Creating the Conditions for Pedagogy in Urban District School Boards

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Districts in Research & Reform Roundtable

Abstract

This international study documents a successful urban district reform for equity in Canada’s largest, urban school district in a centralized, provincial education system. The Model Schools for Inner Cities (MSIC) Program serves over one quarter of the schools in the Toronto District School Board whose students face the greatest barriers to success, namely family income. Analyzing two sets of sixteen interviews and twelve program documents using critical discourse analysis, this study explores how the MSIC Program was initiated and sustained between 2004 – 2014. Findings suggests that equity reforms in urban districts must first attend to creating the necessary conditions for pedagogy by addressing ideological differences in understandings of equity, generating and sustaining political will, and developing leadership for social justice.

Author

• Vidya Shah, York University