Using data from the Toronto District School Board, we examine the postsecondary pathways of students with special education needs (SEN). We consider both university and college pathways, employing multilevel multinomial logistic regressions, conceptualizing our findings within a life course and intersectionality framework. Our findings reveal that having SEN reduces the likelihood of confirming university, but increases the likelihood of college confirmation. We examine a set of known determinants of postsecondary education (PSE) pathways that were derived from the literature and employ exploratory statistical interactions to examine if the intersection of various traits differentially impacts upon the PSE trajectories of students with SEN. Our findings reveal that parental education, neighborhood wealth, race, and streaming impact on the postsecondary pathways of students with SEN in Toronto.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed social organizations and altered children’s worlds. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study of the institutional organization of disabled children’s lives, since March 2020 we have conducted interviews with families in rural and urban communities across Canada (65 families at the time of writing). The narrow focus of governments on the economy, childcare, and schooling does not reflect the scope of experiences of families and disabled children. We describe emerging findings about what the effects of the pandemic closures demonstrate about the social valuing of childhood, disability, and diverse family lives in early childhood education and care. Our research makes the case that ableism, exclusion, and procedural bias are the products of cumulative experiences across institutional sites and that it is critical we understand disabled childhoods more broadly if we are to return to more inclusive early childhood education and care.

This study examines transitions to school from the standpoint of the work of families. We identify systemic differences constructed through state responses to childhood disability. Based on data from a longitudinal institutional ethnography conducted in Ontario, Canada, these differences illuminate the ways in which ability and disability are constructed in early childhood, and how these constructs are reinforced through procedures, policies, and documentation. Ultimately, we identify five key phenomena in the study: implicit messages of exclusion, the work of families, the supremacy of labels, a fallacy of choice, and the flexibility of institutions to adapt for children. These findings are taken up in the context of broader discourses of school readiness and transition to school with the intention of expanding our conversation about transitions.

The reporting of students’ Learning Skills on the Ontario provincial report card provides educators and families with insight into students’ work habits. However, the evaluation process is highly subjective. This study explores teachers’ perceptions around student learning across demographic and institutional factors. This exploratory study is the first of its kind in Canada and draws data from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the nation’s largest public board of education, serving approximately 246,000 students (2017-2018 data). Holding achievement as an independent variable, results indicate widespread differences in teachers’ perceptions across student demographic identities and reveals significant implications on postsecondary access.

In this article we describe the ways that academic opportunity is distributed within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Canada’s largest and most demographically diverse public education system. By putting a range of recent outcome data into historical, organizational, and policy contexts, we provide a snapshot of how one of North America's largest school systems works in ways that simultaneously reinforce, and challenge, patterns of academic stratification. Although schooling in some global cities is shaped by decentralization, competition, and a 'school reform industry', public education in Toronto is very much characterized by centralization and increased public investment. Therefore, this paper queries whether these larger historical and structural factors lead to greater equity for racialized and minoritized communities. Through the infusion of equity-focused policies and anti-discrimination-centred interventions, can the case be made that marginalized groups are navigating the school system with greater success? Reviewing historical and recent data from the Toronto Board of Education and TDSB, we reflect on and query the extent of disparity that continues to exist, problematizing the disconnect between policy and addressing the root causes of inequality.

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Special education is an approach to schooling that draws significant critique. Scholars often identify special education as a system vulnerable to and complicit in racial, class, and disability segregation, particularly segregation enacted and rationalized through the structural organization of schools and programs. Employing data from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Canada’s largest public education system, this article highlights key policy decisions around special education. Controlling for achievement, results reveal significant disparities in access to secondary programming critical to postsecondary education.