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Chapter 6: Marginalization Inside Education: Racialized, Immigrant, and Aboriginal Youth
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
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chapter 6 116 Simply understanding the contemporary dislocations brought about by various forms and degrees of social exclusion avoids serious attempts to address the existing chasms and inequities within our communities along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, language dis/ability, age, and religion. Understanding is not doing—it is but a starting point. Truly addressing marginalization must also be about subverting the seductive dominant talk of “inclusion” that merely signals and barely addresses questions of power, privilege, accountability , and transparency. In rethinking and working with prevailing conceptual models and existing notions of inclusion, an important question to ask is how do we hope to achieve change by adding to what already exists when that which already exists is the source of the problem in the first place? (see Dei, 2008). To ensure truly equitable, meaningfully substantive integration of our diverse youth in all aspects of social, economic, and political life, we must work together to remove any semblance of marginalization within our communities. Dealing with multiple social dislocations requires shedding the chains of past exclusions that continue to manifest themselves today in the non-recognition of histories and contributions, the devaluation of experiences and knowledge, and the challenged senses of self and collective worth experienced by some individuals and population groups among us. When certain bodies, knowledge systems, and lived experiences are selectively excluded from social sites and spaces, they effectively become the “disappearing act.” This is the first thing that needs to be acknowledged and made visible. Marginalizationisasystemicsocialproblemthathasbecomedeeplyembedded in many of our social institutions, including our education system. This fact also needs to be acknowledged. Learning, itself, occurs within distinct socio-political contexts—thesameisthereforealsotrueofteaching.Thisiswhyexclusionarypractices in the very schools entrusted with the responsibility of not only educating but also socializing our children must be dealt with directly and forcefully. It is why the structures, processes, and experiences of educational delivery need to be carefully re-examined. Educators’ attitudes, behaviours, knowledge, training, and practices are equally key to the creation and maintenance of learning communities that are truly welcoming and supportive of all youth. Young learners today (both inside and out of the school context) are not disembodied—our diverse youth are instead disembodied. Marginalization and exclusion is something that is done to them, something that we do. It is, moreover, something that is done to some while not to others. These points are critical, especially as they suggest the way forward towards possible solutions. The attendant sorting, categorizing, labelling, valuating, stereotyping, and discriminating processes have profound consequences not only for the wellbeing of youth but also for many of their life outcomes. Both the short- and [3.230.1.23] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:39 GMT) Addressing Marginalization Inside Education 117 long-term impacts of such marginalization and exclusion on our youth are significant. Race, class, sex, gender, and sexual orientation have all been shown to be critically consequential for engaging in schooling and education (see Dei et al., 2010), and they are linked to both academic performance and educational outcomes and successful subsequent transition into the labour market (Rummens, 2009). If we want to ensure better outcomes for all of Canada’s children, it is not enough to understand what marginalization is and know what it does to our youth. Something also needs to be done. There are limits to merely acknowledging differences as strengths without responding concretely to the difference as a key site of power relations that advantage some while disadvantaging others. We must instead define and situate real equity broadly within a radical inclusive educational practice, which not only pays attention to sites of marginality in schools for different bodies but also seeks to address these processes of exclusion effectively. This action may require an honest acknowledgement that even our collective quest for solidarity in anti-oppression work can sometimes mask underlying tensions, ambivalences, and ambiguities if differential power and privilege is not carefully considered and substantively addressed. How might we best understand marginalization from the vantage point of those who have been systematically and structurally marginalized within our society? How do our marginalized young learners perceive and experience it and how does it affect them? Who exactly is being excluded or pushed to the margins? By whom? How exactly is this done through everyday schooling? What would real inclusion and integration actually look like? As fellow citizens, how do we ensure that our social institutions are truly responsive to the multiple needs and concerns, resources, and contributions of an increasingly...