Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Work: Communicating On Difficult Knowledge In Ontario Schools, Zsofia Agoston Villalba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how K-12 teachers in Ontario navigate the complexities of teaching "difficult knowledge"—topics such as racial and ethnic injustices, Indigenous perspectives, immigration experiences, and gender issues—within the parameters of the school and the curriculum. Utilizing an institutional ethnography approach, the study examines the curriculum as an institutional text that coordinates and shapes teachers’ practices. Working with and against the curriculum, teachers find innovative ways to engage their students on difficult knowledge topics. Based on interviews with 12 K-12 teachers, this research explores teachers’ work and pedagogical approaches. They employ diverse teaching methods like storytelling, open dialogues, and collaborative …

Utilizing "Third Space" To Support Students With Refugee Backgrounds, Susie Redecop

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This infographic provides a snapshot of my research on third space theory and provides examples of how it can be used in the classroom to support students with refugee backgrounds. If home is a child’s first space and school is a second space, a third space is an environment where these two spheres merge. Third spaces interrupt cultural essentialism and create new opportunities for understanding, collaboration and harmony (Lotherington, 2013). Teachers can use third space theory to combine culture and curriculum to make learning meaningful and accessible for all learners.

Music Education In A Liquid Social World: The Nuances Of Teaching With Students Of Immigrant And Refugee Backgrounds, Gabriela Ocádiz Velázquez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This integrated-article dissertation explores the multiple ways in which music teachers, community facilitators, and students engage in music teaching and learning in social contexts prone to change due to human mobility. Drawing upon Bauman’s sociological understanding of modern societies as liquid and the larger implications of processes of human mobility in schools and communities, this research focuses on exploring music education as it happens within an increasingly diversifying Canadian society.

In the first article, a philosophical research study, I conceptualize the notion of coping with discomfort as a form of response possibly experienced by music teachers. Here, I draw from …

Media Literacy And The English As A Second Language Curriculum: A Curricular Critique And Dreams For The Future, Clara R. Madrenas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis investigates whether or not the Ontario English as a Second Language/English Literacy Development (ESL/ELD) curriculum imparts the critical literacy skills necessary for students to deconstruct the multimedia messages with which the contemporary world is saturated, in order to function as informed, agentic citizens of Ontario society. Using foundations of cultural theory, radical critical pedagogy, and critical race theory, particularly the work of James Paul Gee, Henry A. Giroux, Paulo Freire and Michael Apple, this thesis explores the ways in which the current ESL/ELD curriculum can be found lacking due to its enforcement of the banking model of education, …