OPEN FI LE

Racial and ethnic diversity in schools: The case of English

Canada
Diane Gerin-Lajoie
Published online: 8 June 2012
UNESCO IBE 2012
Abstract In recent decades, schools located in English Canada have experienced
important demographic changes in their student population. This article examines the
racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity in these schools, through the discourses of
those who spend the most time with the students: teachers and principals. Here, the concept
of discourse is understood as a way of framing the world; it is far more than a simple tool
for communicating with others. Since education operates under provincial and territorial
jurisdiction in Canada, these discourses are examined in the context of provincial school
policies that specically address the issue of diversity among students. Using qualitative
data collected in a national study completed in 2007, the analysis shows how teachers and/
or principals make sense of this changed reality in their schools and its impact on their
daily work.
Keywords Racial and ethnic diversity Canada Multicultural education
In Canada, racial and ethnic diversity has been the reality for decades. Canadas three
major metropolitan areasMontreal, Toronto, and Vancouverhost considerable num-
bers of newcomers every year. According to the 2006 census, these three areas combined
received 68.9 % of the immigrant population coming to Canada. In the metropolitan areas
of Montreal and Toronto, a majority of the newcomers settled rst in the core cities of
Montreal (76.3 %) and Toronto (59.8 %). The situation in Metropolitan Vancouver was
slightly different: 74.7 % of newcomers settled in a more dispersed pattern across four
municipalities, those of Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, and Surrey.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, in response to an already increasingly diverse racial
and ethnic population, schools needed to adapt to the changing social context of the
communities that they serve. As the late Canadian sociologist Helen Harper (1997) pointed
My sincere thanks go to my colleague and friend Stephen Anderson for his invaluable comments on the rst
and second versions of this article.
D. Gerin-Lajoie (&)
OISE, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada
e-mail: diane.gerin.lajoie@utoronto.ca
1 3
Prospects (2012) 42:205220
DOI 10.1007/s11125-012-9231-0
out, schools are expected to meet the needs of a population that is racially, culturally and
linguistically diverse, to confront gender, racial and economic disparity and discrimina-
tion (p. 192). Administrators in the Canadian school system took multiple measures to
accommodate immigrant students and to integrate them into the public schools. Now in the
early twenty-rst century, after more than 30 years of the school system adapting to an
increasing racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, how do teachers and principals com-
prehend the classroom reality? What do they say about students racial and ethnic diversity
in English Canadian schools? In this article, I discuss ndings from a pan-Canadian
investigation on the evolution of Canadian school personnel through school reforms. A
section of this study examines teachers and principals discourses about racial and ethnic
diversity in their schools. In particular, I examine how Canadian school personnel make
sense of the racial, ethnic, and linguistic reality of the classroom, and most importantly,
how these teachers and principals think this diversity impacts their work on a daily basis.
(Note that here I do not address the discourse of those teachers and principals working in
the French-speaking province of Quebec).
Since education operates under provincial and territorial jurisdiction in Canada, I
examine these discourses in the context of provincial school policies that specically
address the issue of diversity among students. I use a notion of discourse that extends
beyond simple talking and speaking practices. Social reality is always shaped by dis-
courses that in turn come to inuence individuals social interactions (Gerin-Lajoie 2008).
In choosing to work from the notion of discourse, I have tried to avoid the use of a
positivist framework that tends to emphasize notions of attitudes and measures when
looking at the ways teachers and principals make sense of their work. I hold that the
working experiences as described by school personnel cannot be discussed within a pre-
scriptive framework that does not allow for a thorough analysis of individual views on
students diversity. To illustrate how contemporary Canadian teachers and principals
comprehend diversity in their schools, I use results from a 5-year (20022007) pan-
Canadian study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC) through its Major Collaborative Research Initiatives programme.
Context
Before focusing explicitly on schools and diversity in English Canada, it is important to
describe how Canadas federal government began, over four decades ago, to respond to issues
of growing diversity as a result of changing immigration policies and demographic patterns; it
introduced multiculturalism well before any of the provinces or territories. Canada has long
been recognized as a country of immigrants, but in the years just after World War II, it
witnessed a signicant increase. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Canada became more and
more racially and ethnically diverse, initially because of an inux of immigrants fromEurope,
and later after relaxed immigration laws opened the door to non-European newcomers from
developing world countries that contributed to growth in racial and linguistic diversity. Gosh
(2011) points out that Whereas in 1971, about 62 % immigrants came from Europe, in 2006
as much as 58 % immigrants came from Asia (including the middle East) (p. 5).
At the same time, the country was going through challenging political times, due in part
to the rise of nationalism in Quebec, through a political movement referred to as the Quiet
Revolution. That movement embodied the desire among Quebecs Francophone majority
to assert political and economic control over its own destiny, and to become matres chez-
nous (masters in our own house). To address the concerns voiced by Francophones in
206 D. Gerin-Lajoie
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Quebec, the federal Liberal government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau set up the Royal Com-
mission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism at the end of the 1960s. Its mandate was to look
into linguistic and cultural issues in the country. However, the discussions held in the
public hearing sessions, or audiences, went beyond the relationships between Quebec and
English Canada. The Commissions recommendations resulted in a federal policy on
ofcial bilingualism in Canada that excluded any reference to biculturalism. However,
people with origins other than French or English who took part in the audiences became
increasingly vocal about the fact that other cultures played roles in the Canadian mosaic,
roles that also deserved recognition. As a result, a recommendation was made to
acknowledge and support the presence of all cultures within Canadian society.
In 1971, the federal government announced its policy of multiculturalism within a
bilingual framework; it soon became the rst country in the world to adopt an ofcial
policy on multiculturalism, called the Multiculturalism Policy of Canada (Ministry of
Justice 1971). Through these actions, the federal government recognized the value of all
Canadian citizens regardless of their racial or ethnic background, their language, or their
religion. It also recognized the rights of Aboriginal peoples and the status of our two
ofcial languages, English and French. The 1971 policy contained four themes. The federal
government would: (1) assist cultural groups in retaining and fostering their identity; (2)
assist members of all cultural groups to overcome cultural barriers to full participation in
Canadian society; (3) promote creative encounters and interchange among all Canadian
cultural groups in the interest of national unity; and (4) continue to assist immigrants to
acquire at least one of the two ofcial languages.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the federal policy position evolved largely because of
difculties encountered in the area of race relations. With an increasing number of non-White
immigrants, racism became more overt. Anti-discrimination programmes were soon intro-
duced. In 1982, multiculturalism was included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Free-
doms (Section 27). In 1988, the policy on multiculturalism became a federal law. The
Canadian Multicultural Act (Bill C-93) reafrmed multiculturalismas a basic characteristic of
the Canadian society. The ofcial discourse was still about cultural retention (as in the policy
of 1971), but an additional dimensionsocial equalitywas incorporated into the law.
The 1971 policy on multiculturalism was under federal jurisdiction. Over the next two
decades, the governments of Canadas 10 provinces and 3 territories developed their own
provincial or territorial policies in response to the increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic
heterogeneity in their respective contexts. In 1974, Saskatchewan became the rst province
to adopt legislation on multiculturalism, with the Saskatchewan Multiculturalism Act; in
1997, a new Act was passed in response to issues of social justice such as racism and
discrimination. In 1984, Manitoba adopted the Manitoba Intercultural Council Act. The same
year, Albertas Cultural Heritage Act came into effect, to be superseded in 1996 by the
Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act. In Ontario, an ofcial multicultural
policy was adopted in 1977, which became law in 1982. In Quebec, policy makers chose to
speak in terms of interculturalism, rather than multiculturalism, placing greater emphasis on
intercultural communication and relations than on cultural retention. The government of
Quebec rst adopted an ofcial policy in 1981. In Nova Scotia, the Act to Promote and
Preserve Multiculturalism was promulgated in 1989. New Brunswick introduced its policy
on multiculturalism in 1986. In Prince Edward Island, a multiculturalism policy was adopted
in 1988. The province of British Columbia adopted its Multiculturalism Act in 1993. As of
today, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has yet to adopt a formal multicultur-
alism policy, though the governments position has been vetted in a discussion paper that
addresses the issue of diversity and how public institutions should respond.
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 207
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In Canada, the area of education is under provincial and territorial jurisdiction.
Throughout the country, some local school board and district authorities made efforts to
adopt and implement policies specically focused on growing ethnic and racial diversity,
as early as 1975, even before the provinces promulgated any ofcial policy (Anderson and
Fullan 1985). School boards and school districts developed their own guidelines and/or
policies. In other words, students diversity was recognized as a reality and some school
boards, especially those located in urban settings, made it a priority to nd ways of
responding to the particular needs of newcomer students and of integrating all their stu-
dents into the schools and education programmes and services. Although Canada still
experiences a large inux of immigrants annually from many regions of the world, and
ethnic and racial diversity remain a challenging characteristic of the communities served
by many schools across the country, the issue of students diversity became less of a
political priority at the end of the twentieth century. As our study results show, the
dominant ofcial discourse in public education now focuses mostly on ideologies and
policies that address three specic areas: governance, accountability, and the profession-
alization of teachers. Nevertheless, the topic of diversity remains present in teachers and
principals discourses, even though it does not take centre stage as it did in the preceding
decades in the ofcial government discourse and specic policies.
Ofcial discourse on diversity
Before going further, let me also note briey that I understand the notion of discourse as far
more than a simple tool for communicating with others. Around the 1960s, some critical
theorists began to understand the term philosophically, as a social construct. For them,
language was not only a vehicle of communication, but reected the way people think, and
those ways of thinking were themselves inuenced by prevailing social practices.
Discourse can be dened as a regulated system of meanings and representations (James-
Wilson 2007). As Foucault (1972) argued, discourse is a regulated practice. Power
becomes a key element in the deconstruction of the notion of discourse. From Foucaults
point of view, power is sifted through social practices, which then produce possible forms
of behaviour, as well as restricting others. Consequently, discourses shape the way that
people think and interact. Meanings are inuenced by history, within which social prac-
tices are nested. As Niesz (2006) explains:
[] while discourses are often shared within and across communities, they are also
linked to particular historical moments, and they represent interests that are political
in nature. Moreover, discourses are not static across time, they are always in com-
petition with contradictory discourses, and, in fact, constitute cultural resources that
are used in diverse ways by local agents situated in particular social contexts. (p.
337)
The teachers and principals who participated in our study seemed to share a common
discourse, one aligned mostly with the ofcial discourse in their own provincial contexts.
The notion of difference
When we examine the ofcial discourse on diversity, we conclude that, over the years,
diversity has been mostly understood in terms of differences; policy responses to dif-
ferences have taken several forms over the years (Gerin-Lajoie 2008). Harper (1997)
208 D. Gerin-Lajoie
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identied ve historical responses to the notion of difference, which she named as sup-
pressing difference, insisting on difference, denying difference, inviting difference, and
critiquing difference.
Suppressing difference. This response aims to assimilate subordinate groups into the
dominant group through the suppression of the former groups cultures and/or
languages. In Canada, this has historically been the case, for example, for First Nations
peoples and for Francophones outside of Quebec. This response intended to create
uniformity within the Canadian population. This response is also implicitly present
today, when schools make efforts to assimilate students to the dominant school culture
(Solomon and Levine-Rasky 2003).
Insisting on difference. Recognizing that differences are natural, this response
emphasizes the need for accommodation. The notions of separation and segregation
become part of the ofcial discourse. Historically, women, Blacks, and people with
disabilities have been marginalized within this approach, which was prevalent at the
end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Nowadays, the segregated
movement has returned in some situations. For example, some education stakeholder
groups perceive all-Black schools or all-girls schools as a way to alter power relations
and enhance opportunities for disadvantaged students to excel in schools. This recent
call for voluntary segregation, however, stands in contrast to the movement of imposed
segregation that the country experienced at the turn of the twentieth century.
Denying difference. This response minimizes rather than highlights differences among
students. This approach is associated with the popular notion of meritocracy, which
emphasizes that success is an individual responsibility, and that with hard work and
perseverance, anyone can succeed. This liberal perspective emphasizes the need to
create equal opportunity. Denying difference is a notion that was salient in the 1960s.
Again, it is possible to argue that this response to difference has returned, albeit in a
different form. In the accountability context in which school personnel and students
currently live, expectations are that all students will attain common performance
standards, as measured by government standardized tests, regardless of the students
background, past performance, and social reality. In this instance, policy makers are
seeking to redress inequality and reduce inequities in educational performance by
holding all students to common learning expectations. Notions such as colour-blindness
and sameness can be associated with this particular view on the notion of difference.
Inviting difference. This response is concerned with celebrating diversity. It is more
about tolerance than about change. Canada is commonly perceived as a mosaic,
composed of a variety of ethnic groups, which have their own cultural traditions that need
to be acknowledged by the host country. This approach invokes a folkloric notion of
culture. In the 1970s and 1980s, this response was manifested in multicultural education
policies embraced by most provincial and territorial ministries of education. It remains
very much part of the current educational discourse at all levels of the education system.
Critiquing difference. This response recognizes and aims to understand power relations.
How and when difference is produced becomes the focus of inquiry. Antiracist
education is the best-known example of this type of critical inquiry. It examines
prejudices and systemic discrimination and emphasizes that the way society is
structured limits some students while placing others at an advantage (Gerin-Lajoie
2008). The ultimate aim is to alter those relations to create a more equitable distribution
of power and control over public institutions and the social and economic benets
associated with participation in those institutions.
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 209
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These ve lenses underlie specic types of policies and/or guiding principles. The
literature refers to three main perspectives when it comes to recognition of diversity in
schools. These are multicultural education, intercultural education, and anti-racist educa-
tion. In Canada, multicultural education is present mostly in English-speaking provinces
and intercultural education in Quebec. Anti-racist education has been, to some extent, part
of the ofcial discourse in Ontario since the early 1990s, though the governments ofcial
position has wavered depending on the provincial political party in power (e.g., New
Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives). In the following section, I briey describe those three
discourses.
Multicultural education
As previously mentioned, in English Canada the multicultural education perspective has
been part of the ofcial discourse on the classroom integration of students from diverse racial
and ethnic origins since the 1970s. Based on the principles established in the federal Mul-
ticulturalism Act, this perspective portrays Canada as a cultural mosaic; each minority group
contributes to the making of the Canadian society, where all cultures deserve equal recog-
nition. In the context of the school, students from diverse racial and ethnic origins must be
treated with respect. Multicultural education values and celebrates differences among stu-
dents in emphasizing folkloric artifacts such as music and food, which corresponds to
Harpers (1997) notion of inviting difference. However, if we look back in time, the
notion of multicultural education was at some point described as potentially transformative
and a means of seeking social justice, especially in the educational context of the United
States (Banks 2004). Over time, this critical notion has evolved to be understood more as a
celebratory practice than as a transformative one, but some confusion about the denition
remains among scholars (Jones 2000). This is not a new debate, though: In the early 1990s,
concerns were raised about the fact that the term multicultural education was often
interpreted in a variety of ways. Tator and Henry (1991) describe this variety:
There is enormous confusion and ambiguity in the language which is used, as well as
a lack of clarity with respect to the signicant distinction, which underlies the words.
The vocabulary includes the labels of multiculturalism, intercultural and cross-cul-
tural education, race relations, racial and ethnocultural equity, and antiracist edu-
cation. (p. 12)
Beside its obscure denition, more recent critiques have also focused on the common
food and festivals approach to multicultural education (Knight 2008; Ruitenberg 2011;
Shaikh 2006; Sleeter 2004). The critics argue that this is a supercial way to acknowledge
diversity among students, in part because it is unrealistic to think of all cultures as being
equal. From this point of view, the relationship between the dominant culture of the host
society and that of minorities must be understood in terms of power relations, where
inequalities persist despite the ofcial discourse of equality. To be equal, minorities would
need to have access to political and economic power, which they typically do not have. In
conclusion, multicultural education is viewed as being assimilationist overall in its
approach to diversity in the public education system.
Intercultural education
This second type, found in the province of Quebec, emphasizes the importance of putting
in place a dialogue between cultures and integrating the newcomers into the host society, in
210 D. Gerin-Lajoie
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order to include them in the project of a societe nouvelle, in which they would be able to
participate fully.
Ouellet (1986) denes intercultural education as aiming at specic knowledge and
attitudes:
The systemic effort towards the development, among members of the majority
groups as well as minority groups, of a better understanding of the various cultures, a
greater capacity to communicate with persons of other cultures, and more positive
attitudes towards the various cultural groups of society. (p. 16)
In the context of this intercultural education perspective, Quebec insists on the importance
of collective rights, in contrast with the multicultural education perspective that takes an
individualistic approach to the notion of culture. One critique made of the intercultural
education approach is that it is still very assimilationist, because the host culture dominates
in this discourse. In schools, for example, the values of the host society are transmitted to
the students. The ofcial discourse in Quebec, for example, insists on the importance of a
common Quebecois culture, without leaving much room to the other cultures. Like the
multicultural education perspective, intercultural education does not denounce the fact that
members of minority groups are not structurally integrated, especially in the economic
sphere.
Critics of intercultural education see it as assimilative in nature, like multicultural
education. If the intention is to establish more equitable social relations between new-
comers and the host society, intercultural education in its present form is far from attaining
this objective (Ghosh et al. 1995). As Jacquet (2008) explains, the ambiguity surrounding
this concept and contradictory educational practices conducted under the umbrella of
intercultural education led to pitfalls similar to those attributed to multicultural education
(p. 60).
Antiracist education
Antiracist education is a critical approach that examines how schools support racism. This
discourse emerged as a critique of multicultural education (Sleeter and Delgado-Bernal
2004). From the antiracist perspective, economic inequalities must be abolished if our
society is to fully integrate minorities. In education, racial and ethnic groups may need to
be treated differently, not equally, in order to achieve equity in the host society and in its
schools. Schools must go beyond simply celebrating differences, to placing issues of equity
and social justice squarely on the agenda. As it stands now, schools do not respond
adequately to the needs of their racially, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse
student populations (Connelly 2008; Gerin-Lajoie 2008). This critical discourse is far from
new. It was already in use two decades ago, as illustrated in the following comment, still
very accurate, made by van Dijk (1993):
Antiracist views hold that lacking access to quality schools, discrimination in the
classroom, stereotyping in textbooks, and a host of other factors lead to a position of
minority children at school that is usually described as disadvantaged, but in
reality reects their subordinate position. (p. 200)
Though van Dijks comment is not recent, it captures the essence of antiracist education.
Scholarship published since then on antiracist education emphasizes the need to look
closely at how the school system perpetuates the social order and how power relations are
reproduced, for instance, in terms of who is integrating whom, and to what structures (King
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 211
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2004; Sleeter 2004). As described by Dei (2011), anti-racism education is involved with
learning about the experiences of living with racialized identities and understanding how
students lived experiences in and out of school are implicated in youth engagement and
disengagement from school (p. 17). From this perspective, on one hand, schools convey
liberal values concerned with tolerance and respect. On the other hand, differential
treatment based on racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds is also present in schools and
can lead to potential discrimination (Henry and Tator 1999, p. 90). The existing ofcial
discourse does not acknowledge the impact of race and ethnicity on the students lived
experiences both in and outside of the school. Antiracist education is about social justice.
In Ontario, in the early 1990s, the New Democratic Party (NDP) led Canadas rst
attempt to implement an antiracist education framework. When it rst came into power, the
NDP government established an Anti-Racism Unit within the Education Ministry. In 1993,
the provincial government published a set of guidelines and mandated the development of
policies on antiracism and ethnocultural equity in Ontario school boards. The document
stated:
Antiracism and ethnocultural equity school board policies reect a commitment to
the elimination of racism within schools and in society at large. Such policies are
based on the recognition that some existing policies, procedures, and practices in the
school system are racist in their impact, if not their intent, and that they limit the
opportunity of students and staff belonging to Aboriginal and racial and ethnocul-
tural groups to fulll their potential and to maximize their contribution to society.
(Ontario Ministry of Education and Training 1993, p. 5)
The objective of this policy was to go beyond the simple celebration of differences
between students from diverse racial and ethnic origins. This type of policy called for a
critical examination of school practices by school personnel as well as by students,
representing a language of possibilities (Gerin-Lajoie 1995). In 1995, however, the NDP
lost power to a Conservative government that did not support the NDPs anti-racist agenda.
The Anti-Racism unit was abolished and further government action on that policy agenda
was suspended. In 2001, the Conservatives lost control of the Ontario government to the
Liberal Party. In 2007, the Liberal government reworked the NDP guidelines of 1993.
Taking a milder tone, the ofcial discourse does not talk about antiracism as such, but
rather about inclusiveness, without emphasizing the notion of power in its discourse.
It is time now to examine how contemporary educators are making sense of diversity in
their classrooms. Let me rst introduce the study.
Methodology
The ndings I examine here are drawn from a large-scale pan-Canadian study of teachers
and school principals working in the publicly funded school system. The aim of the study,
called Current Trends in the Evolution of School Personnel in Canadian Elementary and
Secondary Schools, was to examine the school practices of personnel in both elementary
and secondary schools, and to investigate their working conditions. Researchers from 16
Canadian universities participated in this longitudinal study. The study focused on four
main areas: (a) the working conditions of the teaching personnel, (b) the impact of edu-
cation reforms and policies on school principals and teachers, (c) the training and pro-
fessionalization of teaching personnel, and (d) the transformation of pedagogical practices.
The overall study was made up of four separate projects. Project 1 created a national
212 D. Gerin-Lajoie
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statistics database. Project 2 created a national policy documentary database. Project 3 was
a survey of teachers and school principals about their school practices. Project 4 was a
longitudinal qualitative study of teachers and school principals and their school practices.
Beside my role as co-director of the research activities taking place across the country, I
was involved more specically in Project 4, in the design of the qualitative study (ques-
tionnaires and interviews guidelines), the conduct of the interviews and the analysis of the
results.
Four major ndings emerged from our overall analysis. The participants reported that
governance, accountability, the professionalization of teachers, and the diversity of school
populations were the factors that had the most impact on their work, even though that
diversity was a lower priority for educational policy makers than it had been in the
preceding decades.
The results I discuss here are from Project 4 only; I focus on the school personnels
responses to the diversity in school populations, our fourth eld of analysis. This sub-study
looked closely at how teachers and principals made sense of their work and of the diverse
reforms and policies that inuence this work. Through yearly questionnaires and, most
importantly, with the use of interviews, the study sought to highlight the discourse of these
teachers and principals about their school practices in their particular policy and demo-
graphic contexts. Over a period of 5 years, the 10 members of the research team working
on Project 4 followed a cohort of 500 participants, including a total of 300 teachers and
principals, 100 each from Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. The other 200 participants
were from Halifax, Moncton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon. Annual questionnaires were
administered to all 500 participants. In addition, the 300 participants from Vancouver,
Toronto, and Montreal participated in two individual interviews during the course of the
study. The yearly questionnaires addressed ve issues. For year 1 the issue was the impact
of social change and education policy reform. For year 2 it was professional practices and
for year 3, professional knowledge and prociency. For year 4 it was interactions with
other social actors. The year 5 questionnaires followed up on some issues raised in the
previous questionnaires. The interviews also had different yearly foci. Those in the rst
year focused on the career paths of school personnel, and those in the second year asked
them to discuss the impact of school policies and reforms on teachers and principals work,
including those associated with student diversity.
To ensure that our results would address the same issues, we used the same interview
guidelines across the country. The signicant number of interviewers involved in Project 4
across Canada called for a systematic approach when doing the interviews. I report only
the ndings from the interviews.
Findings
Among the ndings, three are of particular interest. The participants discourse on diversity
emphasized: (a) the notion of colour blindness and the individualization of students, (b) the
celebration of differences, and (c) the lack of adequate professional training to work with
students from diverse backgrounds.
Colour blindness and the individualization of students
The teachers and principals who participated in the study typically expressed the view that
they see their students as being all the same, independent of their racial and ethnic origins.
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 213
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They claim not to differentiate among their students, and to treat everyone equally. Two
samples from interviews illustrate this attitude:
I think most teachers will tell you, youve got a class in front of you, you dont have a
class of Asian kids, you dont have a class of Sri Lankan kids, you dont have a class of
Korean kids, youve got a class of kids, and maybe you have to sometimes sit back and
say, well what backgrounds do you have in there? Well let me think for a second.
The school population is very diversied, but lets say that [] the kids [] we did
not really see, I dont know if this is because I have been in this for some years now,
but me, I do not see really [] there is no difference for me between the kids.
Colour blindness represents a powerful discursive form in educational settings (Gosh 2011;
Knight 2008; Solomon and Levine-Rasky 2003). In our study, the teachers and principals
interviewed sincerely believed that every student should be treated equally. However, as
Solomon and Levine-Rasky (2003) explain, [] colour blindness, when ostensibly a
channel for rectifying educational inequity on the basis of race, guarantees no such
commitment. In fact, it often conceals a teachers interest in perpetuating educational
inequity through an expectation for students to assimilate (p. 22). Other critical scholars,
like Sleeter (2004), see colour-blindness as a myth.
In considering all students as equal, teachers and principals ignore the existence of
power imbalances among the students that favour specic groups of students in terms of
education access, resources, and outcomes.
For example, those students who demonstrate that they have the right cultural capital
face fewer challenges than those who have grown up in a social context foreign to the
schools dominant values (Bourdieu 1991). The former are part of what the ofcial dis-
course describes as the norm. Critical theorists look at the notion of norm from a different
lens. They associate it with White privileges, emphasizing the fact that knowledge is not
neutral and, as a social construct, it reects the values of the White political and economic
majority (King 2004; Knight 2008; Sleeter 2004; Solomon and Levine-Rasky 2003). The
institutional structure of schooling, according to these critics, still excludes students who
have not been brought up with this type of values at home, in particular those from other
racial and ethnic backgrounds. In this particular school context, when teachers deny that
differences exist, they position students as individuals, and their inclusion in the education
mainstream and their academic success or failure as processes that operate independent of
their social background. It becomes the students responsibility to succeed. We are again in
the presence of a discourse of meritocracy (Gerin-Lajoie 2008), notwithstanding the
obvious social context of student diversity in the community and school classrooms.
In the same logic, students are all treated the same except when problems occur.
Then students are differentiated from the rest of the class, but the problem becomes
individualized. For many educators, harmonious social relations with one another are the
key to success. Two participants had the following to say about this logic:
I dont address that [diversity] at all. I go in the class, I teach. And were all there.
We talk. Theres nothing to be said about it [diversity]. One just goes in and does a
regular school day. Because the groups arent ghting, so theres nothing to address.
If groups were ghting, well then thered be something that would have to be dealt
with, but when everyones getting along, you just proceed ahead.
Students are really good. I mean I nd it a really good school here as far as student
behaviour goes. And one of the rugby players on the bus he asked me to mention that
214 D. Gerin-Lajoie
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you dont see any problems among different backgrounds at [school]. Its a diver-
sied school, and it really seems like everyone gets along, and everyone is very
accepting of other cultures and backgrounds, and I think its a very good school.
Very multicultural, and there doesnt seem to be any racial conict whatsoever []
Ive never seen any racial issues in any of my classes, the kids really just get along
and they really dont care about skin colour. It doesnt matter to them.
Similarly, Solomon and Levine-Rasky (2003) noted that teachers tended to ignore racism
except when it was manifesting itself in physical or verbal attacks. Even then, incidents
still seem to be perceived as individual events, rather than a systemic phenomenon (Gerin-
Lajoie 2008).
Celebration of differences
The traditional principles of celebratory multicultural education are present in the dis-
course of many of the teachers and principals interviewed in the study. This is the lens
through which they perceive students integration in the school. They report that they care
deeply for the minority students, and they believe that sharing cultural symbols and values
is the way to integrate students. In their view, this is the core of multicultural education.
Its a celebration of our diversity and a sharing of each others cultures. Theres a
great two-way street of learning from the students; as well as not just being the
teacher, sometimes youre the student as well.
I think we try to assimilate them into Canadian culture as much as possible, and treat
them fairly and equitably. I think we do, like this week for example, were cele-
brating multicultural education and by having every day a different nationality have
some displays. During lunchtime we have games you know coming from different
ethnic backgrounds here during lunchtime. We pray in different languages. This
week every day we have students praying in their own language. We talk about
diverse cultures. Every year we do something different. Some years here they had
multicultural night when they invited various ethnic groups, dance groups or singers,
or so to put on a show. So in that respect we celebrate our differences by bringing out
the most positive things from various ethnic groups, whether its food or music or so,
we allow them to play their music and share their books and their costumes. You
know to display their costumes, ethnic costumes at lunchtime, so other students can
see.
Well, we acknowledge all the holidays. And theres always an assembly presenta-
tion. We do songs. We do poems. We do books. We do reading activities around all
the cultural celebrations. So, its just really nice.
As I mentioned earlier, this element of the participants discourse is in line with the long-
standing ofcial discourse on multicultural education. This notion of racial, ethnic, and
linguistic integration refers to the celebration of students folkloric origins, using the
foods and festivals concept described by many scholars (Harper 1997; Knight 2008;
Ladson-Billings 1994; Ruitenberg 2011; Shaikh 2006; Sleeter 2004). In the interviews,
they did not question their teaching practices in regards to diversity, although each of the
participants was undoubtedly empathic about the challenges students face as new arrivals
in Canada. They all felt for their students and the challenges they had to get through to
begin a new life in Canada.
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 215
1 3
Teacher training
Although the ofcial discourse recognizes the presence of a diverse student population in
schools and the importance of meeting their needs, much remains to be done before
teachers will take students diversity into serious consideration, moving their practices
beyond the cultural celebrations noted above (Harper 1997; Jones 2000; Mujawamariya
and Mahrouse 2004). Even in 2011, pre-service teacher training programmes look at
diversity only supercially. Participants spoke out about their need for training to work
with a culturally and racially diversied classroom in a teaching environment with
increasing expectations for accountability (e.g., assessment, reporting) associated with
standards and outcomes-driven curriculum policies (Connelly 2008; Gerin-Lajoie 2008). In
pre-service training, they said, racial and ethnic issues were rarely discussed and they were
rarely expected to reect on educational responses to issues connected to social diversity.
One participant put it this way:
We had a little bit of training, I remember, at some point in time, during a profes-
sional development day, but nothing more than that; this is something you do as it
comes. But, I did not feel any big roadblocks, any big problems. But I think the fact
that we are in a small school helps tremendously. Communications between teachers
is easier. It is easy to go and ask a question.
Those participants who are already teaching in schools reported a general lack of in-service
professional development in this area. Not surprisingly, most of the literature on the issue
reports that teachers are not always well prepared to face the challenge of a racially,
ethnically, and linguistically heterogeneous classroom (Gerin-Lajoie 2002, 2008; Sleeter
2004; Sleeter and Grant 1991; Solomon and Levine-Rasky 1996, 2003). To remedy the
situation, some participants expressed the wish that teachers would be better prepared to
face diversity in the classroom, especially in the area of language and specically in skills
for teaching English as a second language (ESL). Answering a question about the need to
help teachers develop their teaching skills in this area, one teacher said:
Absolutely, and I was just thinking about that when you were saying that, because I
know what I do as an ESL teacher, and this is my rst time teaching ESL since, you
know, 6 years ago. So Im still trying to, you know, learn and get some tricks and get
my bag ready of tricks, and whatever. But the poor kids come to me and they
ounder in other classes because the teachers dont think to give them a vocabulary
list. And Im to blame, too, because I dont do that in my other classes. You just are
so inundated with, you know, the exceptional kids that sometimes the ESL kids are
pushed aside, which is really unfortunate. But I think thats absolutely one of the best
suggestions to do for a faculty, is to make sure that everybody has a rudimentary
understanding and some ESL strategies.
Others felt a less pressing need to develop more expertise in teaching a diverse student
population. These participants felt that even though they were not specically trained to
work with a diversied group of students, they were able to handle it. One teacher
explained:
To me I didnt need to be taught. You know, I had a good handle on different cultures
anyways. Just through work. I mean, you deal with all kinds of different people. And,
so you justit wasnt a stretch for me to nd kids. And it was different for me when
I went to high school. At [large Ontario university], I graduated in 89, and I
216 D. Gerin-Lajoie
1 3
graduated from a school that was probably 95 % white. And still today is predom-
inantly white. And I walk into here where the mix is like Ive never seen before.
Youve got Eastern Europeans, youve got Asians, and Indians, and just the cultural
mix here is something I wouldnt have believed. But I think it really works well.
Still, most participants said they do not have adequate or satisfactory training for working
with racial and ethnic minority students. Our analysis of the interviews led to this conclusion.
Both teachers and principals felt that they were not adequately trained to face the multiracial,
multiethnic, and multilingual classroom. The concerns they raised were mostly about their
role as agents of knowledge transmission within the regulatory milieu and the expectations of
the provincial curriculum. The preoccupations of teachers, in particular, were about how to
ensure that their students could succeed in the context of the provincial school system and its
accountability requirements for student and school performance (Gerin-Lajoie 2008). These
concerns lie within the scope of the ofcial discourse which emphasizes the importance for
schools (students as well as teachers and principals) to be accountable to the general public, a
concept that Ball (2004) refers to as performativity in education (p. 143). Previous studies
echo that conclusion (King 2004; Sleeter 2004).
The results presented above still correspond, for the most part, to existing ndings on
the ways that school personnel think of racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity in
the student population. One could conclude that this does not add any substantial
knowledge to what we already know about the ways that students diversity is perceived by
the personnel in English Canada schools. I do not share these views, for two reasons.
The above analysis reiterates the fact that the discourse of our participants is still very
much in line with the ofcial discourse held by provincial and territorial ministries of
education in English Canada. In that discourse, policies are not always clear about how
to achieve the inclusion of all students and assimilation to the majority is still
encouraged, a process which can be described as democratic racism. Principles of
equity and social justice are still absent, for the most part, in school policies and
perspectives on students diversity and the school curriculum in general.
The ndings are also of interest because they refer to a consistent discourse among
school personnel, even though education is under provincial and territorial jurisdiction
in Canada and one could expect some variations both at the policy level and in the ways
that school personnel comprehend the role of the school in the inclusion process. On
the contrary, my analysis reveals that in every Canadian Anglophone province and
territory, a similar educational discourse on students diversity prevails.
Conclusions
Although addressing the diversity of school populations does not appear to be a priority for
contemporary Canadian education policies, my analysis revealed that it continues to be
a priority for school staff in provinces across Canada. Notwithstanding 3040 years of
experience with growing diversity in Canadian schools, school personnel continue to be
affected by increased diversity. Participants said they nd it challenging to meet the needs
of a diverse student population and that they lack the training they need to work with these
students.
In my analysis I attempted to demonstrate that the notion of multicultural education
remains at the core of school educators discourse, particularly in schools in Canadas
Racial and ethnic diversity in schools 217
1 3
English language sector, independent of the province or territory. I also showed that
teachers and principals do not include minority students when they think about the
norm. Talking about the school situation in Ontario, Connelly (2008) shares her views:
In spite of ofcial policy advocating for equity approaches to education, the struc-
turing of school and society also continues to be informed by a decit-oriented
approach to newcomers knowledge, consistent with a long tradition of remedial
education that privileges norms associated with a white, male, able, northwest-
ern, euro-american standard of superiority, civilization, achievement, and excel-
lence, against which the difference of recent immigrants under recognized
background knowledge is perceived in terms of a potential weakness [] (p. 166)
The results indicate that many school personnel still perceive racial and ethnic minorities
as students who do not always t into school. They still consider them to be others,
especially when a student presents a problem, even when teachers and principals say
that their students are all the same for them. The ofcial discourse, despite a desire to show
inclusiveness, remains vague about how this can be practically accomplished. I agree that
teachers and principals deserve greater support to better meet the needs of these students,
even though the school per se is not yet a place that is free of inequalities. In that vein, I
agree with Popkewitz (1998), who points out that the spatial politics of schooling is the
production of a moral order that includes and excludes (p. 129). Critical educators
denounce the lack of training for teachers at both the pre-service and in-service levels in
the area of critical awareness, which impacts on their potential role as agents of change. As
King (2004) explains,
To consider seriously the value commitment involved in teaching for social change
as an option, students need experiential opportunities to recognize and evaluate the
ideological inuences that shape their thinking about schooling, society, themselves
and diverse others. The critique of ideology, identity and miseducation described
herein represents a form of cultural politics in teacher education that is needed to
address the specic rationality of social inequity in modern American society. (p. 80)
These results correspond to what Giroux (1988) has claimed for years: that schools of
education rarely encourage their students to take seriously the imperatives of social critique
and social change as part of a wider emancipatory vision (p. 183). Transformative
possibilities exist in school, and school personnel should be trained to see which ones could
be achieved in their respective contexts (Solomon and Levine-Rasky 1996, 2003), within
the limits imposed by the existing educational structure (Gerin-Lajoie 2008).
The type of integration that we are witnessing in schools today is still failing the students.
Perhaps it is time to shift the focus and interrogate the type of actions taken in the past to
meet the needs of an increasingly diverse school population. It is time to ensure that students
are empowered. To do so, however, school personnel must be prepared to inquire critically
about what needs to be changed for schools to become truly inclusive of all students.
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Author Biography
Diane Gerin-Lajoie (Canada) is a critical sociologist of education and professor in the department of
Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), at the
University of Toronto. She is also a researcher at the Centre de recherches en education franco-ontarienne
(CREFO) at the same institute, and a member of the Observatoire Jeunes et Societe in Quebec. She conducts
research on linguistic minorities in the areas of identity construction among youth and on teachers work in
minority settings and professional identity. Having studied Francophones in Ontario, she is now studying
Anglophones in Quebec. She teaches graduate courses in the areas of minority education and qualitative
research.
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