated outside the authoritative discourse, underpinned by western theories and practices. Framed by sociocultural-historical theory and concepts such as communities of practice, the purpose of this one-year ethnographic study was to enquire into how immigrant/refugee women studying in a Canadian early childhood college programme navigated the interstices between these discourses. Qualitative data were collected through field notes, spatial mapping, interviews, focus groups, and artefacts/documents. This article focuses on disjuncture between the cultural and religious understandings of care that five African, Muslim refugee women brought to their field placements in infant/toddler classrooms and the authoritative professional expectations, as related to mealtime practices. The findings elucidated how they interpreted care not only as a means of ensuring children's health and well-being, but also as a means of teaching religious and cultural values.

Environmental education is a key tool in humanity's efforts to address environmental issues. The arts can help provide some of the affective components of environmental education -- emotions, values, and motivations driving pro-environmental behavior. As one of the arts, music can captivate, entertain, and create a sense of community. Using non-probabilistic purposive sampling, we interviewed a cohort of environmentally aware musicians with the goal of understanding their mental constructions around the role of music in environmental education and advocacy. A constant comparative coding method was used to code the interviews. The analysis revealed four artistic and five quality dimensions that the participants considered when sharing their pro-environmental values through their music. The four artistic dimensions emerged as continua representing ranges of choice regarding how a musician might create and deliver an environment-related song. The five quality dimensions emerged as recommendations for effectiveness of messaging through art that is perceived as authentic.

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.

A survey of 63 employees in LINC programs in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta Indicated that the mandate of LINC to incorporate information on "Canadian values" remains partly unfulfilled. Although professionally trained ESL instructors may be equipped to incorporate Canadian values into the content of classroom instruction, those who lack specific preparation are likely to rely on published texts. We analyzed 67 textbooks used in LINC programs. In general, most of the materials have little in the way of Canadian content and even less in the way of Canadian values. The survey responses suggested that some teachers dealt with general Canadian values if they cam up in class: others, however, felt that it was inappropriate to deal with such complex topics in LINC programs and that the proficiency level of LINC students was an obstacle. Most teachers felt that survival English was paramount in LINC.

This qualitative study used a critical intersectional lens to examine how two black female Canadian principals negotiated their professional identities in administrative contexts. Both principals encountered gender and race-related pressures to fit normative expectations of administrators as white males. Navigating their intersecting identities was described as a precarious balance of accommodating and asserting: this involved authoring and effacing identity, and standing up and standing tall for personal and professional values. These negotiations affected how these principals constructed their professional identities, performed their administrative roles, and achieved equity goals. Implications and recommendations for inclusive administrative theory and practice that acknowledge and value diverse professional identities are discussed.

Qualitative-interpretive research methods were used to examine the board-president relationship in three British Columbia (Canada) community colleges. Five major reasons for which the relationship is important emerged: board and administrator influence in both the campus and external communities; value compatibility; self-images; and reflection of institutional characteristics. (Author/MSE)

In this paper we propose that collaborative action research values, goals and practices have much in common with guiding principles for conducting research with educators and community members in First Nation, Inuit and Metis communities, as outlined in the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures' (2005) document. We draw on experiences in the Northern Oral Language and Writing through Play Partnership project to make our case, and conclude by identifying needed shifts in expectations and values within the broader academic community for conducting educational research in Indigenous communities.

Classmates can influence a student's academic achievement through immediate interactions (e.g., academic help, positive attitudes toward reading) or by sharing tangible or intangible family resources (books, stories of foreign travel). Multilevel analysis of 141,019 fourth-grade students' reading achievements in 33 countries showed that classmates' family factors (parent socioeconomic status [SES], home educational resources) were more strongly related to a student's reading achievement than were classmates' characteristics (parent ratings of past literacy skills, attitudes toward reading). However, these classmate links to reading achievement differed across students (e.g., high-SES classmates benefited high-SES students more than low-SES students). Also, links between classmates' past reading achievement and a student's current reading achievement were stronger in countries that were richer, were more collectivist, or avoided uncertainty less. These findings show how an ecological model of family and classmate microsystems, classmate family mesosystem, and country macrosystem can help provide a comprehensive account of children's academic achievement.

This article presents a meta-analysis of one area of sociological literature in music education: Where are the women and "others"? Where do we raise concerns about social values? Institutional Ethnography provides the basis for the meta-analysis, presented in two historical periods, pre-1960 and 2007-2012. A short story of an actual experience, functioning as a metaphor for this research study, is woven throughout the paper. The work of women who influenced John Dewey's oft-cited oeuvre is summarized. Then we return to music education sociological studies before 1960, Vanett Lawler, and Max Kaplan. "Where are the women?" places misogyny and racism onto the institutional ethnography map. Nine themes appear in the 2007-2012 articles with two becoming much more prevalent than any of the others: social theory and social justice. These two themes are examined within the problematic and the structure of music education's ruling relations. Directions for future sociological research in music education are proposed.

Same-sex marriage is part of a global civil rights struggle for LGBQ rights. How this movement is framed, advanced, and critiqued across the globe can be linked to how young people in schools are prepared to deliberate social issues in the political sphere. This article examines national history books as cultural artifacts that present what is possible and reasonable in the struggle for LGBQ rights. It examines how LGBQ rights are defined, situated, and understood within past social justice movements included in the texts. Insight into the narrative for rights in the U.S. is provided through comparison to Canada where LGBQ persons have great political protection and visibility. The comparison illuminates that integrating historical thinking and inquiry into textbooks and placing the struggle for rights within the national narrative may help U.S. teachers give reason and a social justice focus to sexuality inequity.

Processes of normalizing assumptions and values have been the subjects of theoretical framing and critique for several decades now. Critique has often been tied to issues of environmental sustainability and social justice. Now, in an era of global warming, there is a rising concern that the results of normalizing of present values could be catastrophic. Often, when such concerns arise, education is invoked as a remedial tool, a solution to a crisis and a way of imposing change. However, education is a much-used, yet complicated and sometimes paradoxical, term. Appropriate educational responses to "catastrophes" are contentious, messy and inherently interdisciplinary. This paper will explore intersections of educational philosophy, environmental ethics and social theory to provide some considerations for framing educational responses to the "normalizing of catastrophe". (Contains 7 figures and 4 notes.)

This essay details the pedagogical and cultural work of two youth-led organizations situated in Canada--Beat Nation and 411 Initiative for Change. Through the narratives generated by interviews with several of the organizations' artists and founders, the organizations' pedagogical work generated in cyberspace, and through artists' music, multi-media presentations, and speaking engagements in schools across Canada, we build on the critical project of reconceptualizing how youth express their awareness of what gives rise to salient social issues, such as racism, violence, environmental degradation, poverty, and gender inequalities, and how they work actively with other citizens to extend social and political rights for all. Youth-led organizations such as 411 for Change and Beat Nation seek to change the discursive realities and possibilities of hip hop by exercising it as a means of critical pedagogy. This approach supports the educational goals related to active citizenship, including solidarity, valuing the identities of minoritized populations, and a sense of belonging. We argue the organizations promote active citizenship by working to eliminate oppression confronting the global community, by guiding youth to understand the reasons for social inequality as well as the importance of working collectively to challenge injustice, and by embracing pro-social values and dispositions consistent with democracy, fairness, and equity. (Contains 1 footnote.)

From a sociocultural approach to literacy, young children, including culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children, can be viewed as active meaning-makers through participation in everyday literacy practices. This theoretical emphasis on the importance of the social context requires teachers and caregivers not only to improve and co-create learning environments but also to consider how to make sense of children's drawings and other non-verbal modes embedded in literacy practices. Drawing on a Vygotskian perspective, this study explores how young children use drawings and other semiotic tools as important mediators through which they represent their experience, feeling and knowledge in terms of the process of meaning-making. Within a qualitative research framework, this study uses data collected during the lesson theme of "circle" to understand how young culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners' drawings serve as a psychological tool for understanding and representing important aspects of their own experiences in terms of social, cognitive, and affective aspects. Implications of this study are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

A random sample of Canadian foster parents were asked about the importance of culture in fostering. In response to the question "What values, beliefs and traditions were you raised with and feel are important?," a total of 74 different responses were received. These responses were grouped together by foster parents and the groupings analyzed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Seven concepts emerged from the groupings, including: (1) spirituality, (2) nationality, (3) personal experience, (4) religion, (5) responsibilities, (6) respect, and (7) right and wrong. These results are compared to the literature. Similarities and differences are noted. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

An early-twentieth-century movement for social purity in England, Canada and the United States aimed to eradicate prostitution, the double standard of sexual morals and their dreaded corollary, the venereal diseases. Social purists suggested that "purity education" for children was the best pedagogical prophylaxis against such medico-moral impurity. Popular purity education guides like the "Self and Sex" Series configured purity education as nature study lessons on reproduction in flora and fauna complemented by a back-to-nature regimen of diet, dress and exercise. Social purists hoped that purity education would induce children to adopt an abstinence agenda promoting heterosexual conventions of chastity before marriage, procreative marital sex and sound parenthood. The Series is used to investigate the ways in which the social purity movement turned to a highly selective vision of the natural order to naturalize the abstinence agenda.

Instructors in the federally funded program of Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) are responsible for teaching both the English language and citizenship values to adult immigrants. The recent legalization of same-sex marriage implies that a gay and lesbian presence is an acknowledged fact of Canadian life, with gay rights now entrenched in the value system. This context led to questions of "if", "how", and "why" teachers do or do not address sexual diversity in the classroom. A preliminary study utilizing a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview was carried out with Alberta LINC teachers to explore perceptions of sexual diversity in relation to their teaching. Results indicate that the learning environment is characterized by the invisibility of the issue. Various redresses are suggested: teachers can utilize an inquiry approach to identity and learner autonomy; publishers can produce materials that include sexual diversity; and teacher-training programs can revise syllabi and teaching approaches in core TESL classes. (Contains 1 note and 3 tables.)

There is an increasing interest in the humanitarian engineering curriculum, and a service-learning placement could be an important component of such a curriculum. International placements offer some important pedagogical advantages, but also have some practical and ethical limitations. Local community-based placements have the potential to be transformative for both the student and the community, although this potential is not always seen. In order to investigate the role of local placements, qualitative research interviews were conducted. Thirty-two semi-structured research interviews were conducted and analysed, resulting in a distinct outcome space. It is concluded that local humanitarian engineering placements greatly complement international placements and are strongly recommended if international placements are conducted. More importantly it is seen that we are better suited to address the marginalised in our own community, although it is often easier to see the needs of an outside populace.

The progressive approaches First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities use to address health and wellness concerns are rarely written about or acknowledged in a positive manner. This paper speaks to a concept introduced through the Canadian Aboriginal Aids Network (CAAN) entitled "wise practices". CAAN saw a "wise practices" model as more useful and inclusive of Aboriginal community practice and knowledge exchange than the current "best practice" model. In addition, "wise practices" acknowledge and express the notion of "Changing the Face of Aboriginal Canada", a metaphor frequently used by the senior author of this paper, as a long overdue vehicle for lifting up the collective morale of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Indigenous peoples worldwide have long articulated an inherent wisdom in developing recovery processes. This natural wisdom has been chronically dismissed and underutilized as a framework for re-building a healthy social construct and worldview. The social and emotional utility of constructing and implementing a "wise practices" healing model based on what are commonly referred to as the Seven Sacred Values, has great potential for addressing violence, mental illness and addictions in Aboriginal communities and can better serve health promotion alongside the western model of "best practices." A "wise practices" model becomes another, deeply humane way, of expressing and operationalizing the traditional knowledge base of Aboriginal Canada and returns a sense of self-efficacy and social strength to Aboriginal communities.

Since the 1980s, Canadian legalized gambling has undergone a massive growth, resulting in numerous social problems such as crime, political corruption, and, most importantly, pathological gambling. When it comes to theorizing gambling in Canada, pathological gambling has been the centre of the attention for two related reasons: (1) the increasing concern with individual and social harms resulting from it; and (2) priority given by grant-giving institutions to "useful" scholarly efforts related to it. A major drawback, however, has been that these explanations often overlook the impact of broader social conditions on gambling behaviour and, instead, provide politically and ideologically conservative, microlevel analyses that point to the individual gamblers as the source of the problem. These theories, therefore, present partial accounts of an enduring and growing, socially produced problem. The argument of this paper is that Canadians' gambling behaviour, and its consequences, must be understood primarily as a social problem and within the nexus of (a) the Canadian state's pro-gambling policies (prompted by the need to generate revenues); (b) the gap between commonly shared Canadian cultural values--monetary success--and legitimate means of achieving them; and (c) capitalist processes of profit-making and commodification. Only then can we have a better understanding of a persistent and growing problem.

Deaf instructors of American Sign Language have taught ASL in formal institutions of higher learning for several decades now, yet little is known of the challenges they face within those contexts. In this study, interviews with instructors of five ASL--English Interpreter Programs (AEIP) and four Deaf Studies Programs (DSP) in Canada identified a number of common themes in particular to the intersection of culture, power, and identity. Within a post-colonial framework differences were found in the discursive practices of the participants as Deaf or non-Deaf individuals. Evidence of systemic audism experienced by the Deaf staff was noted at a number of levels, perhaps due to the existence of a "Grand Narrative of Hearing" and a process of "Worlding" based on the ideology of the hearing majority. As a result perhaps some of the Deaf instructors were ascribed or adopted the role of subaltern, where they should have instead experienced substantial social capital. (Contains 2 tables.)

This qualitative study reveals the discomfort seven immigrant bachelor of social work students reported experiencing when the behaviors expected of them as Canadian social workers conflicted with their fundamental family values. Behaviorally, participants had assimilated to Canadian and to social work cultures; however, the values they held from their home countries remained unchanged. The conflict between their unchanged values and their adapted behavior led to emotional stress in various aspects of their lives. The implications for social work education, supervision, recruiting people to the social work profession, acculturation theory, and future research are discussed.

A CBC New Brunswick Forum broadcast live on March 27, 2008, from Moncton's Capitol Theatre provided a cathartic moment for parents angry at Education Minister Kelly Lamrock, who was linked into the discussion via satellite from Fredericton. Two weeks earlier, Minister Lamrock had declared in a press release that bilingualism was changing from an optional skill pursued by a few to an expectation for all children. His new French-second-language (FSL) plan called for the elimination of the Grade 1 Early French Immersion (EFI) Entry Point in favour of a Grade 5 Late Immersion Entry Point. The Moncton Forum showcased the passion and polarization caused by the government's proposed changes. On one hand, a government was taking measures that it felt were necessary for more equitable student academic outcomes, and on the other, an outspoken segment of citizens was vehemently protecting the status quo. In Canada's only officially bilingual province, this was more than a difficult policy decision--it erupted into a collision of culture and values. Soon after the Moncton showdown, Willms released a policy brief--"The Case for Universal French Instruction"--where he positioned EFI in the context of segregation, or "the separation of people of different social classes, ethnic or racial groups, or sexes into different schools, neighbourhoods, or social institutions." This provocative assertion irked many parents with children enrolled or soon-to-be registered in EFI--many of whom were EFI graduates themselves. Willms' "intolerable equilibrium" has snapped back, halfway at least; less radical changes to the original EFI program have made changing the status quo more tolerable for many New Brunswickers. Testing the limits of this equilibrium became a tool for change, no matter what side of the argument citizens supported. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 16 notes.)

The paper will present findings from a Social Science and Humanities Research (SSHRC) funded participatory evaluation conducted over the past four years in the Cree nation of Wemindji in Quebec, Canada. COOL (Challenging Our Own Limits) or "Nigawchiisuun" in Cree, was launched in 2003 as part of a broader program of governance initiatives within Wemindji. As a key component of this new governance program, COOL was to address the need for after-school care within the community for parents, as well as to engage with the recurring problem of low retention rates in school. In consultation with the Band Council of the Cree Nation of Wemindji (James Bay), the Deputy Chief at the time (Rodney Mark)--who was elected Chief in 2006--established a COOL committee to oversee the design, organisation, implementation and running of the program. Unlike the other eight Cree communities of the James Bay, Wemindji decided to fund and run its own program based on values, customs, and traditions that have been established through consultations with elders, parents, and other interested groups within the community. This has made COOL a distinctly homegrown, autonomous, self-determined Cree program. The paper will not only report on principal themes and issues connected with the establishment and administration of COOL, but will also discuss why a participatory evaluation has been used to assess its effectiveness as a social/educational program.

In issue definition in rights-based policy Canada stereotypically embraces a more positive, human rights-centered approach as compared with the American stereotype associated with the USA's more presumptively negative, civil rights-based tack. Since exclusionary infrastructures violate the core values of democratic governance, a failure to address unnecessarily exclusive infrastructures presents a rights-based public challenge surrounding disability akin to those experienced by other non-elite groups. Analysis of disability policy serves to clarify positive versus negative tendencies in rights-based policy, including whether the expectation of a primarily positive basis in Canada is confirmed. This article examines the definition of public dimensions of the experiences of individuals with autism as a case reflecting the basis of construction of rights in Canada. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper reviews literacy learning conducted in two laboratory preschools in Hong Kong and Canada, and examines the link between cultural values and educational practices. Both preschools maintain that a constructivist view of child learning underpins their practice. However, the author's experience in these two settings illustrates how similarities and differences are identified in the scope, focus, implementation strategies and learning outcomes of the activities observed. Reasons for these findings are explored from the perspectives of cultural values and societal beliefs in education of the East and the West, and how the constructivist ideology is espoused in these settings. Implications of this cross-cultural comparison on the issue of "best practice" in early childhood education are discussed.