Findings from Travis J. Bristol’s research article, “To Be Alone or In a Group: An Exploration into How the School-Based Experiences Differ for Black Male Teachers Across One Urban School District,” found that Black teachers who were in “Groupers schools,” those with four or more Black male teachers in the building, had a different experience than teachers who were in Loner-schools, those with one Black teacher. Loners from the Bristol study believed that being a Black teacher created apprehensions towards them from their white colleagues and reported having a greater desire to leave their schools than those teachers who were in buildings where there were groups of Black teachers. These findings are a forewarning for predominantly white school districts, buildings, administrators, and colleagues, to pay closer attention to the “Loners” in their building and begin to recognize how this can be an issue for Black teachers and further, impact future recruitment and retention levels for this population. This study examines the Lone Black Educators' lived experience/s to better understand their “position,” outlook, and approach to their role. The phenomena of this subpopulation were captured using a survey and qualitative interviews. Descriptive statistics and theme analytics captured and summarized the data from three sets of participants: Lone Black Female Educators (survey participants), Lone Black Educators from an urban school district, and white allies of the Lone Black Educators in the urban school district. The findings from this study disclosed four critical components that have shaped the negative experience/s of being a Lone Black Educator; they include: (a) a lack of belonging within the school building culture, (b) microaggressions endured by white colleagues, (c) having to intervene more often on behalf of Black students due to being a Lone Black Educator, and (d) working in an oppressive system as educational leaders. This study provides another perspective of the Lone Black Educator experience; that is, the perspectives of white allies and co-conspirators. The data collected revealed that white allies and co-conspirators are fostered over time and require a reflective space to learn and continue the journey of racial self-identity. Their journey towards antiracism began at various stages of life; the journey towards allyship was motivated by seeing different forms of oppression occur to people with whom they had frequent interactions, including, but not limited to: family members, Black and Brown students in their classrooms and non-familial adults in their networks. This awareness and compassion further prompted these allies to establish a professional relationship with the Lone Black Educator in their building and/or school district. In an effort to provide a resource for Lone Black Educators and to dismantle the existing state of affairs for Lone Black Educators, four strategies have emerged from this research to help predominantly white school districts better support Lone Black Educators; the strategies include: 1. Conducting a district equity audit and applying the recommendations set forth, 2. Providing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Professional Development for all staff, 3. Providing access for teachers of color to affiliate with racial affinity groups, 4. Facilitating restorative justice practices for racial bias and microaggression conflict resolutions. These strategies serve as a framework for districts to consider using to identify, address, and positively impact the experiences of Lone Black Educators while also dismantling oppressive structures that keep other Black educators out of the school building and/or school district.

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The aim of this project is to investigate howdecolonial research can be conducted in practice whenthe researcher is a member of the majority population.I ask: what does it mean to be an ally as well as anacademic? Through autoethnography and ParticipatoryAction Research (PAR) I am attempting to “decolonisemy mind” in order to unlearn oppressive systems ofknowledge and I am using academic disobedience asan intentional strategy to disrupt colonial epistemichegemonies. Following feminist and other criticaltheory traditions and using decolonial and indigenousresearch ethics I am criticising the remnants of positivistresearch structures that exists within the social sciencesand the colonising, racialised, gendered and classed wayin which knowledge is traditionally constructed.I am also attempting to position PAR as adecolonising research methodology. Because a PARanimator does not have an automatic right to writeup and disseminate the knowledge that has beencollectively constructed by the co-researchers, however,I am inserting myself into the narrative in order toAbstractdisrupt the traditional academic voice. I attempt toquestion critically how I (auto) act in relation to myown culture and Sámi culture (ethno) through theprocess of reflective writing and analysis (graphy) – inother words, autoethnograpy.I set out to conduct a PAR project within a Sámiorganisation in Stockholm but despite my efforts theproject never really got off the ground. So apart fromexploring my own positionality relative to the Sámi,and apart from constructing an argument for decolonialresearch and allyship, this essay also offers my thoughtson why the project didn’t happen and my journey intolearning how to be a better academic ally. / <p>Student thesis MA in Culture, Diaspora and Ethnicity at Birkbeck, University of London. Presented as a seminar in "Kunskapsproduktion bortom normerna". May-Britt Öhman was supervisor to the thesis.</p>

In the art of drag, icons of masculinity and femininity are juxtaposed on one body, challenging heteronormativity. The goal of this project was to create a game that provided a safe space for players to negotiate their own identities of gender and sexuality through the framework provided by the game rules and affordances. The research behind this project challenges the criticisms of drag as purely gender representation, identifying drag as a signifier of the presence of the LGBTQ community. By iterating the design throughout the development process, I was able to create opportunities for players to reflect upon gender presentation and be in solidarity with one another. Conversations resulting from the play experience revealed the ability of games to provide a context for players to navigate complex understandings.

Men’s violence against women includes acquaintance rape, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and partner stalking and occurs at particularly high rates on college campuses (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Although men are increasingly becoming involved in efforts to prevent these forms of violence, little is known about their motivation and the processes that lead to their involvement. The purpose of this project was to examine how undergraduate male students become social justice allies involved in preventing men’s violence against women. The theoretical frameworks of this study included transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1997, 2000) and feminist theory (Worell & Remer, 2003). Data were generated from six male social justice ally exemplars nominated for their sustained involvement in prevention work. Eligible and interested participants completed two individual interviews, demographic forms, Social Locations Worksheets (Worell & Remer, 2003), and male social justice ally development timelines. The qualitative data were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) by the author and three peer debriefers. Findings provide an initial framework for conceptualizing male social justice ally development, including predisposing factors and shifts in perspective that were critical to their antiviolence work and factors that sustained their involvement. Participants also described integrating their social justice ally work into their identity and connecting with other forms of social activism. These themes provide a framework for understanding how men become invested in preventing men’s violence against women as undergraduate students and implications for ways to engage more men in these efforts.

The purpose of this thesis is to support White social workers who wish to become allies in their child welfare work with Aboriginal children, families, and communities. It is based on the premise that it is crucial for Aboriginal children to remain connected with their families, communities, and cultures. To this end White social workers need to consider practicing in a different way. Using the stories of five White social workers on their journey to become allies, this thesis identifies a process which can support other would-be White allies on their journey. An autoethnographical method informed by Critical Race Theory and White Racial and Social Development Models was used to create a thematic analysis of the journals of participating social workers. Five main themes emerged that contribute to a process others can use to guide their own journeys to becoming White allies in their practice.

Racism is a serious barrier to achieving employment equity in Canada. The intersectional nature of oppression creates a situation where, based on various characteristics including gender, place of birth, and ethnic group membership, individuals experience employment related racism differently from one another. This intersectionality indicates that policies that may protect one marginalized group may not protect all groups equally. Through an examination of current employment equity research and reports, an overview of employment equity and human rights legislation in Canada, and an analysis of data collected in three interviews with Black men living in Victoria, British Columbia, a series of recommendations are made for employers, allies, and policy changes. This research illuminates the inequity of employment experiences in Canada, and provides suggestions for next steps forward from members of a population currently underserved by existing employment equity measures. / Graduate / 0733 / 0631 / 0630 / jmetz@uvic.ca

Coming out as a sexual minority can be a challenging process (D’amico, Julien, Tremblay, & Chartrand, 2015) and having supportive allies and advocates within the family makes that process less strenuous (Luke & Goodrich, 2015). The sibling relationship has been shown to play a significant supportive role in the lives of LGB people while coming out as sexual minorities (Haxhe, Cerezo, Bergfeld, & Walloch, 2017). Scholars have found that when a second child within the family system comes out as LGB, it gives the parents a chance to improve aspects of their parenting compared to the first child who came out to them. However, there is still little known about LGB sibling’s shared experience with both being sexual minorities. Chapter 2 in this dissertation is a systemic review on the topic of multiple LGB sibling families. Results indicating that these families exist but are not properly represented in literature. With LGB individuals having an increased risks of negative mental health outcomes (Russell & Fish, 2016), Chapter three explores the lived experiences of LGB individuals with LGB siblings. The purpose of the present study is twofold: 1) to examine if coming out to an LGB sibling increases the chances of an ally/advocate within the family and 2) helps lower negative mental health outcomes. Results from this qualitive study include significant differences of lived experiences based on order the siblings came out with family dynamic changes to improve family cohesion. Participants also reported viewing their siblings as allies which played a role in helping with negative mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Finally, this study utilized feminist family theory and found a less likely chance in power projection once both siblings were out. Clinical implications and future research directions will be discussed at length.

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This research explored the experiences of immigrant-descendant and immigrant faculty members as they approach the work they are invited to contribute to reconciliation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action (2015b) through their roles as post-secondary educators. The purpose of this research was to better understand the experiences of immigrant-descendant and immigrant faculty to inform how they can be supported in reconciliation work, particularly as they contemplate engagement in the consciousness-raising, ally work, and institutional changes that are required as we walk in a new way with Indigenous Peoples. On the journey towards reconciliation that Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chair Justice Murray Sinclair (Ojibway) envisions (Macleans, 2015), this research further considers why and how we might come together as Indigenous Peoples, immigrant-descendants and immigrants, stopping at fires of action along the way that collectively encompass the circle surrounding reconciliation (Newman, 2018). Two central concepts interweave throughout the commitment to creating ethical spaces of engagement (Ermine, 2007) and the practice of research as ceremony (Wilson, 2008, S. Wilson, personal communication, February 2, 2020). Given the dearth of literature available at the time of writing that directly related to this research, a range of philosophical and theoretical scholarship and works of practitioners provided the foundation. These sources shared a focus on social transformation and included formative works by Dewey (1939), Freire (1970/2000, 1973), Habermas (1994, 2002) and Bronfenbrenner (1979), highlighting Habermas’ communicative action theory and Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystem of human development. Additional works by practitioners such as Bishop (2015), DiAngelo (2011), Gehl (n.d), hooks (1990), Luft and Ingram (1955), Sennet (2015), Sensoy and DiAngelo (2017) Snowden and Boon (2007), and Wheatley and Frieze (2011) provided further insight into creating ethical spaces for engagement. Rooted in my emerging understanding of my ontological stance as a relativist and a tendency towards the epistemological perspective of constructivism, aligning with the interpretive paradigm, the research took an anti-oppressive research approach (Potts & Brown, 2015) informed by the Indigenist research paradigm (Wilson, 2007, 2008). Following exploration of narrative inquiry in the dominant culture and as practiced by Indigenous scholars, a narrative approach was undertaken to gathering data. Individual conversations were held with 15 participants, all faculty members at Royal Roads University, a small public post-secondary institution in what is now called Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. A group conversation with eight of the participants followed the individual conversations. Nine themes emerged from the meaning making process that followed these conversations: locating self, clarifying purpose, institutional challenges, relationships with Indigenous Peoples, relationships with Indigenous Knowledges, curriculum, teaching, self-reflections, and what might help. A framework based on the intersection of self-assessed competence and confidence in a given context was developed to provide an empirical heuristic (St. Clair, 2005) to provide insight into the experience of faculty members at Royal Roads, faculty members at other institutions, and perhaps for ally work in different contexts. Throughout the study, I recorded my autoethnographic observations. These observations revealed cultural epiphanies that provided insight into my “deeper level thoughts, interests and assumptions” (Ermine, 2007) and supported ongoing critical reflection of the work as it unfolded. This dissertation concludes with reflections of the work overall, identifying some of the research limitations, suggesting recommendations for future action and research and reflecting on the tremendous impact that this has had, and will continue to have, on me personally and professionally. / Graduate