Embracing diversity and multicultural education in Ontario’s separate schools : challenges and opportunities

Abstract

This research examines the challenges and opportunities of implementing diversity and multicultural education in faith-based Catholic high schools in Ontario, Canada which meets the requirements of both the Equity and Inclusive Education (EIE) and the Catholic Equity and Inclusive Education (CEIE). The data for this research were generated through interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders—teachers, parents, students, educational assistants and educational administrators at the Catholic District School Board and the Community of the Beloved Catholic High School. Based on data analysis and review of literature in the areas of equity, inclusive education and multicultural education, the current research identified the school culture as the most decisive component in realizing the strategy for inclusion and safe schools required both by the EIE and the CEIE. The fundamental challenge identified by this research is that multiculturalism and diversity are fairly broad sets of values, programs, and projects in Canada which offers challenges in understanding what educational strategies and approaches for realising them in faith-based schools. In addition, this research found out that Catholic schools and boards of education have become sites for conflict and tension in the understanding, interpretation and application of what different stakeholders understand and implement about equity and inclusion. The current research discovered that this tension is an opportunity for the Catholic schools to create a new identity through a greater commitment to ‘real encounters’ between teachers and students which place a greater accent on the cultural and personal experiences and social location of students. This research proposed that the separate educational system in Ontario needs to discover new ways of meeting the challenges of multicultural education. The research recommended how such new ways could draw from the rich social teaching resources of the Christian tradition with regard to options for the poor, and from recent studies and innovations in critical theories of cultures, pedagogy and educational policies and programs in pluralistic societies. Such a new approach will be broad enough to integrate diverse interpretations of diversity and multiculturalism in Canada, and specific enough to model effective pathways for meeting the needs of students and the goals and priorities of a safe schooling culture within a specific faith- based setting.