The current structure of formal education makes it difficult for teachers and students to hold meaningful conversations to support high-school youth's meaning-making of critical social-justice issues. This paper presents data on three high-school youth's knowledge and experiences with social justice issues during the pandemic. Specifically, the…

What tactics are high school educators using to teach about socio-political changes in the past and present? Five educators in the province of Alberta (two women, three men; four urban, one rural; four White, one Arab; four without visible religious garb, one Muslim in hijab) explored content they considered to be "radical" and how they…

In recent years, youth across the planet have begun to mobilise, motivated by the perceived injustices associated with the causes, consequences and politics of climate change. However, education systems lag behind, preoccupied with the "what" and "how" of climate change, rather than engaging it as a social issue in which…

This study explored racialized newcomer student participants' experiences in a rural high school in Western Canada, and utilized critically engaged language and literacy workshops (CELLWs) as a means to authentically represent participants' interrelationships with and relatability to their school and community spaces. CELLWs are an important…

This article focuses on the dynamics at play in a challenging lesson observed during the LGBTQ unit in a social justice-focused high school course. On the surface, the lesson was a chaotic struggle involving a tense intergenerational clash between the teacher and an outspoken group of students. Young people interrupted and refused the teacher's…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a drastic transformation to schooling for students throughout the world. During this period, a number of issues arose in our local, national and global communities, including the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests and rallies organised by #BlackLivesMatter. Living through and witnessing many social…

One of the earliest attempts to Indigenize the Canadian curriculum began with Cultural Survival Schools (CSS). This grassroots approach to Indigenous education emerged in Canada in the mid 1970's. These schools were established in recognition that education is key to the survival of First Nations people. The CSS approach to education involved…

The purpose of this review is to expand understanding of the ways culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse youth have begun to reimagine urban and rural spaces using digital storytelling and photovoice, two methods that often fall under the broad field of youth participatory action research. To explain the conditions under which these methods…

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…

This is the new edition of the award-winning guide to social justice education. Based on the authors' extensive experience in a range of settings in the United States and Canada, the book addresses the most common stumbling blocks to understanding social justice. This comprehensive resource includes new features such as a chapter on…

This paper presents the results of study about an urban high school in Ontario that performed a stage play that portrayed the legacy of the Indian residential schools in Canada. We wanted to know the impact this arts-based response had on teachers and students. From the data that we obtained from focus groups, we identify four learning outcomes of…

This article describes a study that took place in Saskatchewan, Canada, during 2013-2014. Ten practicing high school social studies teachers who self-identified as Christian answered an unsolicited invitation to participate in a qualitative study about the ways in which they think about social justice. Almost evenly split between Catholic and…

Science, technology, society, and the environment (STSE) education is a part of the science curriculum in Ontario schools and also a theoretical positioning for a science teacher. This qualitative study uses individual interviews, group meetings, and action research to explore, how science teachers, develop and implement inclusive science…

In this paper we highlight findings from a teacher inquiry group study designed to explore possibilities for teaching contemporary Canadian literature to promote issues of social justice in secondary classrooms. Drawing on Boler and Zembylas's notion of a "pedagogy of discomfort," our paper will focus on the experiences of two teachers…

Teaching about the Holocaust is mandatory in many societies. This prescription is justified by authorities with many reasons: educating pupils for a better understanding of human rights, peace, war, genocide, critical thinking, historical thinking, racism, etc. The Holocaust can carry a very strong moral and emotional charge. But why do teachers…