In 2021, the government of Manitoba made their plans to reform public education overt with Bill 64. Although the legislation was withdrawn as a result of immense opposition from critically engaged Manitobans, the government did not abandon its neoliberal reform plans. Instead, the spectre of Bill 64 now lingers through a variety of new educational…

In living history museums, where young people work and volunteer as historically dressed interpreters, participate in field trips, and attend summer camps, young people can simultaneously represent the past, the present and the future. In these spaces, they also shape the past through their questions, their retellings, and their reimaginings based…

Intergenerational initiatives have the potential to bring generations together and can have a wide range of benefits for the health of older adults as well as for the development of young people. This paper presents a five-phase participatory action research protocol for the co-design and pilot implementation of a toolkit supporting…

This article explores the ethical dilemmas encountered by two ethnographers in adult education research in a context where neoliberalism impacts on education settings, policies, and social justice. Everyday ethical dilemmas arise in thorny situations in which the general ethical principles ethnographers are regulated by cannot help them react or…

Educators, researchers, and institutions have long recognized experiential education's value for fostering ongoing learning and skill development. In recent years, experiential education has gained increased traction in higher education, based on recognized need for graduates to encounter and actively reflect on lived experiences in various…

Public education systems are often large, diverse, fragmented, and historically very hard to change. While previous reforms targeted primarily school staff, large-scale policies now include a broader audience including non-system organizations (e.g., knowledge brokering organizations) that may influence directly or indirectly policy…

Background: Many universities in Canada offer experiential education (EE) opportunities for students that are both field-based and on-campus. Despite a commitment to EE, there is a paucity of information about various stakeholder perspectives of EE and the equity implications of the different approaches to EE. Furthermore, it is unclear how EE…

Employment training services are provided for immigrants to integrate them into the Canadian labour market. Evaluated on short-term labour market outcomes, these programs typically focus on enhancing individuals' employability, while risking naturalizing and reproducing the dominant social and cultural order. "Entry to Hospitality Careers for…

In assessing the impact of service-learning, most studies focus on its effects on students' learning than community partners and the communities served; leaving largely unanswered, the question of whether service-learning in business education still contributes value to community organizations and the wider society. This study investigates the…

We evaluate how the U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research (U-Links), a nonprofit organization that brokers research for community-based organizations with postsecondary institutions in Haliburton County, Ontario, has impacted this rural region of Ontario. Our approach uses contribution analysis and realist evaluation as layered tactics…

This paper aims at understanding the complex relations between bureaucratic literacies, the lives of young people in a situation of precarity and the work of employees of two community-based organisations in Québec (Canada). Drawing on the perspective of the New Literacy Studies, the focus of this article is around the role of literacy mediators…

This piece draws on multiple voices to reflect on a collaborative project between university-based researchers and a local community organization devoted to Indigenous Blackfoot children and their families. The evolution of the project from one based on photo-elicitation to one devoted to building a digital storytelling library meant a…

This commentary closes this special issue with the reflections from two individuals who, like many in these fields, cross the boundaries between scholar, activist and practitioner in their work with young people, teachers and wider society. They bring their experiences working with difficult pasts in the service of better futures to the…

Grounded in critical policy theories and democratic conceptions of research, case studies of three community-based organizations, one in Canada and two in the U.S., were analyzed to determine if and how the groups engaged with research in their efforts to influence education policy. The findings demonstrate that the community-based organizations…

This article offers an alternative point of view on the perspectives that large-scale literacy surveys provide on refugee women by presenting the case of Darya, a young Afghan woman who moved to Canada as a refugee in 2009. It also presents how a community-based organisation for young people addressed Darya's literacy and identity curation…