In this qualitative study, I examine two elementary-intermediate teachers’ understandings and pedagogical practices of global citizenship education in the Ontario and British Columbia classroom contexts. Key findings reveal contrasting portrayals of global citizenship education that foreground particular themes and practices found in the literature and curriculum guidelines. One teachers’ understandings and goals highlight an environmental global justice angle whereas the other teacher focuses on critical thinking. Three broad themes appeared to underpin their pedagogical practices – child-centred learning, critical thinking, and authentic performance tasks – although each theme is portrayed in distinctive ways. Both teachers identified factors such as the departmental and school culture, a collaborative learning community, and suitable resources as either encouraging or hindering their ability to transform their preferred learning goals into practice. These findings reveal a level of ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the teacher participants’ understandings and practice, which is complicated by varying levels of support.

This thesis explores the extent to which English curriculum, teachers’ literary choices, and a high demographic of Muslim students, influence the way English teachers educate for citizenship, in public and Islamic schools in Ontario. The three aspects this thesis examines are the following: how English teachers conceptualize citizenship education using informed, purposeful, and active citizenship learning expectations; in what ways their practice and literary choices enhance dimensions of citizenship education; and to what extent the English citizenship educator provides an inclusive space for Muslim perspectives. While the study shows that English teachers were successful at infusing purposeful citizenship, the study suggests that a more explicit link is needed in curriculum and in teacher practice, to inculcate informed and active citizenship outcomes in English. This study also implies, that teachers’ specific literary choices coupled with a citizenship education pedagogy, provides a more inclusive space for Muslim hybrid identities in English.

This study explores which concept of citizenship is typically promoted in ESL programs available to adult immigrants in Canada: citizenship as status, citizenship as identity, citizenship as a set of civic virtues or citizenship as agency. Is there a difference between the stated purpose of ESL programs, the integration and active participation of immigrants in Canadian society through language development, and the actual citizenship learning that occurs in these programs? What influences this? The study traces the historical link between citizenship education and ESL in Canada, and draws on existing research to reveal how citizenship concepts are presented in ESL classrooms. These findings are then matched with data from my textbook analysis, classroom observations and student interviews obtained from two advanced ESL courses offered by COSTI, as an indication of the citizenship learning and the citizenship concepts most likely to be promoted in ESL programs for adult immigrants across Canada.

In this qualitative study, I examine two elementary-intermediate teachers’ understandings and pedagogical practices of global citizenship education in the Ontario and British Columbia classroom contexts. Key findings reveal contrasting portrayals of global citizenship education that foreground particular themes and practices found in the literature and curriculum guidelines. One teachers’ understandings and goals highlight an environmental global justice angle whereas the other teacher focuses on critical thinking. Three broad themes appeared to underpin their pedagogical practices – child-centred learning, critical thinking, and authentic performance tasks – although each theme is portrayed in distinctive ways. Both teachers identified factors such as the departmental and school culture, a collaborative learning community, and suitable resources as either encouraging or hindering their ability to transform their preferred learning goals into practice. These findings reveal a level of ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the teacher participants’ understandings and practice, which is complicated by varying levels of support.

This thesis explores the extent to which English curriculum, teachers’ literary choices, and a high demographic of Muslim students, influence the way English teachers educate for citizenship, in public and Islamic schools in Ontario. The three aspects this thesis examines are the following: how English teachers conceptualize citizenship education using informed, purposeful, and active citizenship learning expectations; in what ways their practice and literary choices enhance dimensions of citizenship education; and to what extent the English citizenship educator provides an inclusive space for Muslim perspectives. While the study shows that English teachers were successful at infusing purposeful citizenship, the study suggests that a more explicit link is needed in curriculum and in teacher practice, to inculcate informed and active citizenship outcomes in English. This study also implies, that teachers’ specific literary choices coupled with a citizenship education pedagogy, provides a more inclusive space for Muslim hybrid identities in English.

Citizenship acquisition is often interpreted as indicating an immigrants successful integration into their new society. The literature includes a variety of behavioural, but not psychological, indicators of integration in the prediction of citizenship acquisition. Using an intergroup relations perspective, this study examined Asian immigrants intentions to become Canadian citizens. <p>Social identity theory was used to conceptualize the formation of a Canadian identity as an indicator of psychological integration into Canada. It was hypothesized that the stronger immigrants identify with Canada, the more likely they will want to acquire Canadian citizenship. Perceived discrimination and cultural incompatibility, as acculturative barriers to the formation of a Canadian identity, were hypothesized to relate negatively to intentions to acquire Canadian citizenship. The relationship between immigrants cultural identity and citizenship acquisition intentions was also explored, as was the importance of psychological predictors in relation to behavioural predictors of citizenship acquisition intentions. <p>One hundred and fourteen immigrants to Canada from Asia completed an Internet questionnaire about their experiences in Canada, and their intentions to become Canadian citizens. The results showed a positive relationship (r = .55) between respondents strength of Canadian identification and their intentions to apply for Canadian citizenship, as well as an unexpected positive relationship (r = .15) between their perceptions of discrimination against immigrants in the Canadian labour market and their citizenship acquisition intentions. Cultural identity and perceptions of cultural incompatibility were unrelated to their citizenship acquisition intentions.<p>A hierarchical multiple regression showed that the combination of English ability, length of time lived in Canada, participation in Canadian society, Canadian Identification, and Perceptions of discrimination against immigrants in the labour market accounted for 36.5% of the variance in citizenship acquisition intentions. Only Canadian identification and perceptions of discrimination contributed uniquely to the variance. It was concluded that Canadian identity is importantly related to immigrants citizenship acquisition intentions, and that psychological acculturation is relevant to the study of citizenship acquisition. These novel findings are important and expand the citizenship acquisition literature as well as contribute to the further development of social identity theory.

This thesis examines the development of both Italian and Canadian nationhood and its effect on and contribution of racialization in Canada. It analyzes the manner in which scholarship on Whiteness tends to dehistoricize and decontextualize immigration in the creation of White subjects, and how this practice denies the conditions under which most individuals have become immigrants. The study challenged the discursive claims made by Italian-Canadian scholarship by applying a critical race analysis, and highlights how Italian-Canadians achieved Whiteness in Canada and its implications.

This dissertation traces the competing forces of antisemitism and Jewish civic activism in French colonial Algeria from the 1870 Crémieux decree to the end of World War II. It examines the relationship between antisemitism and the practices of citizenship in a colonial context. The dissertation centers on the experience of Algerian Jews and their evolving identity as citizens as they competed with the other colonial groups, including French citizens from the metropole, newly naturalized non-French settlers, and Algerian Muslims. Periodic and recurring episodes of antisemitism resulted from competition for control over municipal government. In colonial Algeria, municipal governments acted as the major crucible for politics and patronage available to settlers and citizens. This dissertation contends that through the competition for the scarce resources and rights as citizens, various political groups in the colony exerted their claims on the state via the degradation of Algeria Jews, who were naturalized en masse in 1870. This competition resulted in antisemitic violence as well as an ongoing and hotly contested debate on the definition of French identity. As Algerian Jews assimilated as a result of the urging of their communal leaders and outside influences from metropolitan French Jews and Jewish organizations such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle, antisemites sought to limit Algerian Jewish access to rights. Algerian Jews faced particularly strong competition from the newly naturalized French settlers who emigrated from Italy, Spain, and Malta. These immigrants viewed the Algerian Jews as particularly dangerous status competitors. Rather than accept antisemitism as inevitable, Algerian Jews defended themselves against antisemitic attacks through the ii i formation of defense organizations such as the Comité Algérien des Études Sociales. They urged fellow Jews to fulfill their responsibilities to France, celebrating military service and sacrifices, and demanding that Jews exercise their right to vote. Algerian Jews negotiated the antisemitism of French and newly French settlers, as well as Algerian Muslims. French antisemites took advantage of Algerian Muslim frustrations with their inferior status and encouraged antisemitic violence among Algerian Muslims. Algerian Jews sought to diffuse such tensions by encourage fraternity with Algerian Muslims in the colony. As Algerian Jews assimilated and integrated into the French colony and civil society, they negotiated fraught relationships with other colonial groups, proving themselves as Frenchmen while encouraging unity with Algerian Muslims. Algerian Jews straddled the line between citizen and subject in the colonial context and fought to prove themselves as worthy French citizens in the face of competition and antisemitism. Although specific to the case of French colonial Algeria, these issues of competition for status, identity, and rights are complementary to studies of other colonial contexts and that of newly emerged states. Such debates about citizenship and belonging lie at the heart of much of the turmoil of twentieth century history.

The dominant civic engagement literature has focused on the many positive outcomes that stem from leading an active associational life, linking it to lower crime rates, economic growth and a healthy democracy. However, it has been less effective at recognizing how much of a dependent variable civic engagement actually is, exploring what shapes it and how. Yet, in light of its centrality to the democratic process and the benefits that accrue from strong, active communities, it is important to understand what shapes civic engagement to establish who is in a better position to participate and why. Drawing on personal interviews with single mothers, policy analyses, and World Values and ISSP survey data, this dissertation explores how inequality and the state shape civic engagement. The findings underscore the impact of class- and status-based inequalities on civic engagement, focusing on women as a case study. Women’s dual roles as caregivers in the home and paid workers in the labour market contribute to the gender gap in participation. However, the presence of children is linked to higher levels of participation for women, and parent-, child- and care-related groups are found to build trust, foster a sense of community, and act as a catalyst for civic involvement. The thesis also highlights the extent to which the state structures citizenship and participation, focusing on welfare regimes as case studies. It develops theories that test the effect of interventionism, egalitarianism and statism on the civic engagement levels of welfare regime-types. The findings suggest that while egalitarian policies may help reduce the impact of inequality on civic life, comprehensive social policies alone do not necessarily lead to more active societies. The way political authority is structured can have a deep impact on civic habits, and creating openings and opportunities for citizens to participate can inspire collective action.

On October 21st , 2005 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that immigration officials “can no longer assess potential immigrants to be ‘medically inadmissible’ to Canada solely on the basis of a person’s disability” and their likelihood to make “excessive demands on Canadian social services” (Chadha 2005, 1). In this thesis I will explore this ruling using a methodological approach that engages practices of: self-reflexivity; tracing historical and political genealogies; and case study analysis. What I am interested in thinking about is how this moment gestures to the necessity of conceptualizing the nation, nationalism, and citizenship as highly medicalized terrains. Through an engagement with transnational and black feminist theorizing, anticolonial studies, and disability studies, I will suggest that “medical inadmissibility” is one of many regulatory mechanisms that work to fashion the Canadian nation-state as white, healthy, fit, and productive.