Themes Identified Last Class

1. Themes Identified Last Class • Relationship/Shared Experiences • Apologies (Truth & Reconciliation) • Trust • Progress • Sustaining/Growing • Ghetto’zn/Belonging • Cognitive Myopia • Marking Space/Segregation • Economics

2. Information from Statistics Canada shows that violent hate crimes are most often directed at people because of their sexual orientation. • It's a factor more often than race or religion. Canadian Marginalization Index (CAN-Marg) • The Canadian Marginalization Index (CAN-Marg) is a census- and geographically-based index that can be used for planning and needs assessment, resource allocation, monitoring of inequities and research. • CAN-Marg seeks to: • show differences in marginalization between areas; and • understand inequalities in various measures of health and social well-being, either between population groups or between geographical areas.

3. “Who are we in the university…? What do we represent? Whom do we represent? Are we responsible? For what and to whom? If there is a university responsibility, it at least begins with the moment when a need to hear these questions, to take them upon oneself and respond, is imposed. This imperative of the response is the initial form and minimal requirement of responsibility” Jacques DerridaSource: http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/anti-racism-there-university-responsibilityx

4. Re: Higher Education... • Frances Henry, Carol Tator, Carl James, and EnaDua gathered to present their research and findings on the marginalization of racialized faculty in Canadian universities. Research was conducted using personal interviews, surveys, and site visits and the results were not surprising. • As Tator explained, universities have been very slow to make positive changes to make their universities a more equitable environment for racialized faculty members. • What often occurs is that administrations will pay lip service to equity issues for faculty but no real changes will take place. • The majority of faculty surveyed who identified as a visible minority were professors in the fields of engineering and business. • even less common to see racialized faculty members teaching in the humanities and especially in the social sciences. Interesting, considering that these fields of study are those which inform the research on the discourse of race and gender. • According to James, racialized faculty have to work twice as hard as their colleagues to obtain the same recognition for their efforts and contributions to academia. • The systemic challenges faced by these faculty members are issues that never affect non-racialized colleagues. URL: http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/crossroads-race-and-gender-canadian-academy-searching-equity

5. Thinking outside the box? • So if women on college campuses get “Women’s Centres” and LGBT students get “Pride Centres”, and there are clubs and groups for students of various ethnicities, where are the men students supposed to go to talk about their problems and find common ground? • Simon Fraser University Student Union thinks it has the solution, and it’s a controversial one... the student society at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, approved $30,000 to establish a men’s center. Source: http://www.gender-focus.com/2012/06/17/gender-focus-panel-sfu-mens-centre/

6. Though the SFU Women’s Centre initially reacted with a bit of surprise, declaring “the Men’s Centre is everywhere else”, they have now posted this response on their website, saying their support will be contingent on the new centre’s mandate (no pun intended): Our support would be contingent on that centre’s mission statement, vision, and mandate. If the centre were about challenging popular conceptions about masculinity, confronting homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and ability issues then we would definitely be the first to promote and fundraise for such a group. On the other hand we would not be cool with a men’s centre focussed on maintaining the old boys club. We are not interested in seeing a group or centre develop that promotes the status quo, encourages sexual assault, or fosters an atmosphere of competition and violence.

7. U Victoria Canada’s Best Diversity Employers ranked UVic among its top 50 of 2012, but student groups are skeptical: • many feel UVic has a ways to go before it can be considered truly inclusive It boasts a Diversity and Equity Steering Committee complete with budget, a Mental Health Task Force, Faculty Disability Caucus and the Positive Space Network (PSN) for LGBT issues. • All of these initiatives represent steps toward improving diversity on campus, and are cited by Mediacorp editors as reasons UVic made the top 50 list. • UVSS advocacy groups see definite room for improvement. • “They should have investigated further before giving this recognition,” says Michael Allen-Newman, President of the Society for Students with a Disability (SSD). “They didn’t consult student groups.” • While Pride Co-or- dinatorIlainaDecter says Pride has received reports that indicate many UVic community members could benefit from an education in inclusiveness and equity, training is entirely voluntary. • “It’s incredibly stressful to deal with professors who are ignorant or oppressive,” says Decter. • Jessica Humphries of the Students of Colour Collective says, “UVic has made effort to better create a diverse community on campus, but has often lacked in areas around fostering and maintaining a safe community.” She’s observed a positive shift in employment practices and hiring, but also cuts to events, insensitivity and lack of accountability.

8. She’d like to see a campus where there’s space for members of marginalized groups to safely exist in the first place, and avenues for individuals to participate within an institution that she finds by its very nature privileging to certain identities over others. “There’s a lot of room for improvement in the diversity conference on campus. They could include a lot more student groups in the process of organizing it, because it doesn’t necessarily appeal to students unless they’re already involved,” says Humphries. “There’s a huge lack of student involvement” [Jessica Humphries of the Students of Colour Collective ]

9. The ranking UVic scored 2.17 out of 5 on The Equity Continuum sliding scale of diversity. Organizations that score 0 are in denial about their inequity, believing they’re equitable when they’re at or below base human rights. Scores of 1 and 2 mean an organization is driven by or in process of moving beyond compliance to legislation and avoidance of legal action. Organizations that score 3 realize that diversity and inclusion lead to stronger performance from successful and engaged employees and delivery of relevant products: a stronger business model. Any score below 4 or 5, (practised, integrated diversity and truly inclusive and equitable organizations) undermines efforts to improve diversity. While equality is treating everyone the same, equity means recognizing differences. Moving along the continuum is a journey from human rights through social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, to complete human equity. The other post-secondary institutions recognized: UBC, U of T and the Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology, scored 2.7, 2.97 and 2.67 re- spectively.

10. “desegregation” Abstract of an MA thesis, Lessons From our Past, by CANDACE PADMORE • Lessons From our Past considers the issue of inclusive education from the unique perceptive of narratives from students with disabilities, as well as Black students who experienced desegregation in the United States. • The research suggests that there exists a parallel between the experiences of the desegregation of Black students and students with disabilities in mainstream schools with respect to peer harassment, the degree of inclusion in the classroom and extra-curricular activities, as well as student friendships. Both populations experienced similar barriers to inclusion as a consequence of the fears and prejudicial attitudes of fellow students and teachers. • The research is unique because it endeavours to include the voices of students with disabilities to the fullest extent possible. Many other studies tend to marginalize the voices of the participants. What emerges is a perspective on inclusive education which extends beyond previous studies in that it merges Black history with the relatively new scholarship of Disability Studies. • www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/.../mrp2.pdf

11. Including the Excluded: De-Marginalizing Immigrant/Refugee and Racialized Students March 2013 issue of Canada Education “Marginalization is a process, not a label – a process of social de-valuation that serves to justify disproportional access to scarce societal resources. As social actors, we do this to others.” URL: http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/including-excluded-de-marginalizing-immigrantrefugee-and-racialized-student

12. A marginalized child is a child•whose social location is not understood and whose identities are contested or denied;•whose life circumstances are not known and not considered;•whose voice is not heard or has been silenced;•whose needs have been left unfulfilled;•whose promise is not recognized and whose protest is ignored.

13. Canadian Society • One in five of all Canadian children under the age of 15 is a new immigrant or a refugee. • An increasingly significant youth sub-population in Canada, immigrant and refugee youth are culturally diverse, with backgrounds reflecting any of 247 diverse ethno-cultural origins[3] as well as various world regions in Asia, the Caribbean, South and Central America, the Middle East, and Africa. • Almost three quarters (73 percent) of immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2006 are members of diverse visible minority populations. • It is estimated that by 2016 Canada’s visible minority population will account for one fifth of the total population – and one quarter of all of Canada's children

14. O is for Othering How can we become Otherwise?

15. We are what we know. We are, however, also what we do not know. If what we know about ourselves—our history, our culture, our national identity—is deformedby absences, denials, and incompleteness, then our identity . . . is fragmented.. . . Such a self lacks access both to itself and to the world. . . . Its sense of history,gender and politics is incomplete and distorted. (Pinar, 1993, p. 61)

16. The presence of only dominant ways of knowing and only dominant narratives produces students who are less able to think about the complexities of the world they inhabit, less able to integrate those experiences into a growing “making sense” of that world.

17. “We could take another trip down Highway 10 from Regina to Yorkton.The beautiful drive, augmented by the signs that shape our collective vision of Saskatchewan has been interrupted. Where once we were able to ignore the discrepancy represented by the signs because they confirmed/ represented/reproduced the dominant vision of the Province vis-à-vis the lens of pioneer, it is not so easy to drive as if our sight and internal sense of place matched perfectly. It is clear that the world is not exactly as seen, the story not so smooth as once imagined.” Tupper & Cappello, 2008 Understand the signs that are present, the signs that are absent and the stories that connect them

18. Unmaking provides an opportunity for remaking.

19. Identity • In group or out group • Defines ‘me’ versus ‘them’ • ‘Us’ versus ‘them; • What is the same: sameness, oneness • What is different: ‘othering’ • Favouritism of one’s own group: ethnocentrism • Prejudice against other groups: racism

20. Layers of Identity Self Identity Social Identity Political Identity

21. Dimensions of Cohesive Identity • Sense of belongingness-isolation • Inclusiveness-exclusiveness • Participation-non-participation • Recognition-rejection • Legitimacy-illegitimacy

22. Social exclusion is a processIt can involve the systematic denial of entitlements to resources and services, and the denial of the right to participate on equal terms in social relationships in economic, social, cultural or political arenas.Exclusionary processes are not confined to the lower levels of a social hierarchy and can occur at various social levels. Marginalisation, disadvantage and discrimination can be experienced irrespective of poverty

23. The notion of Othering draws on several philosophical and theoretical traditions • draws on an understanding of self which is a generalization of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic • read as a theory of self and Other in which the juxtaposition towards the other constitutes the self • prevalent in de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1997): • describes how men are regarded as the norm and women as the Other • early postcolonial writing is another theoretical reference point • Said writes of an imagined geography, which constructs the Orient as other in a reductionist, distancing and pathologizing way. • At the same time as being exotizised, the Orient is incorporated and fixed, as the function of orientalism is ‘at one and the same time to characterize the Orient as alien and to incorporate it schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, managers and actors are for Europe, and only for Europe’ • the ideas of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan • language plays a central role in constituting identity • stresses that identity is fundamentally gained in the gaze of the powerful

24. In his influential book Orientalism, (1995: 332) Said wrote: ‘The development and maintenance of every culture requires the existence of another different and competing alter ego.  The construction of identity… whether Orient or Occident, France or Britain… ....involves establishing opposites and otherness whose actuality is always subject to the continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of their differences from us‘.

25. The theory of identity formation inherent in the concept of Othering assumes thatsubordinate people are offered, and at the same time relegated to, subject positions as Others in discourseIt is the centre that has the power to describe, and the other isconstructed as inferior.

26. contemporary uses of the concept • process of differentiation and demarcation, by which the line is drawn between ’us’ and ’them’ – between the more and the less powerful –and through which social distance is established and maintained • the defining into existence of a group of people who are identifiable, from the standpoint of a group with the capacity to dominate, as inferior • the process whereby a dominant group defines into existence an inferior group • The others’ are reduced to stereotypical characters and are ultimately dehumanized

27. reproduction It is significant . . . that such challenges to the dominant nationalist histories arebeing introduced on the fringes of the educational system: in a supplementary curriculum rather than in official textbooks and in elective courses rather than inrequired courses.

28. Curriculum development • Curriculum development is connected to the ways in which dominant groups think about and value knowledge, and what knowledge these groups value • Durkheim (1965): the veracity of knowledge is not enough • If ideas do not reflect the “mass of other collective representations (the concepts taken for granted by most people in a given time and place) they will be denied” • notion of hegemony as “deeply saturating the consciousness of a society” • The challenge of curriculum, suggests Minnich(1990), is understanding what it is we wish to change “in more than a narrow, superficial way”

29. scholars have described the role of education systems, and curriculum specifically, as playing a large role in reproduction: of economic strata; of particular social and cultural capital of dominant ideology or hegemony • Not in crude or deterministic ways (mechanically teaching point by point) but in complex ways, curriculum and the ways in which educators enact curricular documents are implicated in the tacit and overt reproduction of dominant cultural norms: • attitudes are shaped, • knowledge is sanctioned or castigated, • relationships to knowledge are formed or deformed, • access to cultural capital is given or denied (or both) across the boundaries and intersection of the multiple identities in which students are located.

30. Dismantling dominant narratives ...to interrupt the commonsense stories that reify power and dominance... Stories and counterstories can serve an equally important destructive function. They can show that what we believe is ridiculous, self-serving, or cruel. They can show us the way out of the trap of unjustified exclusion. They can help us understand when it is time to reallocate power. They are the other half—the destructive half—of the creative dialectic.(Delgado, p. 2415)

31. ...tounderstand &have places from which to stand...