In 2012 clashes between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities continue to be played out in Canadian Catholic schools. Although Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures same-sex equality in Canada, this study shows that some teachers in Alberta Catholic schools are fired for contravening Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality, while Ontario students’ requests to establish Gay/Straight Alliances are denied. This study seeks to uncover the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (lgbtq) teachers and students in publicly-funded Catholic school systems in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. I employ a multi-method qualitative research framework involving: 1) semi-structured interviews with 20 participants (7 current and former teachers and 13 former students), 18 of which are re-presented as condensed narratives; 2) media accounts that illustrate the Catholic schools’ homophobic environment; and 3) two key Alberta and Ontario Catholic policy and curriculum documents. The central question driving this study is: How does power operate in Canadian Catholic schools? Is it exercised from the top down solely, or are there instances of power rising up from the bottom as well? To answer this question, I draw upon the critical theories of Gramsci (1971), Althusser (1970/2008), Foucault (1975/1995), and Giroux (2001) in order to explain the phenomenon of “holy homophobia” in Canadian Catholic schools. The chief finding of this study is that contradictory Catholic doctrine on the topic of non-heterosexuality is directing school policy and practice regarding the management of sexual minority groups in Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, positioning these schools as potential hotbeds for homophobia. Hopefully, this thesis can one day serve as a resource for anti-homophobia education researchers and practitioners, school administrators, educators and students who are interested in eliminating religiously-inspired homophobia in school settings.

In 2012 clashes between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities continue to be played out in Canadian Catholic schools. Although Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures same-sex equality in Canada, this study shows that some teachers in Alberta Catholic schools are fired for contravening Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality, while Ontario students’ requests to establish Gay/Straight Alliances are denied. This study seeks to uncover the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (lgbtq) teachers and students in publicly-funded Catholic school systems in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. I employ a multi-method qualitative research framework involving: 1) semi-structured interviews with 20 participants (7 current and former teachers and 13 former students), 18 of which are re-presented as condensed narratives; 2) media accounts that illustrate the Catholic schools’ homophobic environment; and 3) two key Alberta and Ontario Catholic policy and curriculum documents. The central question driving this study is: How does power operate in Canadian Catholic schools? Is it exercised from the top down solely, or are there instances of power rising up from the bottom as well? To answer this question, I draw upon the critical theories of Gramsci (1971), Althusser (1970/2008), Foucault (1975/1995), and Giroux (2001) in order to explain the phenomenon of “holy homophobia” in Canadian Catholic schools. The chief finding of this study is that contradictory Catholic doctrine on the topic of non-heterosexuality is directing school policy and practice regarding the management of sexual minority groups in Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, positioning these schools as potential hotbeds for homophobia. Hopefully, this thesis can one day serve as a resource for anti-homophobia education researchers and practitioners, school administrators, educators and students who are interested in eliminating religiously-inspired homophobia in school settings.

Att socionomstudenter under socionomutbildningen erhåller kunskap kring de maktaspekter som förekommer i mötet med klienter, kan anses betydande för det sociala arbetets praktik. Undervisning kring normkritik och intersektionalitet tar fasta på just dessa maktaspekter vilket därmed påvisar vikten av goda förutsättningar för att bedriva sådan undervisning. Studiens syfte vilket är att undersöka lärares upplevelser och erfarenheter av att undervisa om normkritik och/eller intersektionalitet på socionomutbildningen. En kvalitativ studie har genomförts med lärare som har erfarenhet av undervisning kring normkritik och/eller intersektionalitet. Nio semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med lärare från olika lärosäten. Studiens material har analyserats utifrån normkritisk pedagogik samt antiförtryckande undervisning. I studien framkommer vikten av att studenterna utvecklar ett kritiskt tänkande för att kunna ifrågasätta förgivettagna sanningar samt för att studenterna genomgående skulle arbeta kring den process som det kritiska tänkandet innebär. Även att den kritiska blicken måste riktas mot den egna personen för en djupare förståelse kring makt, normer och strukturer, samt hur de som individer påverkar och påverkas av dessa. Organisatoriska hinder för undervisningen har synliggjorts i form av resursbrist. Studentgrupperna anses vara för stora och det finns inte tillräckligt med tid för att utforma undervisningen på sätt som visat sig gynnsamma. Slutsatserna för studien är att lärarna anser att kunskap kring normkritik och intersektionalitet är ett viktigt bidrag till att social förändring på strukturell nivå ska kunna ske. För att studenterna ska kunna tillgodose sig sådan kunskap krävs tillgång till de resurser som lärarna efterfrågar. Den resursbrist som tydliggjorts i denna studie behöver även tas hänsyn till vid forskning samt utformning av undervisningsmetoder för att dessa praktiskt ska kunna genomföras. / One might say that it is of significant importance for social work practices that students, during education to become social workers, acquire knowledge of the aspects of power that occur during the meeting with clients. Anti-oppressive education as norm criticism and intersectionality addresses these aspects of power, thus points out the importance of good conditions for such education. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the teaching is conducted in practice and examine teachers’ experiences on how to teach about norm criticism and/or intersectionality in social work education. A qualitative study has been conducted with teachers who have experience in teaching about norm criticism and/or intersectionality. Nine semi-structured interviews have been conducted with teachers from different institutions. The study material has been analyzed on the basis of norm critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education. The study highlights the importance that students develop critical thinking, which is imperative in order to question known “truths” and to continuously apply the process of critical thinking. For a deeper understanding, the students must understand the of power, norms and structures as well as how they affect and are influenced by them. This is achieved by the students turning the critical look toward themselves. There are organizational barriers to the teaching about norm criticism and/or intersectionality due to the lack of resources. For example, the student groups are too large and there is time constraint in designing the teaching in a constructive way. The conclusions are that teachers believe that knowledge about norm criticism and/or intersectionality is of outmost importance to achieve social change on a structural level. In order for students to gain such knowledge, the resources required must be made available to teachers. Therefore, to ensure that new models of teaching about norm criticism is practically implemented in social work education, the shortage of resources exposed in this study need to be considered when developing new teaching methods and during further research.

The aim of this study is to examine social work students’ experiences of knowledge regarding ethnicity and culture in the social work education at Stockholm University and if this knowledge is of importance for their future role as social workers. This is a qualitative study based on seven semi-structured interviews. The students were asked about how knowledge regarding ethnicity and culture has been depicted in the social work education and how to integrate this subject in the social work education to make it significant for the students. Lastly, the social work students also discussed whether they believe that the social work education has given them skills for their future work with clients categorized as non-ethnic swedes. The theoretical framework used in this study is the critical theory, anti-oppressive theory and the term ethnocentrism. The results of this study highlight that knowledge regarding ethnicity and culture has been depicted from western perspective, knowledge regarding ethnicity and culture should be integrated through discussions and by having teachers who have interpretative prerogative. Further, the social work students emphasized the need for awareness of oppressive structures that affect clients categorized as non-ethnic swedes and self-reflection as a set of important skills for their future work with these clients.

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The Young Adult novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe portrays the coming out stories of two queer Mexican American boys who struggle with their ethnicity and sexuality, which leads to internal conflicts. The focus of the analysis in the essay is to investigate how the novel can be taught in Upper Secondary classrooms through queer pedagogy and anti-oppressive approaches focusing on silenced discourse. When teachers allow their students to work with the coming out story in the novel within this framework, teachers can engage their students in exploring and finding meaning in the silences that the protagonists Aristotle and Dante speak through. The anti-oppressive practice of reading for silences allows students to look beyond what is being represented in the novel in regard to Aristotle’s and Dante’s sexuality and ethnicity and thereby find meaning in what is unsaid.

Ce mémoire vise à analyser le processus de construction de l'identité collective du mouvement queer à Montréal dans un contexte francophone. Bien que plusieurs travaux portent en partie sur les groupes militants queers québécois, aucune recherche ne s'est employée à comprendre comment les militant.es queers à Montréal se constituent comme un collectif qui développe une identité. Pour analyser le processus de construction de l'identité collective du mouvement queer montréalais, je m'appuie sur la théorie de Melucci (1985; 1996), qui définit l'identité collective d'un mouvement selon plusieurs axes : les champs d'action, les moyens employés et les fins visées, ainsi que le mode d'organisation. Afin de répondre à cette question de recherche, j'ai effectué une recherche documentaire ainsi que sept entrevues avec des militant.es queers montréalais.es francophones. L'analyse des données a été faite grâce à divers travaux qui portent sur les champs d'action, les valeurs, les fins et moyens, le mode d'organisation de mouvements contemporains anti-autoritaires et anti-oppressifs, ainsi qu'en fonction de trois dimensions élaborées par Melucci (1985) : le conflit, la solidarité et les limites du système. Je conclus que l'identité collective comme processus s'articule autour de plusieurs enjeux : premièrement, la diversité des champs d'action, les valeurs anti-oppressives, les relations d'affinités, le mode de vie alternatif et le mode d'organisation anti-oppressif des militant.es queers permettent au mouvement de créer une solidarité interne, d'affirmer une position anti-autoritaire qui brise les limites du système dominant et de se différencier du mouvement LGBT mainstream. Par ailleurs, les actions militantes concrètes qui réalisent le changement dans l'ici et maintenant participent à créer une solidarité et une reconnaissance entre militant.es, ainsi qu'à mettre en lumière un conflit avec le système dominant oppressif. Enfin, les perspectives francophones sur le mouvement queer ne semblent pas donner au bilinguisme du mouvement un rôle fondamental dans la construction de son identité collective. Cependant, l'intérêt marqué des militant.es francophones comparativement aux militant.es anglophones pour la politique institutionnelle fait émerger de nouvelles interrogations sur l'impact que pourrait avoir le mélange des cultures francophone et anglophone à Montréal sur la culture politique et l'identité du mouvement. / This dissertation aims at analyzing the process of construction of the collective identity of the Montreal queer movement in a french-speaking context. Although several works partly focus on queer militant groups from Quebec, no research tries to understand how queer militants in Montreal are formed as a collective which develops an identity. To analyze this process, I employ Melucci's theory (1985; 1996), which defines the collective identity of a movement according to three axes : the field of action, the means used and the ends aimed, as well as the forms of organization. In order to answer this research question, I carried out a documentary research and seven interviews with french-speaking queer militants from Montreal. The data analysis is based on various works concerning the fields of action, the values, the means and the ends, as well as the forms of organization of anti-authoritative and anti-oppresive contemporary movements, but also through three dimensions developed by Melucci (1985) : the conflict, the solidarity and the limits of the system. I argue that collective identity is articulated around several challenges : firstly, the diversity of the fields of action, the anti-oppressive values, the relation of affinity and the anti-oppressive form of organization of the queer militants allow the movement to create an internal solidarity, affirm an antiauthoritarian position which breaks the limits of the dominant system, and dissociate itself from the mainstream LGBT movement. In addition, concrete militant actions play a part in the social change here and now, contribute to creating solidarity and recognition between militants and reveals a conflict with the dominant oppressive system. Lastly, from the perspective of its french-speakers, the bilingual feature of the queer movement does not play a fundamental role in the construction of its collective identity. However, the shown interest of french-speaking militants for the institutional policy by comparison with english-speaking militants brings up new questions concerning how the mixture of the french-speaking and english-speaking cultures might have an impact on the political culture and the identity of the queer movement in Montreal.

At the Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, Canada, clinicians use full body immersion virtual reality to treat a variety of health conditions, including: traumatic brain injuries, post- traumatic stress disorder, acquired brain injuries, complex regional pain syndrome, spinal cord injuries, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and lower limb amputations. The system is shared between military and civilian patient populations. Viewed by clinicians and the system’s designers as a value neutral medical technology, clinical virtual reality’s sights, sounds, movements, and smells reveal cultural assumptions about universal patient experiences. In this dissertation I draw from reflexive feminist research methodologies, visual anthropology and sensory ethnography in a hospital to centre the body in current debates about digital accessibility in the 21st Century. 40 in-depth interviews with practitioners and patients, 210 clinical observations, and film and photography ground research participant experiences in day-to-day understandings of virtual reality at the hospital. In this dissertation I address an ongoing absence of the body as a site of analytical attention in anthropological studies of virtual reality. While much literature in the social sciences situates virtual reality as a ‘post-human’ technology, I argue that virtual reality treatments are always experienced, resisted and interpreted through diverse body schemata. Furthermore, virtual reality cannot be decoupled from the sensitivities, socialities and politics of particular bodies in particular places and times. The Ottawa Hospital’s Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) system features a digitally enhanced walk-in chamber, treadmills on hydraulic pistons, surround sound audio, advanced graphics and user feedback utilizing force plates and a dynamic infrared motion capture system. The CAREN system utilizes hardware and software reliant on specific assumptions about human bodies. For example, these assumptions are echoed in depictions of race, gender, class, and indigeneity. Patients using virtual reality technologies can experience more than one disability or health condition at a time, further disrupting the idea of universal user experiences. As clinicians and patients confront the limitations of body normativity in the CAREN system’s interface design, they improvise, resist, and experience virtual reality in ways that defy design agendas, ultimately shaping patient treatments and unique paths to healing and health. / Graduate