In this edited collection, Amanda Gebhard, Sheelah McLean, and Verna St. Denis compile a breadth of examples from contemporary scholarship that deconstruct the ways in which white settler colonialism is reproduced through the roles of professionals in the "helping professions" and the systems within which these professions occupy (e.g. social work, health care, education, and criminal justice). The editors frame the discussion around what they describe as "white benevolence," a phenomenon that intersects with settler colonial logics and is upheld by "paternalistic racism that reinforces, instead of challenges, racial hierarchies" (p. 1). They conceptualize white benevolence as a characteristic of "white settler professionals who often profess to support Indigenous Peoples yet reproduce colonial narratives that uphold white supremacy" (p. 1). This timely and much-needed criticism of the ways in which education, healthcare, and criminal justice services in Canada continue to reproduce and perpetuate ongoing colonial violence imbued with anti-Indigenous racism. Drawing from contemporary scholarship, the editors set out to disrupt the colonial scripts that reproduce paternalistic relations of settlers as "helpers" and Indigenous peoples as those in need of "help," and demonstrate how these binary power relations have left helping professions and the professionals that work Book Review: Edmondson xxii Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation 45:4 (2022)www.cje-rce.ca within them unexamined and unquestioned in their attempts to "do good." This edited collection both acknowledges and attends to these often-uncontested institutions with nuance, signifying that colonial resistance is, in and of itself, an ethic of care.The editors specify that while white benevolence is reproduced by many forms of colonialism and results in colonial violence experienced by all racialized communities in Canada, white settler colonialism is the focal point of the book. They describe that white settler colonialism is distinct from other forms of colonial violence in that it is "motivated by access and control over territory, accomplished through the process of constructing white supremacy in relation to Indigenous superiority" (p. 2). In particular, the research featured in this collection is primarily situated on the Canadian prairies, a geographical location that is particularly imbued with land-based tensions that are entangled with nation-building narratives with a strong history of dispossessing Indigenous peoples, imposing health and social services as a means to control Indigenous communities (e.g. via Indian Residential Schools, Indian hospitals, etc.), but also a vibrant history of Indigenous resistance to systemic state repression. The authors featured in this collection provide razor-sharp analyses of the ways in which the concept of white benevolence manifests on the prairies, making this collection both a unique and much-needed contribution to the field of humanities and social sciences in this specific co...
This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20–36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when worldviews clash in the classroom. A dramaturgical analysis identified participant objectives, conflicts, tactics, attitudes, emotions, and subtexts as they explored how to anticipate and avoid worldview and self-esteem threat, navigate tense pedagogical spaces, build capacity for expressing uncomfortable emotions, and diffuse threat with humor. Because difficult emotions are central to teaching potentially polarizing content, participating preservice teachers explored when compensatory reactions might emerge and, as a result, developed their own emotional awareness—TMT became both an experience and a teachable theory.
The 14th Annual Graduate Student Showcase was held by the Department of Secondary and Elementary Education on April 30, 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact the way in which we gather and share our research. This year, we continued to meet in a hybrid synchronous/asynchronous space with our keynote speakers, presenters, and attendees. This format allowed for graduate students from around the world to share and participate. This year, our showcase theme, Exploring Horizons, speaks to looking forward, keeping our heads up, and navigating what lies beyond. Despite numerous challenges to this academic year, as a graduate student community, this research showcase demonstrated that graduate student research in education is attuned to the possibilities that might lie on or on the other side of the horizons. Exploring Horizons also represents an invitation to think and rethink differently and creatively. Currently, the field of education is in the midst of dealing with some serious challenges. Yet, when we simply glance at this showcase special issue, it is easy to see that our graduate students in education are rising to the occasion and exploring the horizons of educational research, ready to take on these challenges and to open new possibilities for imagining the future(s) of curriculum, pedagogy, teacher education, and educational philosophy and thought. This year’s theme of Exploring Horizons asks participants and attendees to visualize and imagine the unknown and all that becomes possible by thinking, creating, and imagining new ways of knowing and understanding. To all of our authors in this special issue, we want to thank you for putting your important work out into the world and for sharing it with others. Additionally, this special issue Exploring Horizons celebrates the diversity of our graduate student research in education. Beyond presentations from graduate students, we featured Dr. Cathryn van Kessel, a keynote speaker in the morning session and an associate professor for the Department of Secondary Education, as she shared her experiences with “Exploring Horizons” in knowledge dissemination and research mobilization. Dr. Jacqueline Filipek, an alumna of the Department of Elementary Education and assistant professor at The King’s University, shared valuable insights about the process for applying and interviewing for academic jobs in the afternoon session. She offered generous advice on how graduate students might prepare their application packages and think about potential interview processes in academia. On behalf of the EEGSA/SEGSA Graduate Student Research Showcase Committee, Katherine Koskie, Kimberly Edmondson, and Yina Liu, we wish to thank you for reading this special issue as you explore new horizons together with our authors. We hope you find your reading thought-provoking as you consider what is on the horizon of educational research.
The aim of this paper is to explore how the Alberta Social Studies 30-1 textbook, Perspectives on Ideology (Fielding et al., 2009) can contribute to orientalist discourse in its presentation of Islam, especially with respect to terrorism, extremism, and illiberalism—three concepts that appear in the Alberta Social Studies Program of Study. Using a content and discourse analysis, the study found three central findings that contributed to an orientalist framing of Islam: a lack of nuanced discussion of Islam; positioning Islam as a source of terrorism; and a lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing following injustices perpetrated towards Muslims in Canada. This study concludes by offering ways in which social studies curricular support materials may interrogate to disrupt orientalist discourse, and challenges social studies educators to critically examine the limitations of some of the most common resource materials at their disposal.
The 13th Annual Graduate Research Showcase was held by the Department of Secondary and Elementary Education Graduate Students’ Associations on May 1, 2021. As our first virtual research showcase, graduate student presenters and participants gathered in virtual spaces to celebrate and share our research, and engage in conversation with colleagues. We appreciate and are grateful for the opportunity provided by the Alberta Academic Review to publish a special issue to present the conference proceedings.
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