Social Justice, Inclusion and Equity
Policy 1.8 Social Justice, Inclusion and Equity
Social justice is a philosophical framework which recognizes the dynamics of oppression in society, is a fluid expression of a society’s collectively negotiated ethical and moral beliefs with respect to access to and distribution of resources and power, and where access to resources and power are recognized as grounded in democratic principles and collective social responsibility.
Social inclusion is the recognition that every individual in society has the inherent human right to be fully included in all economic, social, cultural and political institutions.
Equity and equitable treatment involves acknowledging diversity, recognizing and nurturing our differences, and eliminating the barriers that prevent the full participation of all peoples.
Systemic barriers generally refer to institutionalized beliefs expressed through policies and practices that have an exclusionary impact on groups and individuals.
Resources
Black on the Prairies: Saskatchewan Curriculum Connections by Subject
Black on the Prairies: Saskatchewan Curriculum Connections by Grade
Resource Type: Video, PDF
Publisher/Organization: STF
This on-demand virtual panel discusses the importance of acknowledging Black history and its contributions as an integral part of the prairie provinces.
Featuring panelists Omayra Issa, co-creator of Black on the Prairies for CBC; Cheryl Foggo, author, filmmaker and historian; and Natasha Joachim and Sarah Adomako-Ansah, educators and creators of the Black on the Prairies Teacher Guide.
Black on the Prairies Interactive Website
Resource Type: Website, Downloadable teacher guide available through CBC’s educational portal Curio.ca
Author: CBC senior reporter Omayra Issa and CBC radio host Ify Chiwetelu
Publisher: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
If you’re a teacher or educator looking for classroom content for Black History Month, CBC’s educational portal Curio.ca has released a new Black on the Prairies teacher’s guide.
Black on the Prairies began as a multiplatform project led by CBC senior reporter Omayra Issa and CBC radio host Ify Chiwetelu. Through audio, video and online formats, Black on the Prairies explores the history and present lives of Black people on the Prairies through their triumphs and challenges, and places their contributions at the very centre of the Prairie narrative as part of the Canadian story.
The earliest arrivals sought opportunities and built communities while challenging racism and discrimination, something that remains to this date. Today, Black people continue to help shape Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba from the largest cities to the smallest rural towns.
The stories of Black life on the Prairies are an indelible part of Canada’s history. This project celebrates the legacy of over 200 years of recorded Black presence on the Prairies, and looks to the future of the fastest growing Black population in the country.
“The addition of a teacher’s guide means students can learn these important pieces of Canadian history and what it means for the future of Canada,” Omayra Issa said.
Teachers and educators are invited to incorporate the teacher’s guide into classroom curriculum and learn about the history and lived experiences of Black people in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The guide, along with the Black on the Prairies interactive website, will help students in exploring the Black on the Prairies project, a collection of articles, personal essays, images and more, exploring the past, present and future of Black life on the Prairies.
For the month of February, the teacher’s guide is available for free. After February, access the content with your Curio subscription or learn how to acquire a subscription to the educational resources, contents, and teaching guides hosted by Curio.
Black on the Prairies: teacher’s guide now available – CBC news story
Black on the Prairies Interactive Website
Black on the Prairies Teacher Guide
Addressing Anti-Asian Racism: A Resource for Educators
Resource Type: Print
Publisher/Organization: Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and Toronto District School Board
Addressing Anti-Asian Racism is an educational resource created by the Toronto District School Board in partnership with Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
Addressing Anti-Asian Racism invites you into a courageous conversation about race. We, the writers, are Asian Canadian educators committed to a vision of a world free of racism. We have experienced discrimination and felt racism in our hearts, as students and educators.
Weaved throughout this document, are our voices, sharing the stories and personal experiences that reveal the complexities and impacts of anti-Asian racism. They may create discomfort. They may echo your own stories.
Together, grounded in the desire for personal growth, the ways we learn and teach inspires us to seek justice with each other, students, schools and communities. This resource document provides experiences, analyses and tools to address human rights issues with respect to anti-Asian racism, with an understanding that the world is ready for change.
Resource Type: Print, Website, Video
Publisher/Organization: Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA)
Choose Your Voice tackles the issue of exclusion head on and encourages students from Grades 6-8 to uncover some of the historical and present-day narratives of groups who have faced discrimination in Canada. Students hear first-hand accounts of experiences of intolerance from the African-Canadian, First Nations, Jewish, and Asian communities, among others.
Choose Your Voice provides free online, curriculum-based teaching resources, including a video series of first-hand interviews with people from different communities who have faced oppression and discrimination, to help Grades 6, 7, and 8 students learn about the dangers of bigotry and intolerance. In four units, students will learn about stereotypes, events in Canadian history that involved stereotyping directed toward minority groups, hate crimes in Canada, and strategies for responding to incidents of bigotry and discrimination that promote peace.
Resource Type: Print, Website, Video
Publisher/Organization: Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA)
Voices into Action provides free curriculum-based teaching resources, videos with first-hand accounts by survivors of genocide, victims of discrimination or bullying, and human rights experts, as well as online tools to help you teach secondary students about human rights. In six units, students explore subjects and issues related to human rights; genocide; prejudice and discrimination; immigration, migration, and refugees; art and remembrance; and Canada values, rights, freedoms and responsibilities. The program helps students learn from history and become more aware of their own biases and perspectives. Voices into Action was the 2016 winner of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Award of Excellence in Education. By registering for the Teacher Dashboard, you can access teaching plans and assessment tools, as well as webinars that support the use of Voices into Action materials in class.
Resource Type: Video
Publisher/Organization: STF
You have probably heard the term “anti-racism” come up in conversations, social media feeds and classrooms in recent years. This short informational video addresses what anti-racism is and what anti-racism has to do with the teaching profession.
Resource Type: Print
Resources related to anti-racist education are available for borrowing at the Emma Stewart Resources Centre. This bibliography provides an annotated list of print and media resources to support your own learning and your classroom practice on topics such as:
- Racism; racial relations; colour blindness; stereotypes
- Anti-racism
- Racial justice; racial activism
- Microaggressions
- Intersectionality
- Class and power; classism
- Whiteness
- Settler colonialism
- Decolonizing education
- Multicultural and antiracist education
- Culturally responsive pedagogy
- Critical Race Theory (CRT)
Resource Type: Print
Resources related to genocide are available for borrowing at the Emma Stewart Resources Centre. This bibliography provides an annotated list of print and media resources to support your own learning and your classroom practice on topics such as:
- Historical genocides (Rwandan, Cambodian, Jewish, Indigenous)
- The Holocaust
- Residential schools
- Holodomor (Ukrainian famine)
Global Education and Global Citizenship
Resource Type: Print
Resources related to global education and global citizenship are available for borrowing at the Emma Stewart Resources Centre. This bibliography provides an annotated list of print and media resources to support your own learning and your classroom practice on topics such as:
- Global issues and challenges (education, health, child rights)
- Global awareness, justice and activism
- Global citizenship
- Education for living in a global world community
- Global collaboration in the classroom
- The global learner
- Millennium development goals
Sexual Harassment, Abuse and Exploitation
Resource Type: Print
Resources related to sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation are available for borrowing at the Emma Stewart Resources Centre. This bibliography provides an annotated list of print and media resources to support your own learning and your classroom practice on topics such as:
- Sexting
- Sexual harassment and bullying
- Sexual assault and rape
- Sexual abuse
- Sexual exploitation
- Gender and sexual diversity; sexual orientation
- Homophobia
- Teen dating violence
Resource Type: Print
Resources related to social justice, inclusion and equity are available for borrowing at the Emma Stewart Resources Centre. This bibliography provides an annotated list of print and media resources to support your own learning and/or your classroom practice on topics such as:
- Social justice, diversity and equity
- Education for social justice
- Colonization and oppression
- Decolonizing education
- Reconciliation
- Racism and race relations; colorblindness
- Gender and sexual identity and expression
- Heterosexism, homophobia and gender violence
- Poverty and classism
- Ableism
- Understanding white privilege and white supremacy
- Neoliberalism
- Climate change and social justice
- Immigrant and refugee youth
Note: Resources from the McDowell Foundation are currently unavailable due to website maintenance.
High School Teachers Working Towards Reconciliation: Examining the Teaching and Learning of Residential Schools; Dr. Tana Mitchell and Dr. Jennifer Tupper
Resource Type: Print, Website
Responding to the Call for Action in the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) report, this project will explore how teachers integrate and teach about residential schools, how students make sense of themselves as Canadians as they learn about the history and legacy of residential schools and how classrooms can become a space for reconciliation.
History Underground: The Road to Reconciliation; Denee Repski and Justin Harrison
Resource Type: Print, Website, Media (video)
History Underground: The Road to Reconciliation is a project focused on providing students with an immersive learning experience where connections are made between the historical narratives (both colonial and Indigenous) and the current realities stemming from the legacy of these narratives.
As educators we both felt that there was a lack of genuine engagement from our students about the area of treaty education and reconciliation. Our intent with this project is to facilitate experiences where students are invited away from a traditional classroom dynamic in order to walk through some of the vital and emerging histories, stories, and experiences through the lens of reconciliation. This will be achieved through mindfully walking treaty land, building connections with community and agencies, and listening to the genuine voices that represent those communities and stories that have been too often marginalized or silenced.
In the end, students will gain a better understanding of who they are and what their role is in the road to reconciliation.
Learning Opportunities
To see what workshops are currently scheduled, please visit the Events Calendar.
Beginning Your Journey to Becoming an Anti-Racist Educator
Format: Two-day face-to-face intensive session
This two-day intensive will support you in understanding the disparities you witness within the education system, the frustrations and questions you may experience about the practices and approaches within schools and the assumptions and ideologies that manifest ongoing inequities.
- Expand knowledge and understandings about forms of racism and how they operate within the education system.
- Provide language to name inequitable school practices and the assumptions that guide them.
- Deepen understanding of an anti-racist stance in education.
- Consider your role and responsibility to engage in racial equity work within your classroom and school.
Social Justice Through Children’s Literacy: Creating Windows and Mirrors to Broaden Perspective
Format: Early Learning: virtual half-day session or full-day face-to-face workshop; Elementary and Middle Years: full-day face-to-face workshop.
Develop your “compelling why” for social justice instruction in the classroom while reflecting on critical literacy skills, analyzing resources and practicing strategies for engaging in important conversations. Delve into children’s literacy as a pathway to open viewpoints and reflect on implicit bias.
- Examine your personal bias and ‘compelling why’ around social justice instruction
- Develop critical literacy skills
- Analyze classroom resources through a social justice lens
- Practice and problem-solve strategies for important conversations
- Engage in professional conversations around social justice topics
Networking Opportunities
Under development.