This is an examination of how conjugality acts as an access point for Canadian citizenship. The conjugal family unit — married or common-law — continues to be privileged in Canadian law and policy; this is especially evident in immigration policy and practice. Family class immigration continues to be a steady source of immigrants for Canada, spousal/partner sponsorship being the primary type of family reunification. In order to control access, a strict understanding of conjugality is used to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate families. When it comes to family class immigration, it is not simply a case of individuals sponsoring individuals; it is about the state producing and maintaining the ideal family unit through the provision of citizenship. My analysis proceeds in two main parts. First, I engage with mainstream Canadian citizenship theory — focusing specifically on the work of Will Kymlicka and Rita Dhamoon — and analyze its focus on the individual citizen. Moreover, I examine how the state’s asymmetrical treatment of conjugality has created two versions of the conjugal family — the inside family (families within Canadian borders) and the outside family (families outside Canadian borders). Second, I explore the state’s reliance on conjugal relationships in their assessment of potential immigrants and refugees in three areas of immigration policy — the assessment of sexual minority refugee claimants, the assessment of common-law couples seeking sponsorship, and the government’s current crackdown on marriage fraud. Combined, these examples speak to the Canadian state’s vested interest in privileging the conjugal family unit; furthermore, they highlight how the inconsistent and often ambiguous treatment of conjugality undermines its effectiveness as the primary mode of identification in family class immigration. In summary, this dissertation integrates families into a body of scholarship that has ignored the role that one’s personal relationships plays in the provision of state access. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-03-06 20:33:38.518

In this narrative inquiry, I explore student connections to personal and family history and how those connections, or lack thereof, shape their understandings of Social Socials content – in regard to how the students attend to history and each other. I believe there is a disconnect between the rationale of Social Studies programs, which advocates for the development of active and engaged citizens, and the way many programs are being delivered. To explore an alternative approach to Social Studies, I invited Grade 9 students and their teachers to share their perspectives about their engagement in a Roots Project which was intended to enrich students’ understanding and sense of identity, as individuals, as members of families and communities, and as citizens of the world. Research participants included three grade 9 students in a secondary school in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and three collaborating teachers, who happened to be at various stages of their careers: an experienced semi-retired teacher, a beginning teacher, and an education undergraduate student. In attending to both student and teacher voices, I found that the incorporation of personal and family history into the secondary Social Studies curriculum provided a range of opportunities for student growth in both personal and social realms. It provided students with an opportunity to step back from the formalized, prescribed curriculum and it exposed them to multiple ways of learning and knowing, through personal conversation about subject matter with which they had an organic connection. I found the importance of relationships, and the acknowledgement of family diversity and inclusion of all family forms and perspectives in the classroom, to be central to interweaving personal and family history into Social Studies subject matter.