Policy and Programs- Implications for Violence Prevention

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This panel explores the ways in which education policy and programs are violent and marginalize participants, including adolescents, migrant women, and racialized community members. Moving from critique to solutions, each paper includes a unique perspective on how we might shift policies to prevent violence at individual, provincial, national, and global levels. The panel is relevant to comparative and international education because it builds on and challenges existing work related to the fields of violence prevention, social justice and inclusion efforts, consent education, Indigeneity, and immigrant education. The three papers intersect through a social justice lens, as they identify challenges in contemporary education settings and theorize approaches informed by the experiences of those marginalized by harmful policymaking. The theoretical frameworks are rooted in Indigenous epistemologies, Critical Race Theory, transnational feminisms, and diaspora studies. While the types of violence addressed in each paper differ, each author advances solutions working towards ideals of togetherness, compassion, and cooperation to address social, political, and gender-based violence. Together, the papers offer possibilities for future policy changes that can have positive material impacts for stakeholders in different educational settings.

Paper 1 shares findings from a qualitative study examining the lack of effective sex and consent education in Ontario public schools, focusing specifically on consent education as a major part of sexual violence prevention. The paper theorizes how this case study might inform sex and consent education programs in international settings, and whether media literacy approaches might be effective in facilitating violence prevention programs in education.

Paper 2 explores how Indigenous pedagogical approaches and understandings of pleasure bolster sexual violence prevention and intervention efforts. Indigenous epistemologies emphasize balance, reciprocity, and relationship building. These principles are foundational to understandings of consent, yet Indigenous perspectives are lacking in both sex education and sex-education research. The paper is significant to comparative and international education as it offers new possibilities to the field of education in general, and offers a new point for transnational solidarities and conversations.

Paper 3 is a critical feminist interrogation of Canadian settlement integrations programs, drawing from policy analysis and qualitative interviews with mature Tamil-Canadian women. Immigrant women interact closely with changing settlement and integration programs yet, continue to face gendered, classed, and raced barriers to “successful integration.” This study analyses their narratives and explores settlement literature to propose how federal policy can be restructured to center successful long-term settlement supports for mature immigrant women. This case study is important to CIES as it informs more equitable immigrant education and integration policies both at a Canadian and international level.

Sub Unit

• Gender Justice SIG

Chair

• Daniella Robinson

Individual Presentations

• Gatekeeping Violence Prevention in Education: Barriers and Possibilities - Emily Alanna Moorhouse, OISE - University of Toronto

• Indigenous Epistemologies of Pleasure and Consent: Possibilities for Sex Education and Sexual Violence Prevention - Daniella Robinson

Discussant

• Nana Gulic, O.I.S.E. University of Toronto