Ignoring race: a comparative analysis of education policy in British Columbia and Ontario

ABSTRACT

Racial equity in Canadian education remains elusive. Despite Canada’s status as a multicultural nation, many minority students continue to be marginalised. In this article, we compare equity-related education policy in two Canadian provinces – Ontario and British Columbia – to ascertain how race and racialized students are understood in official documents. After reviewing provincial policy contexts from the early 1990s onward, we discuss the results of a content analysis of provincial education policy documents using Critical Policy Analysis and Critical Race Theory. We argue that the treatment of race and equity in these documents demonstrates ‘symbolic anti-racism,’ rather than substantive anti-racism, in three key ways: 1) the lack of robust education policy related to racial equity; 2) the construction of racism as an individual characteristic rather than a structural problem in the education system; and 3) the near-absence of race-related data collection. Policy recommendations follow based on these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• education policy
• racial equity
• critical race theory
• British Columbia
• Ontario

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For example, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988), and the Employment Equity Act (1986). See Dewing (2013) for a full chronology of Canadian federal policy related to multiculturalism.

2. ‘Visible minority’ is a uniquely Canadian term used in policy and the national census. It is defined as, ‘persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’ (StatCan 2016b; Li 2003).

3. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/administration/legislation-policy/public-schools/diversity-in-bc-schools.

4. A Neo-conservative approach to governing, with an emphasis on reducing bureaucracy, cutting spending, lowering taxes and balancing the provincial budget.

5. East Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, etc. (StatCan 2013a).

6. In Ontario, the equivalents to BC’s English Language Learners (ELL) category are referred to as English as Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) (Ontario MOE 2017b).

7. English Language Learners ESL And ELD Programs And Services: Policies and Procedures for Ontario Elementary and Secondary Schools, Kindergarten to Grade 12 (Ontario MOE 2007).

8. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/administration/legislation-policy/public-schools/diversity-in-bc-schools.

9. While there were some mentions of permanence (Coteau 2017), specific and publically available information regarding this was not available at the time of writing.

10. The NDP have recently pledged to reinstate the Human Rights Commission and has begun consultation, with the appropriate legislation expected to be tabled in 2018 (Hernandez 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-14-1274].