Transforming Civic Education Through Social Justice Organizing

• In Event: 64.061 - Immigration and Immigrants in the Trump Era

Abstract

This paper will examine how grassroots organizing can serve as a site for transforming civic and social justice education. I specifically focus on how immigrant women are organizing for social, economic and racial justice in the Jane and Finch community of Toronto, Canada. Immigrant women living in this marginalized neighbourhood have been on the forefront of advocating for minimum wage increases, housing and food security. I theorize the civic engagement of the immigrant women in this study as acts of citizenship and dissident citizenship. I argue that immigrant women organizing for social justice in the Jane and Finch community are knowledge producers who have critical insights on how to be political.

Author

• Suzanne Narain, University of Toronto