The Province of Ontario welcomes the largest population of high school Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SILFE students) in Canada to its secondary schools. Many of these students arrive late in age with significant academic gaps and face many barriers to reaching their post-secondary goals in Canada. Literature has identified…

Schools, as social systems, may knowingly or unintentionally perpetuate inequities through unchallenged oppressive systems. This paper focuses on mathematics as a subject area in school practices in which inequities seem to be considered normal. Issues of racism and racialization in the discipline of mathematics are predominantly lived through the…

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,…

Despite widespread discussion in the United States, up until now there has not been a review of the demographic and contextual factors associated with Canadian academic achievement. Using Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework, a scoping review was conducted to answer two questions: What demographic and contextual factors are most commonly used in…

International achievement measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have traditionally reported a significant gap between non-migrant and immigrant student groups--a result that is often referred to as the "immigrant performance disadvantage". This article examines first- and second-generation immigrant…

In this paper we perform a critical discourse analysis on the policy document Ontario's Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy (2009). We examine the three core priorities the policy outlines: improve student achievement, reduce achievement gap and increase public confidence in public education. This document is approached from the context of new…

Leadership is a highly complex activity, as leaders respond to increasing diversity and external accountability. Additionally, there is increased recognition that leadership is deeply contextual, sensitive to macro-politics of systems and micro-politics of individual schools. In Ontario, Canada, the school improvement effort is focused on raising…

Policymakers worldwide are trying to figure how best to organize, govern, and support their education systems. They must manage multiple goals, such as workforce development, nurturing knowledgeable citizens, and ensuring educational opportunity. Some countries approach these issues with a public investment in teacher professionalization and a…

Aboriginal people in Canada want an education that reflects their cultural values and linguistic heritages. They want an education that will foster their children's sense of engagement and identity, putting them on the path to success. When students enter public school systems, however, they encounter curriculums and pedagogies that marginalize…

In this paper, we undertake a particular policy critique and analysis of the gender achievement gap discourse in Ontario and Canada, and situate it within the context of what has been termed "the governance turn" in educational policy with its focus on policy as numbers and its multi-scalar manifestations. We show how this "gap…

In this paper, we provide a particular critique of policy-making processes related to addressing the gender achievement gap in the Ontario context. The focus is on tracing the effects of a neoliberal regime of accountability in terms of the designation of boys as a disadvantaged group alongside other minority groups who have historically faced…

The issue of the "boy gap" or "boy crisis" in education has been the subject of increasing attention across a number of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Given the importance of this issue and the need to better understand the situation in boys' education, this report draws on material and…

Although a positive relationship between socio-economic status and academic achievement is well-established, how it varies with age is not. This article uses four data points from Canada's National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to examine how the academic achievement gap attributed to SES changes from childhood to adolescence…

There is a crisis relevant to the publicly funded education of Aboriginal students in Ontario. This article, which presents the details of the crisis, analyzes recent policy statements released by the Ontario Ministry of Education designed to address that crisis. By defining the nature of this critical juncture, presenting how these policies may…

Education plays an essential role in preparing the children of immigrants for participation in the labour market and society. Giving these children opportunities to fully develop their potential is vital for future economic growth and social cohesion in OECD countries. But migrant students in most OECD countries tend to have lower education…