Mobilizing Humanistic Pedagogies in Long-Term Suspension and Expulsion

• In Event: Roundtable Session 70
  In Roundtable Session: Effects of School Violence Roundtable

Abstract

This paper describes research on humanistic alternatives to reduce violence in schools. Mobilizing humanistic pedagogies interrupts the exclusionary policies and practices of Safe Schools’ legislation in Ontario. Mobilizing Humanistic Pedagogies in Long-Term Suspension & Expulsion partners university research teams with three local school boards across the Greater Toronto Area. This applied educational research reveals the marginalizing effects of work on vulnerable student populations in provincially mandated expulsion programs. Our paper describes multi-institutional partnerships, discusses preliminary findings, and opens up imaginative perspectives on collaborative work for change. Our ethnographic research supports, extends, and applies advanced knowledge on teaching and learning for violence-free schools. Building humanistic alternatives releases education from the suffocating limits of behaviourism and prevailing pedagogies of punishment and repair.

Authors

• Lisa Angela Romano-Dwyer, York University

• Alison I. Griffith, York University

• Naomi Elizabeth Nichols, York University