This presentation will provide all those who have a vested interest in Black student achievement, with research and tangible strategies to support our learners as they grow from Kindergarten to twelfth grade. Parents, educational leaders, and post-secondary student associations would benefit from listening to how we can continue to empower Black parents to be active and influential as they guide their child through the public education system in Canada. This workshop will provide strategies to connect publicly funded elementary and high schools and community partners to assist in making schools more culturally responsive.
There is a dearth of educational leadership literature on the experiences of Canadian Black women school and system leaders. The absence of their voices in positions of leadership serves to keep invisible the ongoing systemic oppression that these leaders experience in their schools and boards. Additionally, the absence allows this oppression to evade dominant discourse on how racism and sexism operates in educational leadership in the Canadian context. Most importantly, such omissions result in systemic barriers failing to be explicitly addressed by school boards. Through an analysis of two qualitative studies with educational leaders focused on the factors contributing to the intersecting oppressions of being Black and female in education, this paper will reveal the ways in which dominant conceptualizations of educational leadership hinder opportunities for Black female educators and create challenges for aspiring leaders and those who are successfully placed in these roles.
A widely held belief is that positive black role models—mainly black male teachers—can assist black youth to achieve higher levels of education and life success. Yet, little research explores the experiences of Toronto black male teachers as both professionals and potential role models. My research examines the following: How do black male teachers in Toronto experience their education environments (e.g. students, colleagues, administrators and local communities)? How do black male teachers understand the intersection of race and masculinity in their teaching experiences? What are the perspectives of black male teachers on any existing and needed support systems in Toronto schools?
