In Canada's increasingly multicultural society, a common understanding of the basic rights of individuals with disabilities in educational and workplace settings is essential for educators to provide appropriate programs and inclusive opportunities. This paper will describe a three-year project that the Faculty of Education at Brock University has begun with six other international post-secondary institutions in an attempt to cross cultural barriers in the field of advocacy for persons with disabilities. Over the course of two years, 40 Canadian students and 30 European students will be involved in an international course and internship experience. This is intended to be an experientially-based, intensive immersion experience in disabilities instruction. It is expected that the participants will begin to view disability from a human rights perspective and to return home with the cultural knowledge and understanding of disability needed to promote a more inclusive society.
Language rights embedded in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Department of Justice, 1982) and implemented in the provincial education system have allowed parents to choose French language schools over their English alternative. But creation established by law does not fully protect the continuation of such a school. The image that it presents to its school community and the wider community within which it sits is equally important because it establishes economic, as well as legal, viability. This paper addresses the marketing that a legally mandated minority-language school in Canada developed in order to foster survival in its own particular cultural and educational community. The relationship between school, parents and public at large is analyzed to illustrate the balance that the school maintained between inclusiveness and exclusivity. Document analysis, interviews and observation, as part of a larger case study, revealed the creation of an image that addressed several different parent stakeholder groups simultaneously. This paper reports the explicit and implicit messages that a school sends its community, while it adapts to suit client needs in a legal environment of growing school choice.
This article looks at a year in the life of a special education teacher. The author reflects on her debut as an inclusion specialist in 1996 and gives an in-depth study of how her training, previous experience and approach to teaching was put to the test in a new educational environment. This piece explores the challenges that resource teachers and other special educators may face in the light of recent policies regarding inclusion. The inclusion specialist is required to be a teacher, manager, liaison, trainer and more, as she/he learns to get the maximum from students and co-workers in what is often an already strained workplace. Personal narrative is tied to the literature and, through hindsight, the author relates the change that took place as experience was melded with study and reflection. The result is a portrayal of how a change of policy can affect an individual teacher and researcher, as well as a whole school, and provides an uncommon research approach to the field of research into inclusivity.
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