While there is a large body of literature on the subject of inclusion from a student’s perspective in terms of program delivery, little has been written about how minoritized parents are included in special education processes. This critical study examines how minoritized parents – those who are at times disadvantaged because of how they are differentiated within society – are included in and/or excluded from special education in the varying circumstances associated with this process. To delve into the parameters and implementation of special education identification, placement, and program delivery, I spoke with four minoritized parents and one minoritized youth engagement worker. Additionally, I examined codified policies and regulations, in order to consider how individuals interpret and shape the enactment of this policy within school cultures. In recording and coding the stories of minoritized parents, I have found that Ontario’s system of identification, placement, and program delivery presently leads minoritized parents to experience varying degrees of inclusion and/or exclusion. These degrees may be influenced by a number of circumstances, including how knowledge, language, positioning, and philosophy are presented. As outlined in this paper, Ontario’s Ministry of Education, along with school boards across the province, may pursue a number of different change avenues, and these paths will inevitably lead to different outcomes. While some paths may lead to conflict resolution and enriched inclusion, others may intensify situations of exclusion. Any sort of policy change that sets out to transform special education identification, placement, and program delivery along an Inclusion/Exclusion, Transparency/Opaqueness continuum would ultimately have to address a variety of complications. While the two general forces of larger social context and policy complications are addressed in the concluding chapter of the paper, the specific manner in which they materialize cannot be predicted with complete accuracy. Rather than articulating a detailed set of instructions to redesign policy, I hope to generate critical reflection and discussion on the matter of transforming Ontario’s special education model. If special education inclusion is to be enriched in Ontario, change is imperative.

While there is a large body of literature on the subject of inclusion from a student’s perspective in terms of program delivery, little has been written about how minoritized parents are included in special education processes. This critical study examines how minoritized parents – those who are at times disadvantaged because of how they are differentiated within society – are included in and/or excluded from special education in the varying circumstances associated with this process. To delve into the parameters and implementation of special education identification, placement, and program delivery, I spoke with four minoritized parents and one minoritized youth engagement worker. Additionally, I examined codified policies and regulations, in order to consider how individuals interpret and shape the enactment of this policy within school cultures. In recording and coding the stories of minoritized parents, I have found that Ontario’s system of identification, placement, and program delivery presently leads minoritized parents to experience varying degrees of inclusion and/or exclusion. These degrees may be influenced by a number of circumstances, including how knowledge, language, positioning, and philosophy are presented. As outlined in this paper, Ontario’s Ministry of Education, along with school boards across the province, may pursue a number of different change avenues, and these paths will inevitably lead to different outcomes. While some paths may lead to conflict resolution and enriched inclusion, others may intensify situations of exclusion. Any sort of policy change that sets out to transform special education identification, placement, and program delivery along an Inclusion/Exclusion, Transparency/Opaqueness continuum would ultimately have to address a variety of complications. While the two general forces of larger social context and policy complications are addressed in the concluding chapter of the paper, the specific manner in which they materialize cannot be predicted with complete accuracy. Rather than articulating a detailed set of instructions to redesign policy, I hope to generate critical reflection and discussion on the matter of transforming Ontario’s special education model. If special education inclusion is to be enriched in Ontario, change is imperative.

Research shows that in Canada, there is an overrepresentation of minoritized/ marginalized children and youth living in residential care settings. These youth face structural barriers such as poverty, racialization, and gendered and sexual discrimination (among others) which result in their exclusion from mainstream notions of wellbeing and success, and their positioning as requiring professional help (Lavergn, Dufour, Trocme, & Larrivee, 2008). Literature on the topic of residential care demonstrates however that interventions facilitated in residential programs often fail to implicate social inequities as contributing factors to the need for professional involvement, or address these factors in the therapeutic context. Instead, interventions tend to focus on socio-psychological and behavioural functioning, with a desire to assist young people in “catching up” to a dominant standard of living that is taken for granted as “normal” and beneficial for them (Harley, Jolivette, McCormick, & Tice, 2002). It is unclear how these tensions are reconciled by CYC practitioners. By critically analyzing the discourses that inform “diversity” in CYC practice, this exploratory study investigates how practitioners who work in residential settings conceptualize and negotiate these contradictory representations and expectations of youth in care. The study is grounded in a transtheoretical framework drawn from feminist/post structural (Butler, 1990; Davies, 2000; Fendler, 2001; Foucault, 1977;1979), Indigenous and post-colonial (McIntosh, 1998; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999) and queer theories (Sedgwick, 1990; Marinucci, 2010) to position diversity within an intersectional analysis (Burman, 2003; 2004; Chantler, 2004; 2005). The study contributes to current understandings within the field of CYC about methods of care in relation to children/youth of diverse and/or marginalized backgrounds in residential care settings. / Graduate

abstract: This dissertation discusses the processes of post-colonial minoritization of Hindus in Pakistan from the inception of the state in 1947 to the secession of the eastern wing (former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) from the country after a civil and international war in 1971. The dissertation analyzes the emergence and development of the minority question in Europe and connects it with Colonial India, where it culminated into Partition of British India and emergence of Pakistan in 1947. The dissertation analyzes post- Colonial minoritization of Pakistani Hindus as a gradual process on three different but interconnected levels: 1. the loss of Hindu life from Pakistan, 2. the transference of Hindu property and 3. the political minoritization of Pakistani Hindus. The dissertation does so by approaching the history of Pakistani Hindus in two distinct geographical locations, Sindh and the ex-Pakistani province of East Bengal. It also includes discussion on Pakistani Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The dissertation is based on indepth, detailed fieldwork in Tharparkar district of Sindh province and archival research in Pakistan and Bangladesh. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2014