Carl E. James

“We’re here because we’re Black”: the schooling experiences of French-speaking African-Canadian students with refugee backgrounds

This article discusses the educational experiences of a group of French-speaking Black African-born students who entered Canada as refugees. They were attending a French school and were placed in a separate programme that was designed to meet their particular needs given their limited language skills and level of education. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT), the article analyzes how these students’ identities operated in linking their academic abilities and particular life experiences in terms of race, gender, class, language, and immigrant status. The youth identified their separate programme as a problem in that their placement in it has to do with the fact that they are Black. The study provides important insights into the ways students with refugee backgrounds are being integrated into Canadian schools; and that, in some cases, the approach to their education operates to stream them along the lines of ethnicity, race, and life experience – the consequence of which is likely limited educational, occupational and social outcomes.

Urban education: an approach to community‐based education

This paper discusses a teacher education course—‘Urban Education’—which engaged teacher‐candidates in critical reflections on their roles as teachers, their perceptions of the students they teach, and their preconceived ideas of the community in which the students reside. The paper discusses the content and activities of the course, then focuses on the reflections of four teacher‐candidates in relation to the course and their experiences teaching in the ‘inner city’ community. Their reflections indicate that the course helped to educate them in the principles and pedagogies of equitable and inclusive education which is responsive to the needs and interests of their students and takes into account the communities in which students live.This paper discusses a teacher education course—‘Urban Education’—which engaged teacher‐candidates in critical reflections on their roles as teachers, their perceptions of the students they teach, and their preconceived ideas of the community in which the students reside. The paper discusses the content and activities of the course, then focuses on the reflections of four teacher‐candidates in relation to the course and their experiences teaching in the ‘inner city’ community. Their reflections indicate that the course helped to educate them in the principles and pedagogies of equitable and inclusive education which is responsive to the needs and interests of their students and takes into account the communities in which students live.

Schooling, Basketball and US Scholarship Aspirations of Canadian Student Athletes

This article examines the commonly expressed ambition of Black/African Canadian youth, particularly male student athletes, to win athletic scholarships to Ameri can universities. In addition, it seeks to establish why, in the face of low odds and intense competition with their US counterparts, African Canadian student athletes think that it is possible for them to win scholarships and realise these aspirations. To explore this and other questions, the author talked with a group of five Black/African Canadian male high school basketball players who attended schools in a suburban area outside of metropolitan Toronto and who, with one exception, aspired to win basketball scholarships to study at universities and colleges in the USA. The participants in this study used strategies such as attending the right schools, endeavouring to play on winning basketball teams, and seeking exposure to college and university coaches to ensure that their dreams are realised. It is argued that the experiences of these students, and the strategies they use to navigate and negotiate school in order to realise their goals, are informed by the Canadian multiculturalism discourse which operates to construct Black youth as good athletes. This construction is evident in the subculture of these youth, in that; they have come to think of their athletic abilities and skills as signifiers of blackness and masculinity, as well as the means through which they can expect to achieve their educational and career goals.

Mainstreaming and marginalization: two national strategies in the circumscription of difference

Abstract This article explores the social and historical contexts of recent curricular initiatives in multicultural education in the USA and Canada, giving special attention to the formative narratives that propelled multicultural education to the center of debates on public schooling. In the USA, debate about cultural diversity has been framed and interpreted within the framework of a larger discussion of goals associated with a set of efforts, begun in the 1980s, to reform American elementary and secondary education; multicultural education developed as a curricular response to the advocacy of groups on the fringes of the school reform movement. In Canada, multicultural education is a part of the official fabric of Canadian society, and extension of the state ideology concerning multiculturalism.

Race, racialization and Indigeneity in Canadian universities

Abstract This article is based on data from a four-year national study of racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian universities. Its main conclusion is that whether one examines representation in terms of numbers of racialized and Indigenous faculty members and their positioning within the system, their earned income as compared to white faculty, their daily life experiences within the university as workplace, or interactions with colleagues and students, the results are more or less the same. Racialized and Indigenous faculty and the disciplines or areas of their expertise are, on the whole, low in numbers and even lower in terms of power, prestige, and influence within the University.

Community Policing—A Shared Responsibility: A Voice-Centered Relational Method Analysis of a Police/Youth-of-Color Dialogue

Racial discrimination in policing and its effect on police/minority youth relations were explored in a federally funded Canadian race relations initiative, using semistructured dialogue and voice-centered relational data analysis. Participants were frontline police officers and male youth of color. For enhancing communication between the groups, findings emphasized ongoing, face-to-face interaction. Substantial related concerns were the need for trust, respect, self-preservation, information sharing, and improved police/minority youth relations. These were understood and highlighted as embedded within a system of ruling relations in the participants’ sociocultural context. Implications of these issues for police relations with racialized youth and their communities are discussed.

Schooling and the University Plans of Immigrant Black Students from an Urban Neighborhood

It is generally accepted that social class together with factors such as race, ethnicity, and generation status (i.e., immigrant, first, second, or third generation) of students affect their schooling experiences and educational outcomes. In fact, the social-class backgrounds of students, in terms of family income and parental education, play a significant role in determining the neighborhood in which they reside, the school they attend, and educational resources to which they have access (Brantlinger, 2003; Finn, 1999; Frenette, 2007; Lareau, 2002; Lopez, 2002; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1998; Weis & Fine 2005). While middle-class students are more likely to do well in the middle-class school system of North American societies; in many cases, working-class students, especially those of immigrant backgrounds, struggle to do the same. However, there are some cases of students with immigrant parents who, despite the social and cultural differences that exist between them and the school system, capably negotiate the school system to attain their educational goals and those of their parents (Anisef, Axelrod, Baichman, James, & Turrittin, 2000; Boyd, 2002; Fuligni, 1998; James & Haig-Brown, 2001; Louie, 2001; Portes & Macleod, 1999; Rong, & Brown, 2001). In this chapter, I focus on the schooling situation and experiences of working-class students of immigrant parents, noting the complex and diverse ways in which social class combines with other factors to affect their educational aspirations and attainments.

Strategies of Engagement: How Racialized Faculty Negotiate the University System

The demands of the academic profession and the ways that universities are increasingly shaped by the neoliberal ideologies of competitiveness, individualism, and conformity, influence how racialized faculty perceive their experiences within universities and position themselves to effectively navigate and/or resist the assimilating terrain. The findings from an analysis of approximately eighty-nine interviews with racialized faculty members in universities across Canada indicate that racialized faculty members employ three strategic tendencies—compliance, pragmatism, and critical participation—to maintain their presence in their universities and assert their role as professors, and, in so doing, conform to, resist, and/or transform the institution. Les exigences de la carrière universitaire et l’orientation des universités de plus en plus marquée par les idéologies libérales de compétitivité, d’individualisme et de conformité, influencent la manière dont le corps professoral racialisé perçoit son expérience au sein de son institution et se positionne afin de louvoyer avec quelque efficacité et/ou de résister à ce terrain assimilateur. Les résultats de l’analyse d’environ quatre-vingt-neuf entrevues avec ses membres partout au Canada indiquent qu’ils suivent stratégiquement trois tendances – soumission, pragmatisme et participation critique – pour maintenir leur présence dans leurs établissements et affirmer leur rôle de professeurs ainsi que, ce faisant, se conformer à l’institution, y résister et/ou la transformer.

Alternative Schooling and Black Students: Opportunities, Challenges, and Limitations

Given the troubling dropout rates, levels of disengagement, and academic achievement of Black students in Ontario’s Greater Toronto Area, James and Samaroo use the Africentric Alternative School (AAS) in Toronto to explore: What must be done differently (cultural, social, and educational adjustments) if alternative schools are to be responsive to the needs, issues, and concerns of Black students and parents? The chapter includes a brief overview of alternative schooling and the schooling of Black students in Ontario, and concludes with a discussion, framed by critical race theory, on the implications of alternative schooling for Black students. The authors highlight: opportunities to foster a positive Black identity, institutional challenges faced by the AAS, limitations of Africentricity, and the influence of a neoliberal ethos of color blindness.

The Schooling of Marginalized Students in Urban Canada: Programs, Curricula, and Pedagogies

Employing a critical education framework, Carl James discusses the theories, programs, and practices of Canadian educators in their attempts to be responsive to the needs, interests, and aspirations of their culturally diverse student population. He traces the movement from multiculturalism to antiracism to culturally responsive and relevant pedagogical approaches to education, noting the challenges, limitations, opportunities, and possibilities that mediate attempts to provide inclusive and equitable schooling to students residing in urban and “suburban” contexts. Readers are introduced to the “community-referenced” approach to education (CRAE) which is based on equitable, democratic, and inclusive practices to enhance school effectiveness, student participation, and parental and community engagement. James describes how this approach to schooling might better facilitate and provide a more effective culturally relevant and responsive teaching/learning.