Climate change is a pressing concern. Higher education can address the challenge, but systematic analyses of climate change in education policy are sparse. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by reporting on how Canadian postsecondary educational institutions have engaged with climate change through policy actions. We used descriptive…

Alternative education programmes have acted as a disciplinary practice used by schools in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, as a response to providing students, especially those identified with challenging behaviours, who do not fit into "mainstream" schools. This article highlights the emergence of alternative education in PEI and…

In this paper, I will explore how links between migration, official language proficiency and labour market needs are being forged within the context of an increasing neoliberal agenda for immigration. Specifically, I will examine how the stated need for immigrant labour has made the official language proficiency of newcomers a site of increasing…

The internationalization of higher education in Canada is happening at a rapid pace. One manifestation of internationalization is the increasing enrolment of international students in Canadian institutions. There is little research on international undergraduate students' experiences from their own perspectives as they adapt to a new educational…

The country case studies are part of the empirical data collected for the "Promoting the Relevance of Higher Education" project. Before presenting the case studies, this introductory chapter describes how the 8 case studies were selected, the case study methodology, and provides an overview of the interviewed organisations and experts.…

The Ministry of Education role is to provide leadership and funding to the K-12 education system, through governance, legislation, policy and standards in British Columbia. It places student success at the centre of its mandate, by continually focusing on improving results and ensuring equity of access and outcomes for all learners. This year more…

In this paper, we revisit Brown's ("Br J Soc Educ" 14: 65-85, 1990) concept of "parentocracy" which has been informatively applied in educational research in a number of studies in various countries internationally--but almost none in North America. We provide an expanded conceptualization of parentocracy and suggest that it…

Unprecedented levels of global mobility mean that culturally homogenous classrooms are now increasingly rare. This brings with it challenges for teachers and raises issues about what constitutes quality teaching and teachers. Professional standards are commonly seen as a key policy instrument through which teacher quality can be enhanced. This…

An often-used idiom states: "you can't lose what you never had." Yet contrary to this expression, it "is" possible to lose what you never had--at least when special education support is concerned. In Ontario, as in other jurisdictions, special education exists as a codified system. An ever-changing nexus of discourses and…

This review examines four books that may offer some insight into what the discussion about educational policy, reform, and performance may look like after the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Collectively, "The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling" by Jal Mehta,…

This paper examines the intersection of heritage-language education advocacy with anti-racist activism in the 1970s and 1980s in Toronto. The province of Ontario initiated the Heritage Languages Program in 1977. By focusing on discontinuities in the policy's implementation, the paper identifies multiple strategies that Black anti-racist activists…

Citizenship education is a popular and contested phenomenon in liberal democratic societies. It is difficult to imagine a school system that does not contribute to the preservation and improvement of society through education of democratic, responsible and tolerant citizens. On the contrary, the execution of such education is full of caveats,…

The examination of a mid-18th-century biography about a significant developer of Ojibwe and Cree-based syllabics is the starting point for an interrogation of socio-historical cultural cohesion in Canada. The textual creole of syllabics, used widely in business and commerce, provides clues to the dynamics of cross-cultural linguistics. In this…

This study examined the literacy profiles of students from diverse home-language backgrounds and tracked those profiles from grade 6 to grade 10. The authors also investigated the predictive relations of students' immigration background, gender, and participation in two instructional programs. The results from latent class and latent transition…

There has been a shift in the core idea of schooling in both Germany and Canada: While schools have traditionally focused on cognitive development, they now increasingly focus on "engaged learners" and use integrated settings to support their cognitive, metacognitive and social-emotional development. In line with the theme "Learning…