Setting the Context: Equity Studies in Education Graduate Programming Inside the Institution

• In Event: 31.043 - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Professors' Struggle for Equity in the Academy

Abstract

This first presentation of the session will set the context for the development of the Equity Studies graduate program at the Western Canadian University. We will identify the key challenges in developing the program in the first place, overview the curricular and pedagogical commitments to equity and decolonization, offer demographic and other contextual details, and conclude with the self study question that the core program faculty are engaged with in this process, namely: Under what conditions can equity work (work we define as: committed to decolonizing the institution; providing equal and full access to the academy for all, especially for historically marginalized peoples; and enacting educational outcomes that further a more just and equitable society) occur within an institutional framework that was never set up to support it?

We then briefly introduce the key domains in which we have attempted to make advancements towards decolonizing/ anti-oppressive practice, and describe the limits/opportunities in those efforts. This examination will reflect the complex intersections of our own positionalities and our privileges, most notably being situated within the walls of an educational ivory tower as we try to implement changes that will dismantle its walls.

We provide a brief overview of the self-study methodology which is the framework for this project, drawing on scholars such as Cochran-Smith et. al. (1999), Johnston-Parsons et. al.(2007), Knowles (2014), LaBoskey (2009), Russell (2010), and Samaras (2011). Following Cochran-Smith et. al., (1999) we suggest that “ our work together provides a 'proof of possibility' for faculty groups attempting to emphasize or infuse social justice” (p. 230). In our preliminary analysis we have identified three tensions we work/within: us – them; isolation - community; ivory tower - pavement. Each of the subsequent papers in this symposium speaks to these three tensions.

Authors

• Kumari Beck, Simon Fraser University

• Ozlem Sensoy, Simon Fraser University