Beyond Rhetoric: How Context Influences Education Policy Advocates’ Success

This article discusses findings from a study of a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario by the advocacy organization People for Education (P4E) and explains how dominant discourses enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved. Based on a rhetorical analysis of 58 documents, the article identifies strategies used by P4E to persuade Ontario’s government and citizens to view students’ uneven access to educational assessments as a problem. Further, since this problem differently impacts children by class and geographical location, it perpetuates inequities. Despite using strategies deemed effective in other change efforts, arguments mobilized by P4E have not been persuasive in a neoliberal context that champions responsibilized individualism, meritocracy, human capital development, and reduced funding of public services

The Impossibility of Sex Education: A Psychosocial Study of Parent Involvement in Policy Controversies

In recent years, many impassioned debates regarding educational policy have pitted parents against the public education system and have thrown questions of parental and state responsibility for childrens education into the media spotlight, particularly in relation to issues of sexuality. This dissertation investigates the emotional aspects of these debates by taking an approach to educational policy research that is informed by psychoanalytic theory. Working across the three fields of psychosocial, critical policy, and sexuality studies in education, I highlight the ways that the participation of parents as policy actors in two Canadian educational policy debates is influenced by their own histories of development, education, and sexuality. The first policy controversy I focus on took place in Alberta in 2012, when the government tried to pass a new Education Act that included a provision stating that educational programs of study needed to be in alignment with existing human rights legislation. The second policy controversy took place in Ontario between 2015 and 2019, when a new Health and Physical Education curriculum was introduced and then withdrawn from the provinces schools. Employing a psychosocial methodology, I analyze print and online media coverage of both controversies alongside in-depth interviews with two parents who participated in the Alberta policy case and three parents who participated in the Ontario case. My analysis of the significance of emotional dynamics throughout the data proposes that parents use defence mechanisms such as splitting to contend with the ethical and affective complexities of discharging their responsibilities of care to their children while having to share educational authority with the government. The emotional intensity circulating through these two controversies suggests the difficulty of confronting the failures and limitations inherent in projects of parenting, governance, and education

Education Research in the Canadian Context

This special issue of the International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership (IJEPL), Research in the Canadian Context, marks a significant milestone for the journal. Throughout our twelve-year history, we have sought to publish the best research in leadership, policy, and research use, allowing authors to decide the topics by dint of their research. While this model still serves as the foundation for IJEPL content, we decided to give researchers a chance to engage in deeper conversations by introducing special issues. In our first special issue, researchers discuss their work within the scope of education policy, leadership, and research use within the Canadian context. While many aspects of leadership, teaching, and learning can be seen as similar across contexts, there are also issues of particular concern within national, regional, provincial, or local spheres, particularly when looking at policy and system changes. The researchers featured in this issue provide an important look into education in Canada.PolicyIn the policy realm, Sue Winton and Lauren Jervis examine a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario, examining how discourses dominant in the province enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved for decades. Issues of access and equity play out within a neoliberal context focused on individualism, meritocracy, and the reduced funding of public services. While Winton and Jervis highlight the tension between policy goals and ideological contexts, Jean-Vianney Auclair considers the place of policy dialogues within governmental frames, and the challenge of engaging in broadly applicable work within vertically structured governmental agencies. One often-touted way to move beyondResearch useWithin the scope of research use, Sarah L. Patten examines how socioeconomic status (SES) is defined and measured in Canada, the challenges in defining SES, and potential solutions specific to the Canadian context. In looking at knowledge mobilization, Joelle Rodway considers how formal coaches and informal social networks nserve to connect research, policy, and practice in Ontario’s Child and Youth Mental Health program.LeadershipTurning to leadership, contributing researchers explored the challenges involved in staff development, administrator preparation, and student outcomes. Keith Walker and Benjamin Kutsyuruba explore how educational administrators can support early career teachers to increase retention, and the somewhat haphazard policies and supports in place across Canada to bring administrators and new teachers together. Gregory Rodney MacKinnon, David Young, Sophie Paish, and Sue LeBel look at how one program in Nova Scotia conceptualizes professional growth, instructional leadership, and administrative effectiveness and the emerging needs of administrators to respond to issues of poverty, socioemotional health, and mental health, while also building community. This complex environment may mean expanding leadership preparation to include a broader consideration of well-being and community. Finally, Victoria Handford and Kenneth Leithwood look at the role school leaders play in improving student achievement in British Columbia, and the school district characteristics associated with improving student achievement.Taken together, the research in this special issue touches on many of the challenges in policy development, application, and leadership practice, and the myriad ways that research can be used to address these challenges. We hope you enjoy this first special issue of IJEPL

Childhood in Action: A Study of Natality's Relationship to Societal Change in Never Let Me Go

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