Same Arguments, Different Outcomes: Faith-Based Organizations' Advocacy for Private School Funding in Alberta and Ontario

• In Event: Expanding Public Funds and Advocacy for Religious Schools via School Choice: Cultivating or Curtailing Equity?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a critical policy study (Young & Diem, 2018) of long-standing debates over public funding of private schools in Alberta and Ontario, Canada. In particular, it focuses on the advocacy efforts of faith-based organizations in the two provinces since the 1960s.

The study was grounded in argumentative discourse theory (Hajer, 1997). This theory explains that people draw upon various discourses to give meaning to social phenomena. They mobilize their understandings through storylines: concise statements that simplify complex narratives about what the world is and should be like. Actors engaging the same storylines in policy debates form discourse coalitions (Hajer, 1993) even if they do not know one another, share interests, or act in coordination. Argumentative discourse theory acknowledges that socio-historical structures and discourses constrain and enable actors.

Adopting a comparative case study design (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2016), the study used argumentative discourse analysis (Hajer, 2006) to answer three research questions: 1) What are the storylines mobilized in debates over public funding of private schools in Alberta and Ontario (1960-2020) and who are the actors who mobilized them?; 2) What storylines are dominant and how have they retained their dominance over time; 3) and Why have the outcomes of the debates about schools in Alberta and Ontario varied? Data sources included interviews with policy advocates, news reports, academic articles, legislation and other government documents, and texts produced by advocacy organizations. Open-coding was used to identify and group arguments in support of and in opposition to public funding of private schools. Arguments drawing on the same discourses were then fit together to create storylines, and actors mobilizing complementary storylines were grouped into discourse coalitions. Finally, academic articles and books detailing the changing cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts of Alberta and Ontario in Canada, as well as other western, English-speaking countries since the 1950s, were examined to help explain variations in the debates and outcomes in the two Canadian cases.

The findings reveal that faith-based organizations in both provinces have mobilized the same storylines in debates over public funding of private schools (i.e., the policy promotes fairness between schools of different kinds and ensures that children can be educated as desired by their parents) and formed discourse coalitions with advocates who desired the policy for different reasons (e.g., will address failures of public schools). In Alberta, the publicly-fund-private-schools discourse coalition has been dominant since 1967, whereas in Ontario the public-funds-are-for-public-schools discourse coalition is dominant. This difference between the two provinces is attributed in part to disparities in support by the private sector and for privatization, a political need to appease religious rural constituents, historical immigration patterns, and the influence of teacher unions.

The findings are significant because they demonstrate that religious groups have long been involved in school choice efforts – and in Alberta, encouraged charter schools and alternative programs in public schools. Also, the findings can inform debates about implications of school choice policies for equity and inclusion.

Author

• Sue Winton, York University