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Education Project
Monitoring the privatization of public education – and resistance to it
With a wide circle of research associates representing all aspects of the education sector, accessible research, case studies and thoughtful commentary and analysis, the Education Project provides a welcome—and often humorous—balance to the rhetoric of market-based education reform that continues to erode our public education system at all levels.
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A history of the “parental rights movement(s)”
The practice of raising and educating children, at a moment of seismic social, economic, and political change, has been elevated to new levels of public…
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In Alberta, “parental rights” and privatization go hand in hand
In recent years, public education systems have become a battleground in a culture war fomented by the far right. The points of contention include manufactured…
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I am become woke, destroyer of schools
In early 2022, then-elementary school teacher, Caroline Burjoski (or the ‘cancelled teacher,’ as she later self-branded), attempted to expose what she characterized as wildly inappropriate…
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The emotional discourses of parental rights: Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act
Across the globe, governments are passing anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum laws that curtail queer and gender-inclusive education initiatives, prohibit trans students’ inclusion in sports, and require the…
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Wrong, again: The political evolution of “parental rights”
As editors, each of us came to this special issue of Our Schools/Our Selves with both shared and distinct concerns about the recent iteration of…
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It was the best of times: Tracing the roots of the “parental rights” movement
I have always been a fan of how historical narratives evolve, and how they influence current contexts. And, often, how that history is then erased…
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Gender shocks, public education, and the crisis of democratic care
The rise of Canada’s parental rights movement isn’t just about sex ed or trans youth—it marks the return of an ideological project that seeks to…
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Parental rights as privatization
As a public education advocate, I am particularly attuned to the ways that the “parental rights” (PR) movement has been used to undermine faith in…
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Discrimination through deception: The parental rights movement’s school board strategy
In spite of the role trustees play in communities across the country, school board elections in Canada have historically been rather perfunctory affairs, often beset…
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Parental rights and school boards as contested spaces in Manitoba
Over the past five years, the school system in Manitoba has been the subject of public dialogue, debate and conflict. During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools…
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Language matters: Framing of family, vilifying gender, and reshaping public education
Parental rights is a constructed term strategically framed to evoke legitimacy and moral authority (Fowler and Mountz, 2024). It is a phrase that rings with…
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Difficult knowledge: Understanding “parental rights” and anti-SOGI mobilization among Sinophone Canadian parents in Metro Vancouver
Over the past 15 years, there has been a rapid rise in anti-SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) mobilization, primarily led by self-identified “parental rights”…
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