Increasing depictions of kink in mainstream society are leading to a rise in people seeking to learn about and participate in bondage/discipline, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM). For many, this initial education process is likely to focus on the Internet and pornography specifically. Existing research into the impact of…

Many libraries and archives have recently released statements about harmful material in their collections and the descriptions of these collections. However, these types of statements are not required for any professional accreditation or membership, nor are there specific guidelines to follow. This study collected and analyzed statements from…

School-based sex education has been a controversial issue in the province of Ontario, Canada. When an updated sex education curriculum was introduced by the provincial government in 2015, the media heavily covered negative reactions to the curriculum, and one distinct genre of reporting became modestly popular: the fact-checking article. These…

This paper has two main purposes. The first, more informational, is to introduce, re-introduce, the German-Nordic concept of "Bildung" to Canadian environmental education. This includes a brief attempt to define, a short overview of its history which stretches back to the Eighteenth century at least, and then an exploration of why and…

Open conversations regarding sexuality education and gender and sexual diversity with young children in early childhood education settings are still highly constrained. Educators report lacking professional training and fearing parental and community pushback when explicitly addressing these topics in their professional practices. As such, gender…

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…

As a settler colonial state, Canada has used education to advance colonialism in an effort to erase the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Today, education has a critical role to play in advancing the truth of our shared history just as it has played a role in enacting colonial practices and violence on Indigenous peoples. This action research…

This article first describes and then proposes a practical solution to the professional dilemma between the duty of impartiality and the duty of human rights advocacy that many teachers experience when teaching and talking about politically sensitive issues with students. The article begins by presenting an analysis of the source and signification…

Commemorations are events or actions that honour and memorialize significant events, people, and groups from the past. In recent years there have been numerous contentious debates about commemorations of historical events and people in countries around the world, including Canada. In this article I argue that commemoration controversies should be…

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Indigenous activism have made many Canadians uncomfortably aware of how little they know about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. In "Braided Learning," Lenape-Potawatomi scholar and educator Susan Dion shares her approach to learning and teaching about Indigenous histories and…

By using autobiographical narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and poetry (Leggo, 1998), we share the story of a Muslim Canadian female graduate student, as experienced by the student and her graduate supervisor. We unpack an email expressing concern, written by an Indigenous male student about the work of the Muslim female student…

In this essay Lauren Bialystok argues that the standard liberal defense of parental opt-outs is inconsistent in the case of comprehensive sex education. Using the recent controversy over a new sex education curriculum in Ontario, Canada, as a case study, Bialystok examines the aims and effects of sex education and the self-described conscience of…

Quebec's Ethics and Religious Culture program (ERC) requires teachers to adopt a professional stance of pedagogical impartiality. This article examines the complex regulatory framework surrounding the impartiality requirement from the perspectives of teachers' legally recognized right to professional autonomy, their constitutional rights to…

This article describes a study that took place in Helsinki, Finland in late 2015. A Canadian education professor conducted individual interviews with Finnish educators: six practicing teachers in Helsinki schools, two education professors at the University of Helsinki, and the advisor to the president of Finland's teachers' union. Although all…

This article reports the findings of a web-based survey of Ontario health and physical education teachers conducted in 2017. The purpose of the study was to understand teachers' views of the aims of the 2015 revised "sex ed" curriculum and the public debate that surrounded it, as well as to explore their own values around the teaching of…