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The racialized realities faced by Black students provide an impetus to examine the controversy over Canada's first Africentric Alternative School, approved on January 29, 2008 by the Toronto District School Board. Newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor, as well as speeches by delegations and trustees, provide a rich snapshot of the arguments put forth in the heated political debate. Through the lens of equity and critical race theory, the diverse and divergent stances taken by both proponents and opponents of the school are analysed and understood. A conceptual framework of hidden and public transcripts (Scott, 1990) is used to distinguish arguments that reflect on the lived experiences of Black students from those that reiterate the dominant discourses of liberal democratic societies. The findings emerge as three opposing sets of themes that reveal a transcript reflective of the ongoing salience of racism within ostensibly liberal claims to racial equality.

Contributing to the literature on the Muslim experience post-9/11, the purpose of this study was to engage with a group that is often talked about, but not with: Muslim youth. Using an integrative anti-racist and anti-colonial approach with an emphasis on a spiritual way of knowing, this study gives voice to young Muslim activists in Toronto who have made the choice to “do something”. The study aims to understand what motivates these young activists, particularly in the context of post-9/11 Islamophobia, with the goal being to challenge stereotypical perceptions of Muslims, while contributing to the body of knowledge that aims to disrupt dominant notions of what “Canadian” identity is. The following analysis helps answer this question, which includes the role of spirituality, the attachment to Canadian identity and the desire to educate. Key challenges and what these youth prescribe for Canada’s future are also discussed.

The racialized realities faced by Black students provide an impetus to examine the controversy over Canada's first Africentric Alternative School, approved on January 29, 2008 by the Toronto District School Board. Newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor, as well as speeches by delegations and trustees, provide a rich snapshot of the arguments put forth in the heated political debate. Through the lens of equity and critical race theory, the diverse and divergent stances taken by both proponents and opponents of the school are analysed and understood. A conceptual framework of hidden and public transcripts (Scott, 1990) is used to distinguish arguments that reflect on the lived experiences of Black students from those that reiterate the dominant discourses of liberal democratic societies. The findings emerge as three opposing sets of themes that reveal a transcript reflective of the ongoing salience of racism within ostensibly liberal claims to racial equality.

Contributing to the literature on the Muslim experience post-9/11, the purpose of this study was to engage with a group that is often talked about, but not with: Muslim youth. Using an integrative anti-racist and anti-colonial approach with an emphasis on a spiritual way of knowing, this study gives voice to young Muslim activists in Toronto who have made the choice to “do something”. The study aims to understand what motivates these young activists, particularly in the context of post-9/11 Islamophobia, with the goal being to challenge stereotypical perceptions of Muslims, while contributing to the body of knowledge that aims to disrupt dominant notions of what “Canadian” identity is. The following analysis helps answer this question, which includes the role of spirituality, the attachment to Canadian identity and the desire to educate. Key challenges and what these youth prescribe for Canada’s future are also discussed.

In the 21st Century and beyond, it is clear that science and technology will be a catalyst in strengthening economic competitiveness and fostering social cohesion. However, some minoritized students are not engaged in science or related careers in science such as medicine. This study addresses the systemic issue of equitable and accessible science education as a requisite for career acquisition such as medicine. Mentoring is presented as a sociocultural participatory activity for engaging students in science learning. The purpose of this study is to assess the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine Summer Mentorship Program (SMP) and to use the data to theorize on the mentoring phenomenon. In 1994, the SMP was established as a means of ameliorating the traditionally low participation of Aboriginal and Black students in medicine and other health sciences. For the first 10 years (1994 – 2004), 250 participants enrolled in the program. Recently, ten past mentees of the program matriculated into various medical schools (5 in the Class of 2008 at the University of Toronto, this is significant, as the norm is usually 0 or at most 2). The study utilized a qualitative approach, requiring the collection of semi-structured one-on-one interview data and an interpretive phenomenological methodology to evaluate the data. There was an increased level of school and community involvement when students returned to high school and an increased awareness of the academic and career choices available to protégés. Mentees indicated that the influence of the SMP followed them much further than the end of the summer and considered it to be an important and defining moment in their educational journey. Communication could be improved so that mentors get a sense of their own impact and for professional development. Recommendations include conducting a study more focused on the impact of the SMP on Aboriginal students who completed the program. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, further work is recommended in order to fine-tune the proposed Mentoring Oriented Teaching and Learning Strategy (MOTALS) framework that incorporates students as natives in a welcoming community of science practice rather than immigrants in a strange land of non-contextual science knowledge.

This study investigates how Yoruba migrants make meaning of Yoruba Indigenous knowledges in the African Diaspora, specifically within the geopolitical space of dominant Canadian culture. This research is informed by the lived experiences of 16 Africans of Yoruba descent now living in Toronto, Canada, and explores how these first and second generation migrants construct the spiritual and linguistic dimensions of Yoruba Indigenous identities in their everyday lives. While Canada is often imagined as a sanctuary for progressive politics, it nonetheless is also a hegemonic space where inequities continue to shape the social engagements of everyday life. Hence, this dissertation situates the historical and contemporary realities of colonialism and imperialism, by beginning with the premise that people in diasporic Yoruba communities are continuously affected by the complicated interplay of various forms of oppression such as racism, and inequities based on language, gender and religion. This study is situated within a socio–historical and cosmological context to effectively examine colonialism’s impact on Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. Yet, inversely, this study also involves discussion of how these knowledges are utilized as decolonizing tools of navigation, subversion and resistance. The central focus of this research is the articulation of colonial oppression and how it has reconfigured Yoruba Indigenous identities even within a purportedly ‘multicultural’ space. First, the historical dis/continuities of the Yoruba language in Yorubaland are investigated. This strand of the research considers British colonization, and more specifically, the Church Missionary Society’s (CMS) efforts at translating the Bible into Yoruba as pivotal in the colonial project. What kinds of categories does missionary education create that differ from pre-colonial categories of Yoruba Indigenous identity? How are these new identities shaped along lines of race and gender? In other words, what happens when Yoruba cosmology encounters colonialism? The second strand of this research investigates how these historical colonialisms have set the framework for enduring contemporary colonialisms that continue to fracture Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. This dissertation offers insights relevant to diversity and equitable pedagogy through careful consideration of the complicated strategies used by participants in their negotiations of Yoruba identities within a context of social inequity and colonialism.

In the 21st Century and beyond, it is clear that science and technology will be a catalyst in strengthening economic competitiveness and fostering social cohesion. However, some minoritized students are not engaged in science or related careers in science such as medicine. This study addresses the systemic issue of equitable and accessible science education as a requisite for career acquisition such as medicine. Mentoring is presented as a sociocultural participatory activity for engaging students in science learning. The purpose of this study is to assess the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine Summer Mentorship Program (SMP) and to use the data to theorize on the mentoring phenomenon. In 1994, the SMP was established as a means of ameliorating the traditionally low participation of Aboriginal and Black students in medicine and other health sciences. For the first 10 years (1994 – 2004), 250 participants enrolled in the program. Recently, ten past mentees of the program matriculated into various medical schools (5 in the Class of 2008 at the University of Toronto, this is significant, as the norm is usually 0 or at most 2). The study utilized a qualitative approach, requiring the collection of semi-structured one-on-one interview data and an interpretive phenomenological methodology to evaluate the data. There was an increased level of school and community involvement when students returned to high school and an increased awareness of the academic and career choices available to protégés. Mentees indicated that the influence of the SMP followed them much further than the end of the summer and considered it to be an important and defining moment in their educational journey. Communication could be improved so that mentors get a sense of their own impact and for professional development. Recommendations include conducting a study more focused on the impact of the SMP on Aboriginal students who completed the program. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, further work is recommended in order to fine-tune the proposed Mentoring Oriented Teaching and Learning Strategy (MOTALS) framework that incorporates students as natives in a welcoming community of science practice rather than immigrants in a strange land of non-contextual science knowledge.

This study investigates how Yoruba migrants make meaning of Yoruba Indigenous knowledges in the African Diaspora, specifically within the geopolitical space of dominant Canadian culture. This research is informed by the lived experiences of 16 Africans of Yoruba descent now living in Toronto, Canada, and explores how these first and second generation migrants construct the spiritual and linguistic dimensions of Yoruba Indigenous identities in their everyday lives. While Canada is often imagined as a sanctuary for progressive politics, it nonetheless is also a hegemonic space where inequities continue to shape the social engagements of everyday life. Hence, this dissertation situates the historical and contemporary realities of colonialism and imperialism, by beginning with the premise that people in diasporic Yoruba communities are continuously affected by the complicated interplay of various forms of oppression such as racism, and inequities based on language, gender and religion. This study is situated within a socio–historical and cosmological context to effectively examine colonialism’s impact on Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. Yet, inversely, this study also involves discussion of how these knowledges are utilized as decolonizing tools of navigation, subversion and resistance. The central focus of this research is the articulation of colonial oppression and how it has reconfigured Yoruba Indigenous identities even within a purportedly ‘multicultural’ space. First, the historical dis/continuities of the Yoruba language in Yorubaland are investigated. This strand of the research considers British colonization, and more specifically, the Church Missionary Society’s (CMS) efforts at translating the Bible into Yoruba as pivotal in the colonial project. What kinds of categories does missionary education create that differ from pre-colonial categories of Yoruba Indigenous identity? How are these new identities shaped along lines of race and gender? In other words, what happens when Yoruba cosmology encounters colonialism? The second strand of this research investigates how these historical colonialisms have set the framework for enduring contemporary colonialisms that continue to fracture Yoruba Indigenous knowledges. This dissertation offers insights relevant to diversity and equitable pedagogy through careful consideration of the complicated strategies used by participants in their negotiations of Yoruba identities within a context of social inequity and colonialism.

Contributing to the literature on the Muslim experience post-9/11, the purpose of this study was to engage with a group that is often talked about, but not with: Muslim youth. Using an integrative anti-racist and anti-colonial approach with an emphasis on a spiritual way of knowing, this study gives voice to young Muslim activists in Toronto who have made the choice to “do something”. The study aims to understand what motivates these young activists, particularly in the context of post-9/11 Islamophobia, with the goal being to challenge stereotypical perceptions of Muslims, while contributing to the body of knowledge that aims to disrupt dominant notions of what “Canadian” identity is. The following analysis helps answer this question, which includes the role of spirituality, the attachment to Canadian identity and the desire to educate. Key challenges and what these youth prescribe for Canada’s future are also discussed.